The Police Pensions Amendment (Scotland) Regulations 2006

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend the Police Pensions Regulations 1987 and the Police Pensions (Additional Voluntary Contributions) Regulations 1991. The amendments ensure parity of treatment between police officers who form civil partnerships and those who marry, and restrict the ability of a police officer who has opted out of the police pension scheme to opt back into it.

In particular, these Regulations make amendments consequent on the coming into force of the Civil Partnership Act 2004 with retrospective effect from 5th December 2005, which is the date on which the substantive provisions of that Act came into effect. In general, provisions which apply to married couples are amended so as to apply to couples who form a civil partnership.

The Regulations also amend regulation G6 of the Police Pensions Regulations 1987 so as to enable payments to be made by women members to enhance widowers' and surviving civil partners' awards in cases where members with service before 17th May 1990 were not able to elect to make such payments under that regulation because they were not paying contributions throughout the period of 3 months beginning on 1st April 1994 and did not resume paying them within two years of ceasing to do so. Following the amendment such elections may be made within the period of 3 months beginning with the date on which these Regulations come into force if the woman’s contributions became payable again on or before that date, or, if they became payable again on a later date, within the period of 3 months of that date.

Paragraph 8 of Schedule 1 to these Regulations imposes a cut-off date of 5th April 2006 for cancelling elections not to pay pension contributions and has retrospective effect from that date. This is because a new police pension scheme is to be introduced with retrospective effect from 6th April 2006 and it is intended that any person who has previously made such an election but then wishes to reinstate themselves as a member of the police pension scheme should, from 6th April, join the new scheme.