Official Report 283KB pdf
This item concerns the committee’s consideration of pensions instruments and correspondence received from the Scottish Government in relation to them.
At its meeting on 28 April, the committee reported on the following instruments: the Firefighters’ Pension Schemes (Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2015 (SSI 2015/141) and the Police Pension Scheme (Scotland) Regulations 2015 (SSI 2015/142). In so doing, the committee raised concerns about the number of errors in the instruments and, with that in mind, the quality control process applied to them.
The Deputy First Minister has written to the committee to respond to the concerns, and he has committed to correcting the errors identified by the committee in the firefighter regulations. The response also makes a commitment to improve the quality control process. Do members have any comments?
I welcome the fact that the Deputy First Minister appears to share our concerns and is responding in an appropriate way. That will encourage the committee to continue with its desire for perfection rather than the disorder of this particular set of instruments.
I endorse what Stewart Stevenson has said, and I welcome the Deputy First Minister’s acknowledgement of our concerns, which were raised with no objective in mind other than that we want all instruments to be constructed with the best quality drafting. Manifestly, that was not the case in this situation.
Indeed. Thank you.