Police Active Members Newsletter - 19 August 2026
Welcome to the latest edition of the SPPA’s member newsletter. In this edition we share information about your pension benefits and an update on the 2015 Remedy.
Your 2026 Annual Benefit Statement
Annual Benefit Statements (ABS) for most members who are paying into their pension scheme will be available to view on Engage from Monday 31 August.
An ABS provides an estimate of your pension benefits up to 31 March 2026.
The estimate is based on information which is provided to us by your employer.
Visit our website to sign in or register on Engage.
Injury or Ill health retirement
Injury benefits
As a Police officer, you are automatically covered by an injury on duty award from the day your employment begins.
This means you could receive financial compensation if you become permanently disabled because of an injury received on duty that means you can no longer work as a police officer.
The injury on duty award provides a ‘minimum income guarantee’ which grants you a percentage of the average pensionable pay you received while serving as a a police officer.
Eligibility and the amount payable is subject to an assessment from an Independent Qualified Medical Practitioner.
Find out more about the injury on duty award on our website.
Ill health benefits
As a member of the Police pension scheme, you are also entitled to an ill health pension if you become too ill to work. There are two types of ill health retirement.
Standard
A standard ill health pension will be paid if you are permanently unable to carry out your duties as police officer, but you could take on other work outside the police force.
If you qualify, you would receive a pension based on the contributions you have paid into the scheme prior to applying for ill health retirement.
Enhanced
An enhanced top-up ill health pension is payable on top of the standard ill health pension.
This additional payment is made if you are unable to carry out any regular employment up to at least 30 hours per week.
If you qualify, the top-up increases your pension by up to half of the additional pension you might have paid into the scheme if you were able to continue working.
More information about ill health pensions, including how to apply, is available on our website.
2015 Remedy
The aim of 2015 Remedy is to put right the discrimination that happened when public sector pensions were reformed in 2015. If you are eligible, you will be given a choice of which benefits you wish to take for the Remedy period (1 April 2015 – 31 March 2022) when you retire. While you are building up your pension, the Scottish Public Pensions Agency (SPPA) will provide eligible members with an annual statement called an ABS-RSS which shows benefit estimates in the legacy (final salary) and reformed (CARE) schemes.
2026 ABS-RSS delivery update
Work is underway to prepare Annual Benefit Statements (ABS). If you are eligible for the 2015 Remedy, you will get an ABS combined with a Remediable Saving Statement (ABS-RSS). We intend to issue these by 31 August 2026. Building on the progress we made last year, most eligible members have now received a statement. However, despite our best intentions, some members are still waiting to receive one. We are sorry for this and understand how frustrating it must be. We are continuing to identify solutions to enable us to provide statements where additional member circumstances make the calculations more complex.
You can find out more by visiting our website and the information about Annual Benefit Statements. If you are within six months of retirement, you can request an estimate.
Contingent decisions
A contingent decision is one that would have been different had it not been for the discrimination identified by the courts due to public sector pension reforms. You can find out more about contingent decisions and the impact of the 2015 Remedy on our website.
Annual Allowance
Most police officers who are eligible for 2015 Remedy and at risk of exceeding their annual allowance have now received a Remediable Pension Savings Statement (RPSS). We are working through a small number of outstanding cases. For those members who have had a RPSS and continue to be subject to annual allowance, you will revert to receiving a Pension Savings Statement (PSS). The SPPA issued RPSS as a one-off exercise triggered by the 2015 Remedy.
Keeping your information up to date
Have you moved house or updated your details recently? You can login to Engage, our online pension portal to:
- view your pension documents
- update your personal details
Planning to retire soon?
Engage sends an email to verify your identity when you login.
If you registered for Engage using your work email, make sure to update this to a personal email before your final working day.
Changing to a personal email address means you can access your account after you retire.
To update your email address:
- login to your Engage account and select ‘Go to details and settings’
- select ‘Manage my personal details' and navigate to the login email section
- select ‘Change email’ and enter your personal email address
- select ‘Save Changes’
- check your inbox for a one-time passcode, type it into Engage and click ‘Submit’
Help us improve our services
Have you contacted us recently? We would like to hear about your experience.
Your feedback will help us understand how well our services are meeting your needs and identify areas for improvement.
If you would like to share your experience, please complete our short survey.
As part of the survey, you will also have the option to register your interest in taking part in future user research. If you choose to sign up, we will keep your details secure and may invite you to participate in activities such as workshops, interviews, or testing of new services and forms.