| Edt.008 – 12th July 2015. |
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This Revised and Updated Edt.008 – 12th July 2015 at a Glance: • The Commutation Issue – The First Bubble of Government Corruption Bursts; • UK Parliament – Early Day Motion No:768; • The London Times and the Mail-on-Sunday Report-All Copyrights Acknowledged; • What happens to the Second Bubble of Government Pension Corruption? |
| The Commutation Issue – First Corrupt Bubble Bursts |
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Dear Reader, This issue was originally raised in Scotland by an 'out of trade' Member of the Fire Brigades Union, Mr. W(Billy). Milne, is a Fire Service Veteran and formerly a Divisional Fire Officer with Strathclyde Fire & Rescue Service. Clearly the FBU in Scotland are more proactive and vigilant in protecting and supporting the fight for the rights of their retired Members in Scotland than the rump of the FBU in London. Mr. W. Milne was, and remains, a Member of the 1992 Fire Service Pension Scheme into which, for a service lifetime, he paid 11% of his annual salary and when he retired he was entitled to commute up to 25% of his Average Pensionable Pay at his rank of Divisional Fire Officer, tax free. Commonly this is used to pay off a mortgage and/or make future provisions for a Veteran’s wife and/or Beneficiaries. The commutation tables which are used to calculate this tax free lump sum are, or should have been, regularly updated to reflect the current cost of living so that the value of this entitlement is not eroded over time. This revision is normally and automatically carried out by the Government Actuary Department. However in the 1990’s GAD decided, in keeping with other government departments, that it would charge other departments for its services on what is known as a journal transfer basis(you owe us-we owe you; and balance sheets are altered-no money changing hands). GAD say that this placed the onus on our old lazy and incompetent friends at the DCLG Fire Pension Team to instruct them after 1998 (the last commutation tables update) to carry out the next due revision/update but surprise surprise they never did. Thus over the period which followed up until 2010 when FSV W.Milne initially lodged his Complaint with GAD(incorrectly), instead of with the Pensions Ombudsman, no commutation table revision had occurred and as a direct consequence those retired from the Service after 1998 including FSV W.Milne became increasingly disenfranchised and underpaid as the cost of living erosion continued to eat into their commutation entitlement. This resulted in a rising scale of underpayment and set the repayment meter ticking which continues until each FSV, or Beneficiary, receives their correct entitlement with compound interest on the sums involved. In the ridiculously scandalous period of 5 years which followed the laying of the Complaint the government as usual used ‘every dirty trick in the book’ to ‘cheat’ the FSVs. |
Whilst every single department involved engaged in a finger pointing exercise which certainly did not serve FSV W.Milne well nor did it serve the FSVs, their Widows, nor their Beneficiaries, and in particular, those who in the meantime had passed away since 1998. This tale of woe, obfuscation, and willfully mendacious delay is highlighted in the Pension Ombudsman’s Final Determination. An Ombudsman who deserves little, if any credit himself, as he also procrastinated for his own professional reasons, which included his desire to leave on a professionally high profile case after being summarily sacked without explanation by the last coalition government. For a particularly heavy legal read of FSV W.Milne’s Complaint, Go Here. It was not until a creditworthy Mr John McDonnell MP(the Labour sponsor-recently relected) who was involved with this issue from its outset, along with the cross Party support of 53 other Parliamentarians from both Houses of Parliament, became entirely frustrated with all these departmental ‘games’ that in final anger(reflected in the wording of his Motion) he resorted to a Parliamentary Early Day Motion which resulted in this first appalling injustice being brought to a conclusive resolution which the Bugler reported on at the time. However, there remained at this point the next issue, and it seems, there still remains the question of the amount and type of interest which must be paid on the monies owed to these FSVs and their Beneficiaries. At an early point this year the Bugler’s pro bono Barrister Mr. Copplestone Bruce (Life Member of the Inner Temple Bar) expressed in an Opinion(No.2), which was passed to those engaged in this final financial struggle, how and on what legal basis, compound interest was due to any FSV who has been underpaid/cheated by the self-enriching error of the Combined Fire Authorities, the DCLG Fire Pension Team, and ultimately the Government. All those, including FSV W. Milne, who have actually been underpaid or regard the governments' action as simply cheating should focus their final endeavours on securing the correct type of interest and the final sum of that interest because by their error; then compounded by malfeasance(they knew); followed by organised central deceit namely fraud, the government have for a considerable period of time breached their Contract with their Firefighters and simply defrauded them as we shall see when the second bubble of corruption bursts. To that end here is some legal advice on interest. Go Here. Finally to Billy Milne and the Scottish FBU …Well done those Lads and Lassies!!
