Standard Life and Phoenix Group
Increasing visibility in a crowded market.
Scottish Public Pensions Agency
Moving pension applications online
The ask
The Scottish Public Pensions Agency (SPPA) administers pensions for NHS workers, teachers, police officers and firefighters across Scotland. For deferred members who need to apply for retirement, the process had long relied on paper forms - a slow, manual experience for members and SPPA’s operations team alike.
For SPPA’s team, the result was a steady flow of incomplete or incorrectly completed submissions to chase and correct. SPPA needed a way to bring forms online: accessible and secure for members, and straightforward for the operations team behind the scenes.
What we did
We worked with SPPA to build and launch the first phase of their branded digital forms engine, using our Dynamic Forms platform.
We started with a short discovery, bringing SPPA stakeholders and our technical and design teams together to agree requirements for the NHS Pension Retirement Form for deferred members. We reviewed SPPA’s Figma designs and updated the technical design documents to reflect how the forms engine would connect with SPPA’s website and back-end processes.
Development included integrating the forms engine with ScotAccount’s authentication service, allowing deferred members to authenticate securely before accessing the form. We also delivered a number of form capabilities specific to SPPA’s needs:
Members can upload documents directly within the form, with data retention rules applied automatically
Conditional logic means members only see the questions relevant to their situation
Custom field validation catches errors before submission, reducing the chance of incomplete applications reaching the team
notification fields guide members through more complex steps in the form
PDF generation mirrors the existing paper form layout, so SPPA administrators can continue working in familiar ways
Once a member submits, SPPA case workers receive an email via GOV.UK Notify containing a secure link to the submission summary and any uploaded files in the Dynamic Forms service. Operations staff download the submission from the admin app and upload it to the Heywood Altair pension management system. There’s no disruption to the workflows the team already uses.
We set up Azure storage and configured the full deployment environment, including SSL certificates and web application firewall rules. A security review covered document upload handling and data retention policies to make sure both were done properly.
The project closed with a knowledge transfer session, leaving SPPA’s digital team with the skills and confidence to build their own forms going forward.
Dynamic Forms has made the retirement application process simpler and more accessible for our members, while giving our operations team more consistent, complete information to work with. It fits smoothly into our existing processes and has given our digital team the tools and confidence to bring more services online in the future.
Results
NHS deferred pension members now have a clear, guided way to submit retirement applications online. They move through each step at their own pace, only answering what’s relevant to them. Documents can be uploaded directly, so there’s no need to post anything in.
For SPPA’s operations team, submissions now arrive in a consistent digital format alongside a PDF that fits their existing case management approach. Structured submissions mean fewer errors to chase, and the team no longer has to deal with incomplete paper forms.
SPPA’s digital team now have the tools and know-how to build further forms themselves. Phase 1 also lays the groundwork for a second phase, which will bring more complex member journeys online, including active member retirement forms and employer-facing workflows. Phase 2 will also integrate with ScotAccount’s identity verification service, removing the need for SPPA to operate its own identity verification process based on members emailing or uploading identifying documents.
