Schedule 3 transitional Provisions and Savings
485.Apart from enabling powers that come into effect at Royal Assent, the new scheme rules in the Act come into effect on new rules day (section 5(3) of the Act) but will be subject to transitional and saving arrangements (section 1(3)). Schedule 3 provides for the transition from the existing Scottish Parliamentary Pension Scheme rules in the 1999 pensions order to the new scheme rules in Schedule 1. It also saves some provisions of the 1999 pensions order, for example the separate pension scheme for First Ministers and Presiding Officers which is comprised in Part S of the 1999 pensions order, albeit that it is saved only in respect of present and past incumbents.
486.As regards the scheme, section 1(1) of the Act provides that it is continued and is the same scheme as constituted by the 1999 pensions order but is to be operated under different rules (as set out in the Act). This approach has been preferred in the Act as opposed to the more complex alternative of creating a new scheme, transferring from and winding up the old scheme. The preferred approach sets the scene for the transitional arrangements as set out in Schedule 3.