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| UK Parliament – Early Day Motion No:768. |
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Parliament- Early Day Motion 768. • Session: 2014-15 • Date tabled: 04.02.2015 • Primary sponsor: McDonnell, John(Lab) Sponsors: • Bottomley, Peter(Con) • George, Andrew(LibDem) • Skinner, Dennis(Lab) • Shannon, Jim(DUP) • Hopkins, Kelvin(Lab)
“That this House notes that public service firefighters and police officers who retired in a period from 1998 to 2006 were significantly and knowingly disadvantaged by the failure by the Government Actuary's Department, the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Home Office to secure up-to-date actuarial valuations in respect of pension entitlements surrendered on retirement; further notes that maladministration in this matter was established in 2008; further notes that since then the Government Actuary's Department has acted in bad faith by adopting delaying tactics, including a dubious and failed legal challenge to the authority of the Pensions Ombudsman, thereby causing lengthy and unnecessary delay to the resolution of this matter and occasioning a situation whereby many of those affected have not or will not live sufficiently long to see this injustice corrected; and calls on the named departments to accept the imminent ruling by the Pensions Ombudsman and take immediate steps to pay any recommended awards.”. Dear Reader, Firstly we should congratulate Mr.McDonnell M.P. for not only his tenacity but his fortitude in successfully soliciting the cross party and independent Member support of 53 other Lords, Ladies, Knights, and Members of Parliament who signed his Early Day Motion. What is an Early Day Motion? Go Here. It only takes one man of determination in a democracy, to initiate the correction of injustices and a return to fair play, though at times it may well have seemed the task of Sisyphus… Mr.McDonnell M.P. has a well-deserved reputation with UK Fire Service personnel, both current and retired Firefighters, for his championing of fair play and decency. The list of 53 co-sponsors also reflects a strong measure of political respect from cross party political peer groups. These politicians, who are not opportunists, but are those with a social conscience spend their time, like ours, in swimming against the tide of injustice. This 'who's who' list also provides a Pantheon of Integrity of those who through the dark decades from time immemorial have stood up for the oppressed, the under privileged, the just plain wronged, and disadvantaged. There is a welcome and well warranted pervasive ethos of outraged decency in this shared political statement and goal. The Editor and the Public are familiar with many of the names which ‘jump’ off the list because of their association with higher ideals, just causes, or indeed because the Editor and the Public have worked with and for such Members from time to time. Go here. These decent Parliamentarians go industriously about their daily work on all our behalf whilst still carrying the yoke of… ‘they are all the same’… an unhappy sobriquet earned, by the few in Parliament, for the many. This cross party forthright action gives a lie to that statement and provides encouragement in the real world to those of us who are struggling over many years to obtain fundamental justice, fair play, and the most basic of human rights where Fire Service pension issues and in particular underpaid disability pensions are concerned. Some of which have been bought and paid for by that most sacrosanct gift of all, the laying down of lives for their fellow man. One is bound to ask, how will this incoming government encourage the next potential generation of Firefighter or Police recruits to toe the thinning line in defence of all communities if, at a glance, they see their ultimate employers, the government, knowingly and wilfully defrauding and obscenely defaulting on payments to existing disabled Fire Service Veterans, Police officers, their Widows, Partners, and families ? It is especially depressing to defraud the memory of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in severe disability or death? Right now it would be a wise young man or woman who would turn away to seek a career elsewhere. And then there is who is to blame? Can this Fire Service pension maladministration be exclusively laid at the door of this coalition government? In fairness, probably not? However, from the outset this coalition government has struggled unsuccessfully to establish a firm government-civil servants will-do-as-they-are-told, relationship. The Head of the Civil Service, Sir Bob Kerslake, was sacked but that hardly addressed his failure so late in the life of this Parliament; Permanent Secretaries ought also to have been driven into early retirement , and right down the chain of management to Heads of Departments should have been firmly disciplined, if only, ‘pour encourager les autres’. A firm grip was needed but lacking. In this Parliament the Executive succeeded in defeating the Legislature, the will of Parliament, and thus the Will of the People. It is from such massive failures that we see governments fail and close to anarchy in Fire Service pension ‘management’ reigning supreme… Least these worthy Parliamentarians think that, with the resolution of this element of general Fire Service pension maladministration, which involves other and greater pension malfesance that all will subsequently be well, nothing could be further from the truth. The mixing of similes and metaphors is never a good literary idea, but this specific pension issue of commutation is simply the ‘tip of an iceberg’ which can only finally be resolved by ‘lancing the boil’ of this autocratic civil service right down to local authority level. Uncivil 'servants' turned 'masters' who by their wilful sedition have created mobocracy using bad