Archive for This forum is for serving or retired firefighters from the LFB. This is the place to have a moan, have a laugh and maybe even get some proper answers to some time honoured and new questions
MEMBERS WILL be aware of the plight of three disabled ex-London firefighters – Martin Marrion, Neil Byrne and Andy Scott – all of whom have had their pension payments cut-off after being forcibly retired by the brigade on medical grounds. The decision by LFEPA –which it says it took following guidance issued by central government –to terminate the payments and leave the three penniless – pending the outcome of a judicial review which might take up to 12 months to be heard –has caused a storm of protest among FBU members in London and beyond. As this News Report goes to press, the FBU’s national executive council was meeting to consider its response to the decision. In the event that the payments are not reinstated, the FBU will consider balloting its members for action. In a circular issued to every UK branch, the union’s general secretary, Matt Wrack, said the decision was a threat to all FBU members. “This is an utterly disgraceful way to treat former employees of the fire and rescue service, and I have already made our views known to LFEPA,” said Matt. “Steps are already under way to challenge the decision by means of a campaign which will involve legal and political challenges to the decision. All members are urged to give urgent consideration to the issues raised and a further circular will outline the possibilities of an industrial response from the union to this disgraceful attack on our pension rights.”
BlazingPalace
Firstly I am not taking sides; I like a lot of people am confused about all of this.
Firstly we have all received a detailed e-mail from management explaining every thing they have done which has included offering jobs to those people affected. They are also prepared to continue paying the pension providing the union underwrites this in the event of the union losing the pending court case.
Brigade wants this to go to court so the matter can be settled one way or the other. They too are seeking clarification, and the unions response to what appears to be a reasonable case put forward, “We are not accepting this” and the threat of legal action.
Surely at the very least the union should be offering to underwrite the pension payment of the 3 firefighters until its settled in court or is that me being unreasonable, it will only cost the union if they lose the case.
Like I said I am neither sticking up for nor supporting management, just confused about the true facts and hidden agendas from both sides
Blaze Bear
Hey mate,
I know your not taking sides and there should always be a balanced debate, this is just the union part of the forum. When the brigade answers the Unions accusations’ I will happily post them on here.
I agree that someone should be paying these guys pensions and mortgages and not leaving them to get into debt. Pay them and fight it and after the fight let them know how it stands
I’m sure they have but can’t find anything on the subject, if you’ve got a copy feel free to post it on here.
BlazingPalace
Both sides
Hi this is a very long read sorry!! But here is both the messages sent out to all staff recently. I have put managements firstly only because that was the first one issued.
Stick with it and read it and you will see like me to being a bit confused about all of this.
What I can not understand is why will the FBU not underwrite these firefighter’s pension payments?
I was always under the impression that the union was there to help us and support us surely; underwriting this would be a sign of support?
How does it look to the outside world when the firefighter’s union will not give or offer financial support to these three men who are caught in the middle of all this cross fire
At the very least both sides should be pressing for this to go to court ASAP so it can be resolved
I am aware that there has recently been a considerable amount of misinformation circulated regarding the pensions cases of three former LFEPA employees. Consequently, I think it is important that I set out the facts and the following paragraphs do precisely that.
The three former operational members of staff concerned were certified as permanently unfit by the Authority between December 2005 and March 2006 following the process laid down in the Firefighters’ Pension Scheme and including the involvement of an independent qualified medical practitioner. All three then appealed to the Board of Medical Referees, an independent body that decides on such cases, seeking an increase in their pension payments. One appeal related to the degree of disablement and the other two were for their disablement to be declared as due to service. In considering these appeals, the Board of Medical Referees declared that none of the three were in fact permanently unfit. This was an independent decision by the Board, not the result of any approach by the Authority.
We know that the Fire Brigades’ Union are aware of the medical appeals process because we have already written to local officials twice about inaccurate stories. Yet the October 2007 issue of the FBU’s own Firefighter magazine stated that the decision was taken by “LFB’s board of medical referees”. This is clearly not true and I am disappointed that the union allowed the publication of such inaccurate information.
Under the pension regulations, a decision of the Board of Medical Referees that a person is not permanently unfit means that they are no longer entitled to the medical early retirement pension which was being paid to them. Additionally, as they were not of pensionable age when they left, they would not be entitled to continue to receive a pension.
As a result of the above, we wrote to all three after the judgements seeking to find out if they planned to judicially review the Board of Medical Referees’ decisions. We also approached the government to ask whether it would be defending the decisions if applications for judicial review were made, and we have continued to press the government to try and find a satisfactory solution. The individuals were advised that we would review their cases after three months and the Board’s decisions might result in the Authority having to terminate their pension payments.
After we were advised by their solicitors that their intention was to apply for judicial review of the decisions and that the government would defend the decisions of the Board of Medical Referees, the Authority took formal legal advice from Counsel on what we should do about their pension payments. The advice we received was clear; that continuation of the pension payments would be illegal. However, if the FBU were to seek to secure a court decision which was contrary to that opinion, then we could reinstate the pension payments as this would be the result of a court order.
Given that advice from Counsel we had no option but to give the three individuals one month’s notice of termination of pension payments. In reality this was four months’ notice as we had previously warned them of this possibility. We had no choice in the decision.
We wrote to all three on 17 August, inviting them to attend an interview to enable them to return to work either in an operational capacity or, if not, then possibly in a redeployed capacity. We did not receive a response from any of them directly.
