Do you want to help shape public service pensions policy and support police and fire services?

The Scottish Public Pensions Agency (SPPA) is an agency of the Scottish Government (SG). Its principal role is to administer the pensions schemes for employees of the NHS in Scotland the Scottish Teachers' Pension Scheme, the Fire Scotland Pension Scheme and the Police Scotland Pension Scheme. This role is within the SPPA’s Policy function, which is responsible for providing advice on and developing policy for the NHS, Teachers’, Police, Firefighters’, and Local Government pension schemes in Scotland, ensuring that schemes remain robust, fair, affordable, and sustainable.

Your role as Pensions Policy Lead will focus on Police, Firefighters and the McCloud Remedy. Your key responsibilities will be to lead on policy advice to the Scottish Ministers and deliver scheme legislation. You will report directly to the Head of Policy, and have line management responsibility for one Senior Policy Manager and two Policy Managers.

Responsibilities

Lead a team to provide advice to ensure that ministerial policy is well informed, that Scottish Government and partner organizations deliver on Ministerial objectives.
Lead on key strategic and technical issues such as scheme quadrennial valuations, which require assimilation of technical detail, stakeholder management, understanding of regulatory and governance requirements and highlighting cost impacts.
Lead liaison with actuarial advisers to the Scottish Ministers.
Represent the SG and take an active role at UK wide meetings where occupational pensions policy is developed.
Provide policy recommendations and appeal decisions, taking into account the interpretation of legislation and Pensions Ombudsman determinations, taking forward the impacts of these on any changes to scheme rules.
Take a lead role within the Scheme Advisory Boards: researching, analysing and presenting issues where necessary to support the Board in its role of providing advice to the Scottish Ministers.
Build, develop and manage relationships with stakeholders including Ministers, employers and unions across the Scottish public sector and government to ensure knowledge and analysis informs robust policy and service delivery.
Analyse the pensions landscape to maintain corporate knowledge, anticipate issues and ensure that Scottish schemes remain compliant with legislation and good practice.

Success Profile

Success profiles are specific to each job and they include the mix of skills, experience and behaviours candidates will be assessed on.

Technical / Professional Skills:

Participation and Engagement - Practitioner
Working With Ministers - Practitioner
Policy Delivery and Systems - Practitioner

You can find out more about the skills required, here.

Experience:

An excellent knowledge of public service pensions policy and delivery of legislation.

Behaviours:

Seeing the Big Picture - Level 4
Making Effective Decisions - Level 4

You can find out more about Success Profiles Behaviours, here.

How to apply

Apply online, providing a CV and Supporting Statement (of no more than 1500 words) which provides evidence of how you meet the skills, experience and behaviours listed in the Success Profile above. If invited for further assessment, this will consist of an interview and presentation.
Assessments are scheduled for w/c 25th August however this may be subject to change.

Further Information

In addition to the four elements being assessed under 'Technical / Professional Skills' from the Policy Profession framework, the successful candidate will also be provided training and development opportunities to build skills in other areas of the framework. After approximately two years in post, and through training, coaching and exposure to different scenarios, the successful candidate will have developed skills in the following areas and will be able to operate at level 1 - Developing - of the standards:

Data, Analysis and Scientific Advice
Parliament and Law
Evaluation
Finance

About Us The Scottish Public Pensions Agency is an Agency of the Scottish Government. Our principal role is to administer the pensions for employees in the National Health Service, Teachers’, Police and Fire-fighters’ pension schemes in Scotland for over 500,000 key workers. The Agency administers these public service pension schemes on behalf of Scottish Ministers with an annual pension spend to over 200,000 pensioners to the value of more than £2.5 billion.

Working Pattern

Our standard hours are 35 hours per week. We offer a range of flexible and hybrid working options, with two days minimum working on site at SPPA. If you have specific questions about the role you are applying for, please contact us.

Equality Statement

We are committed to equality and inclusion and we aim to recruit a diverse workforce that reflects the population of our nation.

Find out more about our commitment to diversity and how we offer and support recruitment adjustments for anyone who needs them.

Further Information

Find out more about our organisation, what we offer staff members and how to apply on our Careers Website.

Read our Candidate Guide for further information on our recruitment and application processes.

Apply Before: 4th August (23:59)