faith, deceit, fraudulence, and deliberately delaying tactics in an already unstable environment within a UK wide Fire Service beset with pension and pension maladministration disputes. This Motion before Parliament, simply resonates as a peal of bells with all those disabled Fire Service Veterans throughout the UK who have been struggling now for 8 years to have those we elected call our civil servants to heel and direct them to resolve this nationally disgraceful scandal which, among other failures, is the consistent underpayment of disability pensions which will undoubtedly also include disabled Police officers. And then there is Fraud … A fraud, because these civil servants know it to be wrong, which not only denies living disabled FSVs and Police officers their honestly due correct commutation and disability pension payments, but which also denies the consequential payments due to their Widows and orphans, especially those who have become Widows during this interminable and disgraceful scandal. During which, in these long frustrating mean years, it seemed no one with the 'power to change' was prepared to listen, and more importantly, with a sense of decency, to seek to correct. Mr. McDonnell M.P. has indeed done his work well. He has highlighted the treatment meted out to Firefighters, Police officers, and indeed Parliamentarians, by these insufferably arrogant and wilfully obstructionist civil servants where and whenever we have sought them to correct these injustices. This is indeed the Animal Farm made reality. The disabled FSVs and Police officers of this nation, who do not, nor did not ask the price but were prepared to pay it, were always secure in the trusting knowledge that when, or if , their time of need came then this democracy, which they protected, would honour its deal with them. And then there is Mobocracy and Corruption… For the last 8 years we have found ourselves knee deep in a suppurating seepage of corrupt and corrupting bad faith which oozes unchecked from individuals and managers in every government department, quango, national agency, and local authority we have had the misfortune to seek help from. The way to Heaven is still paved with good intentions, but it still does not put bread on the table, trust and integrity do that. This and previous governments have failed us all and when we have the temerity to challenge for our rights we are treated by our civil servants with the indignities due to a beggar with a bowl at a sumptuous feast. Is this what being maimed or killed in the line of duty was all about in this coalition government’s ‘we are all in it together’ deal? Or was it simply a covert coordinated centralised government cut back on those who had earned it with selfless service? But none of this is new to us who continue to struggle on against these ‘out of control’ clerks with their own power crazed ‘invented rules’ and ‘governance’. What hope have we if they have refused to listen to instructions from Parliament? Is this how democracy really is meant to work? Is this the example which we wish to set before the totalitarian world, currently knocking on our doors, as the success story of 'democracy'? Their dismissive arrogance; their wilful obstruction; their patent falsehood; their silence of no response; their ignoring of correspondence; their mendacious manipulation of the simple truth; their stone walling; and their self-evident rampant criminality in personal misconduct in public office. Is this how we want the world to see us, this ‘Mother of Parliaments’ ? And then there are the Overdue Accounts… So what is new? Please tell the disabled Firefighters and Police officers; tell their Widows; and tell their Orphans why they are not getting paid and going without ? Instead let us tell you of our nazty experiences and indignities to which we have been subjected and to which you have appended your names in a valiant attempt to stop this pernicious rot and what, for us, is simply one of several major pension elements, commutation and disability pension underpayments, for which we having been fighting for correction during the last 8 years. Here is a sample of simple unadorned facts supported with unchallengeable evidence: • Since the introduction of the 1992 Firemen’s Pension Scheme, and probably before, in the 1973 Pension Scheme, Fire Authority pension ‘experts’’ due to their lack of structured pension management training or formal qualifications, have in a truly wanton fashion, routinely miscalculated(underpaid) disability pensions from when they were first put into payment until the present day; • A recent Bugler led sampling exercise(which is continuing nationwide)in London, West Sussex, and Lancashire has identified Firefighters pensions in payment for 2 decades or more, where misunderstood and misapplied incorrect pension calculating formulae, have generated individual underpayments in excess of £100k; without the application of County Court interest sanctions against Fire Authority's self-enrichment by error; or the application of exemplary damages for loss of amenity for those, including beneficiaries, in receipt of disability pensions. • Who knows what an independent audit of Police disability pensions will find? And then there is the DCLG… • The DCLG, directed by Secretary of State Pickles, who knows all but does little, is fully aware of the anarchy within his own Fire and Resilience ‘back office’ but was finally driven in frustration to publicly criticise Chief Fire Officers, known within the Service as the ‘dippers’, but better described by the Bugler as the ‘Thieving Magpies’ for their self-perpetuating greed in the salaries they have paid themselves at a time of national austerity. Unfortunately Mr.Pickles chose to ignore Mr.Holland, his own DCLG appointed fire advisor, the champion of them all as an accomplished 'triple dipper'. One still wonders if Mr.Holland declared his in