That is the warning that has gone to some who were supposed to get details of how they might be compensated by the end of March this year as thousands remain locked out of their nest eggs.
The Pensions Ombudsman is already examining multiple complaints about how the Scottish Government pensions agency has turned the task of compensating retirees what into what one campaign leader called “a shambles” with some dying waiting for pension details.
The Herald reports that some pensioners have threatened legal action in correspondence with the First Minister, John Swinney if heads do not roll for what has happened.
An estimated 300,000 Scots police, teachers, NHS staff including nurses, firefighters and local government workers both pensioners and those close to retirement are affected by an age discrimination court ruling, with over two thirds of those overseen by the Scottish Public Pensions Agency which is responsible for providing each worker with a potential pension remedy.
In Scotland the Scottish Public Pensions Agency had 18 months according to legislation to give pension remedy statements with a statutory deadline of March 31.
But it missed that and at least one other, locking retired people out of their entitlement and costing taxpayers millions more in interest — charged at 8% a year. By the first statutory deadline of March 31, it had processed only a third of those affected, with police pensioners alone receiving around £4 million in interest payments.
The crisis stems from a High Court judgment in 2018, which found the UK government’s 2015 public sector pension reforms had unlawfully discriminated against younger workers. The reforms aimed to cut costs by moving most staff onto less generous schemes, while letting older employees stay on better ones.
Judges and firefighters successfully challenged this in what is known as the McCloud ruling, forcing all public sector schemes — including those in Scotland — to compensate affected members.
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Years later, delays and confusion mean thousands of Scottish pensioners are still waiting for remedy statements detailing money they are owed from the debacle, with frustration mounting on all sides.
Now it has emerged the SPPA will miss the October 31 deadline and a circular seen by pensioners shows that while it expects most of the cases would be complete in 2026 “a small proportion of the more complex casework will likely remain outstanding”.
SPPA chief executive Stephen Pathirana, who has come under increasing pressure over the crisis, has said in a separate message to some retired teachers that remedy statements are expected to continue to be issued “until at least the summer of 2026”.
SPPA chief Stephen Pathirana. (Image: SPPA)
He told them in an email that the altered timeline for delivery of the end of this month “has proven to be unachievable….” He added: “We know your pension is very important to you, and we understand that delays can be worrying. Please be assured we are doing everything we can to deliver your statement as clearly, accurately, and quickly as possible.”
He said producing the remedy details was “complex” and involved gathering retirement data from several systems, often needing extra information from employers.
The agency says it has begun producing pension remedies for the simplest cases first, to test and verify the process before tackling more complicated ones.
And Mr Pathirana said that while progress has been slower than hoped, he insisted delivering accurate remedy statements for all 215,000 affected members of the pension schemes they oversee remains “our key priority”.
As of August, some 55,000 staff were still to get statements, which have to be delivered before any compensation can be kickstarted for lost money.
The agency has relied on a loophole in the Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Act 2022 that states that the date of the delivery of pension remedy statements may also be “such later day as the scheme manager considers reasonable in all the circumstances in the case of a particular member or a particular class of member”.
One teacher, who is fighting for nearly £30,000 that he says he is owed, said: “Hopefully the exposure in the Herald will help MSPs give more much attention and scrutiny to this issue in order to stop them getting away with further slippage.”
And retired police superintendent Martin Gallagher, who heads a Job’s Forgotten group of over 500 members to co-ordinate issues for those who are fighting to get their pension remedies, said: “The SPPA had years, literally years, to prepare for the implications of this.
“They appear to have completely wasted away that time, to the detriment of public sector pensioners and moreover the public purse. The interest being accrued on unpaid monies is a cost taxpayers should not have been asked to meet.
Pension rights campaigner Martin Gallagher (Image: Martin Gallagher)
“Recently, the SPPA has claimed the McLeod remedy led to a five fold increase in workload. If this is true, why has the Scottish Government not provided the resources necessary to meet this demand instead of making pensioners wait for money they are owed while continually kicking the can down the road by shifting deadlines?”
Scotland faces a bill running to £1.7bn to repair the damage which is adding extra financial burdens to the NHS in Scotland, the 32 Scottish local authorities, Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, who all rely on taxpayer cash to run.
All have now had to increase the amount they pay into their pension schemes for staff, known as employer contribution rates, to cover the extra costs caused by the court ruling.
Employer contribution rates are the percentage of an employee’s salary that an organisation must pay into the pension scheme on top of the worker’s own contributions. Higher rates mean that employers – and ultimately taxpayers – have to put in more money.
The Police Pension Scheme employer contribution rates alone have had to rise from 30.2% to 38.7%.
The Scottish Government has been approached for comment.
