Extra 20m for police pensions

Originally published in Evening Times, 11/6/2009

ABOUT £20million is to be provided by the Scottish Government to meet the extra cost of police pensions.

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill announced yesterday it had been forced to pay up because the Treasury is refusing to fund the extra costs -as was done in England and Wales.

"The Scottish Government recognises the important role our police officers play," Mr MacAskill said today.
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"Unfortunately the UK Government is not prepared to meet the costs as they did south of the Border.

"However, this Government is not prepared to let these men and women who have served our communities lose out.

"We have therefore agreed to provide the £20m to meet these additional pension lump sum costs."

The money will enable police pension commutation arrangements to be backdated to December 1 2006 and follows a Judicial Review decision in England and Wales.

It comes on top of an additional £32.8m in 2008/09 and £22.3m in 2009/10 which has already been paid out to meet the extra cost of revised pension commutation arrangements for police officers and firefighters.