flagrante delicto criminal record when making his job application to Mr.Pickles? What Mr.Holland, the boss of the DCLG Firefighters Pension Team, ought to have been whispering in Mr. Pickles M.P. ears was to pay attention to a developing nationwide pension debacle, but instead he was too busy in his counting house? Holland, our former local Lancashire CFO sharp lad, is well known for his other public predilections, aside from professional greed, which includes a penchant for recruiting unsavoury corrupt individuals such as Mr.Warren his Director of People an accomplished weaseller of words; perjury; suborning of Witnesses; falsehoods; and simple stonewalling; and his recruit subordinate, ‘Brendan the Barbarian’ Hamilton a reject(sack or jump) Head of HR at the Manchester Probation Service, who is currently suspended as Head of HR at the Lancashire FRS and is facing a Tribunal for sexual harassment and racism. Little wonder the Secretary of State has trouble in his ‘back office’ at the DCLG with Holland's all pervasive corruption contaminating everything he was ever put in charge of. • When, in seeking an urgent resolution, this was all repeatedly brought to the attention of Holland; the DCLG Fire Pension Team; Fire Authorities' Party Political Leaders; their CFOs; and their Pension Scheme ‘managers’ and staff, they all closed maladministrative ranks in collective embarrassment in a monumental cover up, whilst using a secret Finance Intranet communications system to create what can only be described as a ring fence cabal of wilful obfuscation; mendacity; venal time wasting; beyond bad faith; and in institutionalised stonewalling the like of which ‘Stonewall’ Jackson would have been proud; • The Hutton Report led directly to the introduction of the Public Service Pensions Act in 2013. Holland’s DCLG Firefighters Pension Team resolutely ignores its existence. |
Indeed in bizarre correspondence with an eminent pro bono Inner Temple Bar Life Member barrister, highlighted elsewhere on the Morning Bugler website, their arrogantly mendacious obfuscation when correspondence finally forced a response was one of complete dismissal that either this Act exists or that they had any legal duties in respect of pension dispute resolution despite having special powers and resources in the Act in excess of those available to the Pensions Ombudsman; a role they have been lazily happy to see the Pensions Ombudsman subsume in his ignorance of their Statutory role; • In responding to a FOI request the DCLG confirms not a single member of Holland’s Firefighters Pension Team which sets the tone and issues instructions in UK wide pension ‘management’ to 49 Fire Authorities possesses a single qualification in either actuarial science, or the most fundamental of audit skills or qualifications; • Two members of the GAD staff who are qualified actuaries attend quarterly meetings of the 21+ members of the Firefighters Pension Committee to advise the DCLG on pension matters arising. One wonders if the DCLG actually sought advice from GAD in the last 8 years on this nation-wide pension debacle and what the content of any confidential dialogue or resolution actually was? And then there is the Hutton Report… • The Hutton Report, the progenitor of personal pension confidence building, both nationally and in the Fire Service, has been consigned to the waste bin because Fire Authorities are incapable of understanding the changing proactive role they will have to adopt in implementing this new pension management ethos whilst continuing to demonstrate that they cannot even ‘manage’ the current old Schemes; • One wonders, in Hutton, where Fire Authorities are likely to find properly qualified staff, or local politicians with the mental acuity and time on their hands to train in pension management to assist technically ignorant Scheme ‘managers’ who will in the future maladminister Firefighters’ Pension Schemes? Scheme 'managers' who will 'appoint' these Councillors according to the Pensions Regulator? No, you did not misread that, in fact they will… 'select' and 'appoint'. Is this another disaster waiting to happen? And then there are the 'Pension Experts'… • There is not a single trained pension actuary in any of the 49 Fire & Rescue Service Authority pension ‘management’ teams in the entire UK; • As an example in Lancashire there are 70 + staff ‘managing’ 200,000+ pensioners accounts including Fire, Police, and Local Government pensions. Not a single member of staff or ‘manager’, including the Departmental Head of Lancashire Pensions Services, have a single qualification by examination in pension management, or even in basic audit skills, between them. Currently 13 clerk ‘experts’ are attempting, or are in the process of trying to obtain, the most basic of knowledge by website interaction ‘courses’; And then there is Maladminstration… • The Audit Commission-National Fraud Initiative reported in 2012 that the LCC Pensions Services had 'achieved' 2215 major pension payment errors which involved, it appears, paying 700 deceased pension holders? In 2014 the AC reported an improvement with errors down to only 1900+; • The London Fire Brigade report of 2012 investigating its own pension maladministration highlights the writing off, of £3.1million unenforceable overpayments due to its own malfeasance of 1906 fire pensions; • The LFB unlawfully deducted DWP Retirement Allowances from hundreds of disabled Fire Service Veterans to the value of £0.7 million which has now been repaid on senior counsels’ advice as a small part of the £6.1million other underpayments(but not disability) paid back to Veterans, without interest of course, which is atypical of the mealy mouthed dishonourable attitude of all Fire Authorities to those disabled, widowed, and orphaned beneficiaries when the Authority are found to be in error, but not when the error is on the part of the Veteran, who is forced