Committee
Finance and Public Administration Committee 17 March 2026 [Draft]
17 Mar 2026 · S6 · Finance and Public Administration Committee
Item of business
McCloud Remedy
I take your point in your letter that the IT systems were not designed for the impact of the McCloud remedy on the SPPA and that work has had to be done to bring them up to speed.You have listed five programme-level objectives to assist further prioritisation and decision making. The second one is:“Getting it right first time—providing accurate and clear statements/information and support for members to make informed Remedy choices.”What are you doing on quality control to make sure that you get this right, if not 100 per cent of the time, at least 99 per cent of the time? Complexity that involves manual and IT processes sets alarm bells ringing, because there are plenty of opportunities for things to go wrong and there has to be cross-checking and so on. What processes do you have in place to ensure that, when the remedy is delivered, it is delivered?
In the same item of business
The Convener (Kenneth Gibson)
SNP
Good morning and welcome to the 11th meeting in 2026 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. This is the committee’s last meeting before the Parl...
Dr Stephen Pathirana (Scottish Public Pensions Agency)
Thank you, convener. Morning, everybody. Thank you for the opportunity to update the committee on the SPPA’s further progress in delivering the McCloud remed...
The Convener
SNP
Thank you for your opening statement. I thank Dr Pathirana for agreeing to come back to the committee and for the very detailed correspondence that he has pr...
Dr Pathirana
The 100 staff who were brought into the agency were not hired only in the past year. That process started prior to my arrival. Since I started at the agency,...
The Convener
SNP
Yes, to an extent. I am trying to understand whether you are fully staffed for the work that is required and whether you will have the additional staff compl...
Dr Pathirana
To add to my first answer, there are still a few more staff who we are onboarding as we work towards the manual processing for the NHS pensions McCloud remed...
The Convener
SNP
The Scottish Government has provided additional funding. Is that in order to deliver to the new timetables that you have set yourself?
Dr Pathirana
In the Audit Scotland report, you will see that, when I came into the role a while ago, I assessed the forward resources that we would need in order to imple...
The Convener
SNP
I understand that you were due to meet the Minister for Public Finance on 18 February—the committee received a letter from the SPPA dated 17 February—to focu...
Dr Pathirana
From our perspective, the meeting was to provide an update to the minister to help him to understand the detailed, on-going work to complete the delivery of ...
The Convener
SNP
Okay—fair enough. You also pointed out that there does not seem to be any ability to compare how the SPPA is working relative to other areas in the UK. Is th...
Dr Pathirana
We have asked the Treasury whether it is collecting that information, and we found that it is not. However, we have insight into how things are going across ...
The Convener
SNP
That is anecdotal rather than specific information.
Dr Pathirana
Some public information is available out there, but I do not have any official information. In my recent letter to the committee, I provided the information ...
The Convener
SNP
Sharing best practice is always a sensible way forward.The minister said:“It is unfortunate that despite the McCloud Remedy being a UK-wide issue, and one th...
Dr Pathirana
I have not, convener. I assume that the UK Government has made a judgment that any funding would flow through the Barnett formula, but I do not have an answe...
The Convener
SNP
Thank you. An issue that I think that we have all heard from constituents, which you addressed in your letter to the committee, relates to why delivery for t...
Dr Pathirana
There is a good reason for that. We get monthly data from the SFRS in the same way that we do from Police Scotland. However, the McCloud remedy is not the on...
The Convener
SNP
Will the police system be a model of how you hope pensions will be progressed in future across Scotland, with monthly data and so on? Are you looking beyond ...
Dr Pathirana
I will draw in Christopher Nairns on that. We are actively working on the issue, and Chris can share a bit about how we are approaching it. I must stress, ho...
Christopher Nairns (Scottish Public Pensions Agency)
It is worth reiterating the differential that we have between historical data and new data. For the police and fire schemes, we have reached the model for fu...
The Convener
SNP
We hope that we will not end up with a similar situation repeating itself in 10 years.I have been looking at the detail that you have provided to us. You hav...
Dr Pathirana
I will bring in Frances Graham in a minute to provide more detail.As I explained previously, it is layered—you have to do the simple ones first and then work...
Frances Graham (Scottish Public Pensions Agency)
From our automation, we have worked through our simple cases for police, fire, NHS and teachers. We have used the support of the Scottish Government’s centre...
The Convener
SNP
There seemed to be a huge leap forward on police pensions in the first half of last year, but it seems to have trickled since then. That is of concern to the...
Dr Pathirana
Might I add to that, convener, that that is part of what we had modelled and projected. There is a certain proportion that we can do relatively quickly, and ...
The Convener
SNP
I take your point in your letter that the IT systems were not designed for the impact of the McCloud remedy on the SPPA and that work has had to be done to b...
Dr Pathirana
Again, I will let Frances Graham expand on that.
Frances Graham
We follow a number of processes. Our calculators are now doing calculations for the legacy scheme and the career average revalued earnings—CARE—scheme. We do...
The Convener
SNP
Is it 100 per cent correct? Are people coming back and challenging the outcome, or do you feel that you are absolutely spot on in terms of delivery and accur...