Firefighters Active Member Newsletter March 2025
Welcome to the first ever edition of our newsletter for Firefighter scheme members.
This newsletter is all about you and your pension. Whether you’re curious about your benefits or want to stay in the loop on recent changes, we have you covered.
We’d also like to gather more information about your pension journey and your thoughts about the SPPA, so please share your views in our new annual member survey at the end of this newsletter.
Thanks again for everything you do. We at the SPPA are immensely proud to serve the people who serve Scotland.
2015 Remedy
The 2015 Remedy is a key area of interest for many of our members. If you are eligible for the 2015 Remedy, you will be invited to choose which of the benefits – from the legacy scheme (final salary) or the reformed (CARE) scheme you would like to take for the Remedy period. You will be given this choice when you retire.
In the meantime, we are providing new look Annual Benefit Statements (ABS) to firefighters. The ABS has been combined with a Remediable Service Statement (RSS) into a new document called an ABS-RSS so that you can keep track of benefits in the alternative scheme. When available, firefighters who are eligible will be able to access their ABS-RSS via the SPPA’s member self-service portal.
If you are not yet registered for the SPPA’s member self-service portal, here’s how you can sign-up here.
If you are approaching retirement and want to check your understanding of the 2015 Remedy, visit our online remedy hub where you can find revised delivery dates for the provision of the remedy choice.
You can also use our remedy calculator to get an idea of what your pension might be depending on which pension benefits you choose.
Look out for a Remedy edition later in the month.
Matthews (2nd Option) Case
Retained firefighters employed between 1 July 2000 and 5 April 2006 are eligible to retrospectively purchase pension benefits to gain access to one of the legacy schemes.
Legislation came into force on 18 March 2024 and will take 18 months to complete. SFRS have issued Expression of Interest Letters to approx. 3600 retained firefighters offering the choice to join the pension scheme.
More information can be found on our website - Matthews (2nd Option) Case.
Staying connected
By staying connected with the SPPA, you gain access to valuable information and resources to help you make informed decisions about your pension and retirement and keep up to date with any changes.
Sign up to our online member services to view your pension information and update your personal details if you have a change of address.
Our website has a wealth of information about all things pension-related – you can find the firefighters section here.
Make an enquiry
If you want to contact us with a pension query, please use the SPPA’s new webform to do this. Using webform ensures that we have all the information we need to deal with your query and get it to the correct team so that we can respond as quickly as possible with what you need. Make an enquiry.
Member engagement survey
We’re on a mission to better understand and support our members. Please take ten minutes to fill out our engagement survey. It covers topics such as how you feel about your pension and finances, and the type of information you’d like to get from us.