to pay against the bullying lifeline threat of pension stoppage; And then there is Hiding the Evidence… • One of the particularly iniquitous ‘games’ being played out in Lancashire, the authors of which are County Councillor O’Toole(a self-confessed expenses fraudster)and yet again Holland who initiated and maintain a running breach of compliance with the FOI Act, is the denial of access of LFRS disabled Veterans to their own Personal Record Files to check their pensions. • At least they are both consistent to this day, by repeatedly failing and obstructing FOI requests for the release of their own personal records of their public expenses claims; • In the Editor’s case it took 6 years and a Court order to finally acquire a copy of his Personal Record Files to enable him to check his pension records-in fact there were no pension records on file; • Another disabled Veteran(now deceased) spent 4 wasted years with a spineless Information Commissioner and finally took the matter to Court at his own expense of £2000 to get his Personal Record Files which were ultimately delivered to him whilst he was terminally ill, though during the many court appearances this was not a consideration by either the Court, or the LFRS in-house solicitor, Harold. • The status of his Widow’s correct pension remains undetermined almost one year on; And then there is the Information Commissioner… • But of course there is always the Information Commissioner that ‘champion’ of Freedom of Information. Currently another disabled Veteran has now been trying to get his Personal Record Files for 4 years also. The only definition that can be attached to this particular repeat exercise is more wilful laziness allied with more deliberate obstruction by an ICO senior manager named Mr.White who seems to have a predilection for assisting the LFRS in obstruction rather than insisting that he and they comply with the law. • Does Commissioner Graham know of this first hand? Indeed he does, but there is, cynically, no PR mileage for him and his lazy labyrinthine organisation which costs us all £25 million a year because the Complainant is only a mere disabled Fire Service Veteran? And then there is the Pensions Ombudsman… • Then there is the Pension Ombudsman who it seems Mr.McDonnell M.P. et al, reasonably place their trust in, just as we forlornly did. Well who exactly is he?
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• • This is because neither the Ombudsman, nor his Deputy, actually hold any legal or judicial qualifications though according to the existing judicial procedures the Ombudsman’s ‘Determinations’ are final in law and only challengeable at the High Court, from whom permission to challenge must be sought, which seems on the face of it a rather cosy arrangement to exclude justice from an impoverished disabled Fire Service Widow complaining on a critical pension lifeline issue; • Neither are these Ombudsmen solicitors or barristers. Nor do they hold any specialisation in pension law of any description though when push comes to shove they use Sackers Chambers, the local legal pension specialist for an Opinion because they do not have an in-house barrister; • This makes it all rather tedious because when a Complainant arrives at their door clutching a barrister’s Opinion the Ombudsman really does not know what to do with it, because it will require his expenditure to hire a barrister to argue points of law on an equal footing with the Complainant’s barrister, should the Ombudsman disagree; Though in any case the Ombudsman will have no idea what either of them will be talking about due to his tendency to ignore the law; • In which case it is always much simpler just to issue a prompt negative ‘Determination’ even though it patently ignores the law, thus log jamming the Courts with unnecessary Appeals; • Indeed King, may or may not, and this has never been made clear, hold a Fellowship of the Pensions Institute. But the Fellowship is by ‘old boys’ invitation and requires neither qualification by examination nor a Degree in Actuarial Sciences, or anything, other than paying the annual dues. All this hardly bears scrutiny and hardly inspires confidence either in such an organisation where its ‘Investigators’ and ‘Senior Investigators’ are similarly unqualified in either law or pensions; • The October 2014 advertised Ombudsmen vacancies does not specify any improvement in the personal attributes required either because it only seeks to short list candidates with ‘arbitration’ skills whilst failing to mention qualifications at the Bar; in Actuarial Science; or even at a bare minimum, a basic law degree or ‘experience’ specialising in pensions; • On Friday 13th February 2015 the Work and Pensions Select Committee appointed Mr. Anthony Arter from the 25th May 2015 as the replacement Ombudsman. Arter, a solicitor, was head of Eversheds LLC Pension Group and London Senior Partner until April 2014; Perhaps he might be more professionally capable than King was? • Parliamentarians would be wise, given this current evolving situation when it appears that the Pensions Ombudsman is expected to give the coup de gras in this GAD/commutation battle, and when it all appears done and dusted, not to cease vigilant monitoring of this changeover of staff, or to place all their trust or confidence in this new and as yet untried appointee; • There is one final and significant thought. When a final ‘Determination’ is made a caveat is always added to the Ombudsman Determination in which he states that he cannot enforce his Determination or force the organisation he has found against to pay the penalty or bill. • The signatories to this EDM will be well advised to prepare for this disappointment with its disavowal of final responsibility; And then there is the Government's Expectation: • It is into this maelstrom of maladministration, distrust, suppurating corruption, anarchic bad