Earlier, on 6 August, the Authority’s legal department had written to their solicitors asking if any of the individuals wished to return to work. A reply was not received until 3 October and indicates that consideration will only be given to job offers if a number of conditions are met. The Authority will be responding to the solicitors on this point.
Equally, all three were invited to contact the Authority if they needed any assistance with state benefits, as it had been said that they were being denied benefits because of the uncertainty of their employment status. No request for information or assistance has been received.
One particular case has been highlighted by the FBU in their media campaign. It does need to be made absolutely clear that: the former employee:
• has never sought redeployment to the knowledge of the Authority
• signed that he wanted ill health retirement and not redeployment
• wrote that he didn’t want to appeal against the decision to retire him on ill-health grounds
• has not approached anyone to the Authority’s knowledge asking to be re-employed since the appeal decision was received
• did not write to the Authority asking for a re-assessment of his level of disability until after he had lodged his appeal to the Medical Board of Referees, at which point the Authority followed its normal practice of explaining that this would be part of the appeal process
We wrote to the FBU on 21 August pointing out the inaccuracies in their publications. In particular we stated why we could not continue to make pension payments to the individuals as follows:
“However, as has been advised to the (A) Regional Secretary the Authority has Counsel’s opinion that the continued payment of these pensions would be ultra vires and, therefore, unlawful. I need, therefore, to make it clear that without a court instruction to pay, the Authority can not make payments which knowingly would be unlawful.”
We wrote on 24 August to the FBU re-emphasising the reasons why we could not continue to pay the individuals’ pensions, but after taking further legal advice, we offered to pay to the individuals payments which would be equivalent to their pension provided that the Union would commit contractually to repay the amount to the Authority if the judicial review process concluded by upholding the Board of Medical Referees’ decisions. In essence, the Union would guarantee the money the Authority paid out whilst the individuals pursued the judicial review process. This would have ensured that the three would not be financially affected and that the Authority was acting legally.
Unfortunately the FBU have not so far responded to this offer; they have not communicated with the Authority at all.
Following the FBU’s most recent publication in which it implied that the Authority had withdrawn pension payments from the individuals because of CLG guidance we have written yet again to the Union reminding them of what we told them on 17 August. In short:
• This is a dispute between the individuals, the FBU and the Government. The Authority never suggested that the individuals were not permanently unfit and so not entitled to medical retirement
• The Authority has done all it can with the Government and the FBU to resolve the problem BUT:
o The Authority cannot make payments which are not legal
o No legal challenge has been made to the Authority’s actions in the 12 weeks since letters were sent
o The individuals will all be found jobs if they want to return
o None have asked for Authority information or support in terms of any benefit claims
The circulars being issued by the FBU are totally misrepresenting the Authority’s role in this case. In so far as the three individual cases are concerned, the solution is already in the hands of the FBU. We would like to hear from them.
Ron Dobson
Commissioner
To all London FBU branches
LONDON THREE: RESPONSE TO COMMISSIONER
You may have seen a recent communication from the commissioner regarding the case of the three disabled ex-London firefighters whose pension payments were terminated by LFEPA.
The commissioner accuses the FBU of misrepresenting the facts surrounding the case. Whilst it is not our wish to issue a lengthy point-by-point rebuttal of all of the commissioner's claims, we cannot allow some of the more serious charges to go unchallenged.
Firstly, the commissioner says that, in the case of one member - the member whose story has been most widely publicised - he "never sought redeployment to the knowledge of the authority". This is inaccurate. Upon being declared unfit for operational duties, the member in question was told by the authority that no alternative job was available. As evidence of this, we attach a letter that was sent to the member by the brigade to this effect. The relevant passages can be found in the first two paragraphs. The member accepted the brigade’s decision in good faith, as would most people in the circumstances.
Secondly, the commissioner argues that the brigade has offered to put in place measures to allow for the continuation of pension payments. In reality, this is no offer at all. All the brigade has done is offer to continue to make the payments provided the FBU is prepared to underwrite them. In other words, if the judicial review decides in favour of the three, and they are allowed to remain retired, the brigade would not have sacrificed a penny, as it would have been required to reimburse all unpaid pension payments anyway. Yet, if the judicial review finds against the three, the FBU would be forced to stump up the money for repayment of pensions. The FBU exists to protect its members against all forms of injustice in the workplace. But this cannot conceivably extend to underwriting the firefighters’ pension scheme and paying members’ pensions. Notwithstanding this, the union is actively considering a number of options to ensure that these members are not left impoverished as a result of seeing their pensions stopped.
Thirdly, the commissioner says that the brigade has lobbied the government for a “satisfactory solution” to this case. Though it is anyone’s guess what is meant by the term “satisfactory”, as what is satisfactory for the brigade may not be satisfactory for the three members. Instead, we would like to see the brigade doing what the union has been doing, i.e. lobbying the government hard and unequivocally demanding that the new directive which allows fire authorities to retire injured firefighters without a pension is rescinded at once, and the three affected members be allowed to continue receiving their ill-health and injury pensions. So far, the brigade has sat on the fence and simply pressed the government for clarification, instead of fighting on behalf of their three ex-employees.
The fact remains that, through no fault of their own, three disabled ex-London firefighters have been left penniless and without alternative employment. The government and LFEPA are both, to varying degrees, responsible.
The FBU will continue to lobby government ministers for a reversal in the new guidance. If this is not forthcoming, the union will ballot for national industrial action to safeguard firefighters’ pensions now and in the future.
This fight affects every one of us.
Yours in unity
LONDON REGION FBU
Blaze Bear
Thanks palace,
Had deleted my at work and couldn't find it. Been busy four weeks.
