This Editorial at a Glance:

• The role of the Coalition government in pension deceit;

• Hands off the '92 Scheme!

• The Honouring of a Contract.

Dear Reader,

this Editorial is about the role of the current Coalition Government in this pension Scandal of deceit and public Fraud allied with the Political Alienation and Disillusionment of Fire Service Veterans and serving Firefighters.

It is little wonder that this present Coalition government now wishes to ‘bury’ any working knowledge of the ’92 Scheme by disenfranchising its current Membership whether retired or in service by not providing them with the published ‘plain English’ legal rights and guides which go with the Membership of their Scheme.

This deceit and fraud has now become a policy of this Coalition. A stark and simple example is the consigning of a confusing, half baked, half revised, misleading hybrid version of the ‘92 'The Home Office Commentary on the Firefighters' Pension Scheme’ to the National Archives whilst insisting that this is the ‘official’ version of how the Scheme is to be administered both now and in the future when they know full well it bears not remotest resemblance to the H.O. ‘Commentary’ actually published in 1992.

This is simply the Conservatives and the LibDems defrauding their Fire Service Veterans and serving Firefighters under the ’92 Scheme whilst enriching government coffers.

Acting on the age old government philosophy of when all else fails 'bury the evidence' once more barriers are placed in front of those wishing to read and understand their ’92 pension but is there a more sinister agenda at work?

Indeed there is, it is called a balance sheet…

Using Lancashire as an example it is clear that neither the law nor the ’92 ‘Commentary’ were ever fully or accurately implemented in the UK.

To date no explanation for this ‘failure’ is to be found in government responses (DCLG-Fire Section) or its archives. Nor is a rational explanation offered for this institutionalised fraud and the breach of Contract between its retired Firefighters and this Coalition government of today by  Mr.Brandon Lewis MP the Fire Minister responsible.

It is not necessary to be an auditor to determine the impact on public funds that this fraud will have when recognised publicly and finally corrected across the whole spectrum of UK Fire Authorities and their budgets. Particularly if this coalition government decides that the error was on the part of the Fire Authorities and that as a consequence they should directly bear the reimbursement underpayment costs involved; costs which they have knowingly allowed to occur over the past decades and from which they have enriched themselves by short changing their Fire Service Veterans.

No Local Authority, or come to that any democratically elected government, is entitled in law to ‘enrich’ itself either by failure to implement the law which has been enacted by Parliament; by incompetence; by maladministration; or in the case of Lancashire by misfeasance and now malfeasance which is  simply defined in law as fraud.

In the interim the DCLG Fire Minister would do well to remember that the ’92 Scheme is protected by law, including European Law well into this century and unpleasant for him as that fiscal fact is it is nevertheless a fact whilst currently him and his civil servants are attempting to find the ‘form of words’ in quietly revised legislation to allow them to row back to a position where they can surreptitiously steal more money from their Fire Service Veterans.

The breath taking immorality of stealing from those who spent all their lives serving their communities and in many case paying the price in disablement or death is simply what we have come to expect from politicians who regularly dip their own hands in the jam pots of 'expenses'.

The Fire Service Veterans have trusted successive governments to honour their Contract with them and indeed naively accepted that they were doing so when in reality these governments and Fire Authorities were knowingly failing to do so and as a consequence enriching themselves by fraud.

It was for all these reasons, primarily the defeat of deceit and in support of the current and future beneficiaries of the ‘92 Scheme that the terms and conditions as elucidated in the 1992 ‘Commentary’ (the correct and only applicable Commentary for the ’92 Scheme) was reproduced in full on the Morning Bugler from an original 1992 copy -with amendments- for all Readers to use and retain.

Any trust in the integrity of any government having long since vanished along with trust in the NJC Employers; Fire & Rescue Service(Fire Authorities) pension administrators; their unqualified ‘experts’, including those who will attempt to administer the ’92 Scheme now or in the future.

Perhaps a jaundiced reader may well conclude that this is all conspiracy theory, if so then simply try to obtain a complete and unabridged copy of the ’92 Commentary from the DCLG; from GAD(the Government Actuary’s Department);the National Joint Council for Local Authority Employers; or their own Fire Authorities, let alone trying to obtain a copy of your own Personal Record Files and see what happens…

The Morning Bugler will publish your ‘success’ when/if you achieve it…

Now that the election results are by and large in it surely must be clear to this Coalition and the Parties involved that disillusionment and resentment in the electorate runs deep no less than among the quarter of a million potential voters in Fire Service families that the Morning Bugler has written about before.

It is regrettable that the only politician of note with some backbone Mrs Theresa May the Home Secretary is no longer in charge of Fire Service affairs. Perhaps it is time that this responsibility was passed back to her department because it is clear that the current politician Brandon Lewis M.P. in charge of this remit only serves one master and it certainly is not fair play…remember him in 364 days when the voting comes around again.