faith, that the present generation of Firefighters are expected, like the 600, to ride valiantly into the pension valley of death, where it is optimistically predicted that they will ‘sign up’ for the next generation of institutionalised pension maladministration and fraud. • Fortunately, unlike this generation of disabled Fire Service Veterans, they have no trust left, and have a whole lot more common-sense; And then there are the disabled Firefighters' and Police officers' Expectations… • Their expectation is that before doing anything else, the existing UK Fire Service pension maladministration is given a critical root and branch overhaul, if only to begin to rebuild confidence in its collapsed and chaotic state, before considering its next wonderful pension Scheme? •To this end the Bugler believes that this public scandal has now reached the epic proportions that this outrage must be placed before the Public Accounts Committee under the Chairmanship of the Rt. Hon Margaret Hodge MBE M.P. who has, with her Committee, an established reputation for questioning witnesses vigorously and insisting upon holding all these 'civil' servants to account, no matter what level they operate at and their associated politicians to whom they are supposedly accountable. And then there is Thank You ! Finally we must finish as we started with grateful thanks to all those who cared enough to sign the Motion. We are grateful but much remains to be corrected for there is still the urgent unfinished business of the underpayments of disability pensions to Firefighters and Police officers, their Widows and families nationwide to be addressed and corrected, indeed more remains to be corrected than just commutation tables, important though they be. For many, as we have already seen, will not live to see the fruits of their struggles… Finally, though kind thoughts and gestures are welcome they are not enough in this mean darkness we still inhabit. Such decent sentiments have never yet rescued a casualty and currently the Fire Service is itself in desperate need of rescue for the future; for the present; and especially for those who have served honourably within its glorious past. |
| The London Times Reports |
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Saturday July 11th 2015 – Richard Ford Home Correspondent. For Original Article, Go here. "Pensions error means ex-police and firefighters will get payouts. Thousands of retired police officers and firefighters are set to receive huge pay outs after a multimillion-pound government pensions blunder. Payments running into tens of thousands of pounds are to be paid to the retired officers or their survivors as a result of a failure to update pension calculations. Treasury officials have estimated that it wilI cost at least £860 million in lump sums and backdated interest owed to the retired men and women, but the figure could be even higher as the total number eligible for the pay outs is not yet known. The payouts follow a ruling by the pensions ombudsman in a test case brought by the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) on behalf of William Milne, a retired firefighter. The ruling affects at least 5,000 retired firefighters as well as thousands of police officers. Tony King, the ombudsman, found the Government Actuary's Department (GAD) guilty of "maladministration" that has resulted in thousands of officers and firefighters who retired between 2001 and 2006 receiving potentially lower lump sums than they were due. He found that the department had failed to review and update factors, including future life expectancy rates, under which lump-sum payments of up to 25 per cent of a person's pension were calculated between 2001 and2006. Mr Milne retired from the Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Service, aged 50, in 2005 and chose to take a tax-free lump sum of £111, 038 plus a pension of £22,207 year. A new calculation of his lump sum has resulted in him receiving an additional £25,000 including backdated interest. Sean Starbuck, FBU national officer, said: "We have had a long and often frustrating legal battle to ensure that firefighters who pay about £4,000 a year in contributions get the pension they are entitled to. This is not additional money. This is money that firefighters have been owed, for 14 years in some cases, and is money they should and would have got at the time but for government incompetence. Hopefully we have helped put this right". The union discovered the error when new factors for calculating lump-sum payments were introduced in 2008 and backdated to 2007. The union challenged why the backdating had not gone back to 1998when the last review of factors influencing the calculations took place. The blunder occurred as the actuary department wrongly believed that under Whitehall funding arrangements introduced in the 1990s it was for individual government departments to order reviews of calculations governing lump sum payments. In his ruling Mr King said: “This was an error of law … and an improper surrender by GAD of its statutory functions". The ombudsman's ruling led the Department of Communities and Local Government provisionally to estimate that it will cost at least £94 million, including backdated interest and tax to deal with firefighters' claims. The Home Office's annual report says the Treasury has identified a potential liability of about £767 million for police pensions in England and Wales, which includes additional money due to retired officers plus interest. A spokesman said officials were working with the 43 police forces in England and Wales to see how many ex-officers might be affected.". |
| The Mail-On-Sunday Reports |
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For the Original article by By Martin Beckford and Kirsten Johnson For The Mail On Sunday Published: 22:28, 11 July 2015 | Updated: 22:50, 11 July 2015. Go Here.
How a lone fireman has won a £550million pensions bonanza: Retired hero's five-year fight to prove officials 'cheated' 34,000 police and firefighters out of tens of thousands each by miscalculating their payments on retirement: • Retired Scottish firefighter Billy Milne proved government pensions error;
• Officials were years late in updating rules on how pensions were calculated;
• The government has been left with a total compensation bill of £550million;
• Mr Milne said government 'played every trick in the book' to dodge paying. A retired fireman has won a £550 million payout for thousands of emergency service workers after a five-year campaign for justice. Up to 34,000 former firefighters and police officers are in line for windfalls worth tens of thousands of pounds each after Billy Milne proved that a Government blunder short-changed them when they left their jobs. He, like many other 999 workers, gave up part of his annual pension payments in return for a lump sum on retirement – but was left out of pocket because officials were years late in updating rules about how the value of his pension was calculated.
Now he has been awarded more than £30,000 by the Pensions Ombudsman, and his victory will leave the Government with an overall £550 million bill as it compensates everyone else who lost out. Mr Milne, 59, told The Mail on Sunday last night: ‘The Government played every trick in the book to avoid paying. They knew they were in the wrong but submitted appeal after appeal – and holding up proceedings for all these years will have cost the taxpayer unnecessarily. ‘Firefighters and police who retired after 2006 were getting a large amount more, and when it was realised this was due to an error, we felt cheated. This is money hard-working men and women are due. It is not a gift. We all paid into our pensions for many years.’ Long-serving: Mr Milne joining in the mid-70s. He served with Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Service in Glasgow for 31 years. Mr Milne, a grandfather of three who now lives with his wife Jane in the Scottish Highlands, served with Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Service in Glasgow for 31 years. When he retired in 2005, at the rank of Divisional Officer, he took a £111,000 tax-free lump sum that reduced his annual pension from £29,610 to £22,207. But Mr Milne noticed that younger firefighters retiring after him were getting far bigger cash pots. It emerged that rules on how much of an individual’s pension pot can be ‘commuted’ into a lump sum had been updated in 2006 to take account of longer life expectancy, making funds more valuable overall. Mr Milne and the Fire Brigades Union, which took up his case, discovered the commutation calculations had been long overdue for revision. The Government Actuary’s Department (GAD) had failed to update them as scheduled in 2001 and again three years later, meaning Mr Milne and others who retired at the same time received less than they should have. Their payouts had been calculated on guidelines set in 1998. He submitted his case to the Pensions Ombudsman in 2010, but it was delayed by legal challenges and it was not until May this year that the regulator upheld his complaint. Mr Milne will receive a £30,000 top-up to his nest egg plus £6,000 interest. And every other firefighter and police officer who retired with a lump sum between 2001 and 2006 – the years when the rules should have been updated – is also due a top-up. About 5,000 firefighters and 29,000 police officers are eligible. Home Office accounts show it has budgeted £460 million for lump sums and interest while the Department for Communities and Local Government expects to pay firemen £94 million. Clint Elliott, of the National Association of Retired Police Officers, said: ‘We are pressing for early payment, particularly for people who are not in good health who retired nearly 15 years ago, so they can make the most of the opportunity to enjoy whatever extra money there is.’ |
| The Bugler's Thoughts |
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This is a signal victory for fair play which simply highlights the mendacity of those civil servants in these government departments who clearly have known all about the ‘ two elephants of corruption’ in their rooms but have chosen to do nothing about either until eventually the challenge came, as will come another, and yet many more. Rather than do the decent human thing they have as ever gone into the knee jerk reaction of blaming everyone in sight but themselves. What is strange in this issue that unlike those in Lancashire no one had the brass neck to blame the victim FSV. SW. Milne and his stalwart colleagues. Now to some other thoughts: • So now the world knows about the first corrupt ‘ elephant’ but what about the second, and it has to said, the even larger bubble of corruption which wantonly breaches this government’s Contract with its disabled and (relatively fit) Fire Service Veterans. When is this going to be addressed? Or is it going to go the long humiliating grind of yet more Court attendances when central government is found once embarrassingly guilty of deceit before the world, perpetrated on those it has used and then cast aside; • Will the new Pensions Minister Baroness Altmann CBE identify , examine, and promptly eliminate this second corrupt ‘elephant’ or will she allow this second bubble of government corruption to cloud the building back of trust between this Nation’s Firefighters; its older and many disabled Fire Service Veterans; and their beneficiaries?
• • The Bugler’s barrister, who is rarely off the mark in either law or accountancy, has given his Opinion and informal advice on the question of legal status/interest above which FSVs would do well to heed and once more to challenge the government over,even on an individual basis. FSVs can rest assured that if it was they who owed these amounts to the government it would not hesitate to apply the correct compound interests on the sums owed to it. • What is interesting are the variations in estimates these major culpable errors by both GAD; the DCLG Fire Pension Team (4 civil servants); and the Home Office are likely to have to spend beyond their Taxpayers budgets. In all likelihood when this recompense is finally paid out it will easily amount to over £1Billion pounds. Will an Enquiry result? Will, deservedly, any civil servant responsible get the sack? • When an initial success is achieved in such matters the 'bandwagon' which up to that point consisted of one lone determined figure with a very few supporters who repeatedly received nothing but smug arrogant rejections from his opponents and indeed from those whom he paid, including the FBU to help fight his case, suddenly finds that he is surrounded by a host of back slappers who naturally claim a share of the victory. Such are the opportunistic cynics of life. • It is a matter of fact that FSV WM and his small valiant band identified this pension inequity and there is little doubt that the Scottish element of the FBU decided to take up the challenge and force the issue not only through the Executive Council of the FBU but all the way to success through the Courts. Those Scots trade unionists and those involved in the Scottish FBU deserve much credit for their comradeship and loyalty. • This is not the case in England and Wales where in spite of endless unanswered letters and emails to the General Secretary of the Union Mr. Matt Wrack and Mr.Starbuck the National Pension ‘officer’ have done absolutely nothing about the second larger ‘elephant in the room’ which affects ‘out of trade’ FBU Members right across the UK though as might have been expected they cynically claim a share in this victory. A second and even larger fraud has, and is, being perpetrated against FSVs of every rank for the past decades will Wrack and company now engage whole heartedly in this second corrupt issue? • Least Wrack and Starbuck have failed to grasp this ‘second and even larger elephant of corruption’ it is simple even for them to understand. ’92 disabled Scheme Members who have been compulsorily ejected from the Service with an Rule B3 Ill-health pension and/or a Rule B4 Injury Award have for decades been paid an ‘Ordinary’ B1 pension as though they left they Service voluntarily. Instead they ought to have been paid the larger intended Statutory compensation pension intended under Rule B3(ill health) which is another Scheme entitlement just like the Commutation issue. • The law is profoundly simple. Under the Scheme Statute law of Rule B1 a Fire Authority acts unlawfully if it pays an ‘Ordinary’ B1 pension, under the guise of a Rule B3(ill health) pension, to a Firefighter they have just compulsorily discharged under Rule B3 Ill-health. These Fire Authorities' actions, supposedly overseen by our old friends the Fire Pension Team at the DCLG, are quite simply engaging in more cheating and are in fact in criminal law, engaged in simple self-enriching fraud amounting to several £Billion pounds over the preceding decades. • What is there difficult to understand about this issue? • Yet Wrack, Starbuck, and the English/Welsh FBU do not see that they have any particular duty of care to all those ‘out of trade’ Members across their part of the UK and whose subscriptions they seem happy to continue to take. What further embarrassment does it take to move them? More Scottish FBU 'out of trade' Members initiative and leadership? |
