• LPFA – The Bully Boys are back;

• The Bullying Letter ;

• The Law;

•  The Consequences of Thuggery.

Dear Reader,

In reality they never actually went away, but here they come again with their ‘experts’ homespun ideas of what applicable pension laws ought to be as opposed to what they actually are.

In the 8 years which have passed since the major pension dispute arose,  and continues in Lancashire, these pension ‘experts’ nationwide who are actually just unqualified filing clerks and lay-persons, who continue to educate themselves on the job by still continuing to use the ‘monkey see, monkey do’ principle in adopting as Gospel Law, anecdotal ideas and practices passed on from hand to hand over their secret intranet; practices which actually bear no relationship to current pension law, or reality.

But as ever again following the ‘principle’ that as the ‘gangmaster’ they think they can do what they like, ‘I will because I can’, once more we see this pathetic muscle flexing which could better be described as the Gospel of Failure according to Lancashire…

Recently Scheme Members in London have received a standard bullying letter from their Scheme managers, the London Pension Fund Authority(LPFA), in respect of Injury pensions.

Before we analyse this creative piece of unsubtle tripe let us pause for a moment to consider the negative impact this will have  with Scheme members and their future distrustful relationship with their pension providers at the LPFA.

The LPFA are really not that bright nor forward thinking.

The tone of this offensive letter from beginning to end is intended to intimidate and whilst the LPFA and other Schemes might have got away with this once with Firefighters, Widows, and Beneficiaries they are unlikely to get away with it the second time around the houses particularly in the present unstable political climate where clearly the ‘natives are restless’ and care not who knows it.

Very recently ‘We the People’, for good or ill, flexed their muscles and the LPFA might be well advised to heed this example.

We The People are not here to serve the government, politicians, or kindred bureaucracies like the LPFA. They are here to serve us because in will and in deed, ‘We are the People’.

Bureaucracies such as the LPFA seem to have boundless arrogance which knows no boundaries and it seems that We the People are going to have to teach them both subordination, accountability, and plain good manners.

Who do they think they are talking to?

The LPFA’s logo confirms their egocentric  unscaleable arrogance… ‘Your pension Our world’.

Really?

A  douche of reality is needed to correct their vision of our ‘world’.  Their ‘world’ only exists because ‘We the People’ exist. We it was who for generations stood on the mean streets doing our duty and acting responsible by paying for our pensions in the ways only we individually will ever know, with blood, sweat, and tears.

Had ‘We the People’ not done so then the LPFA would not exist nor would it employ arrogant filing clerks who have risen well above the level of their own incompetence who have decided on this second occasion that they think they are still powerful enough to have control over what we, their masters, choose to do.

We the People need to disavow them of this notion of unlimited powers with a further plain English lesson in law, honesty, and good manners.

1. “LFEPA as part of the National Fraud Initiative is required to verify that the correct level of injury pension is being paid and the appropriate deduction for any relevant state benefit being received is being deducted from your pension.”.

This is a misleading  falsehood. The LPFA is not ‘part’ of the NFI. It is subject to examination by the NFI which is ‘part’ of the Audit Commission and about which the Bugler has written before. Go Here.

What the LPFA fails to state is that far from identifying so called fraudsters, meaning one presumes FSVs, an example of which has  yet to be located and published, the statistics of  mis-matches(meaning errors) between the NFI records and the LPFA records simply confirms, repeatedly every 2 years, the appalling maladministrative  record of the targeted Pension Scheme, in this case the LPFA.

Naturally this maladministration is all the fault of the FSVs, not these filing clerks who are handsomely paid to supervise and be responsible for such failed accountancy.

2. “Accordingly we would be grateful if you could complete and return the attached declaration form regarding any relevant payments you are currently receiving from the Department of Works and Pensions (DWP). This will enable your pension record to be verified with data supplied by the DWP and the National Fraud data return to be completed.”.

This is more deceitful sleight of hand because if the LPFA had been maintaining an individual’s pension records effectively and efficiently, which is their Statutory compliance duty, why have mismatches occurred in the first place and in the second place why is it  necessary for an unpaid  pension Scheme Member to do their job for them?

3. Now for the big stick bullying and the blanket threat,  bearing in mind a Widow might receive this in her old age and be terrorised by it , which is the deliberate intention, even though she has… “no entitlement to relevant benefits at present.”.

“It is very important you complete and return the form, even if you have no entitlement to relevant benefits at present. Failure to do so may regrettably lead to a suspension of future payments of your injury pension until your record has been verified. If we do not receive a reply from within 28 days your injury pension may be subject to suspension in part or full.”.

There is no such legal word as ‘suspension’ in the 1992 Statutory Instrument No.129. This is simply unbridled thuggery which they think they can get away with as they attempt to force Scheme Members or their Beneficiaries to do their job for them whilst making up the law to suit their lazy purposes.

4. Next comes the sweet carrot…

“Your co-operation in completing the form and its prompt return would be greatly appreciated as this will reduce any prospect of suspension of pensions and will reduce the need for further correspondence. We hope the Fact Sheet attached answers all your queries however please feel free to call us if you require any assistance.

5.Time now to cut through this unsavoury hooliganism with an ice cold bucket of reality called the law.

1. It is the Statutory duty of the LPFA to pay the correct pension due to Members of their Pension Scheme.

2. To discharge its Statutory duty the LFB must lawfully obtain the necessary information to calculate the correct pension(s).

3. Under Rule L3 the payment of a pension may be “delayed”, note the word – not ‘supended’ until the entitlement is established.

The word“delayed” cannot be interpreted to mean delayed indefinitely; nor to fail to pay a pension indefinitely; nor does it give the LPFA a Statutory, or any right in law, to engage in intimidation or bullying threats to support a failure to pay in order to obtain, by force, the necessary information from a Scheme Member; nor is there a legal definition for ‘delayed’ in terms of time, which makes such an action, over an extended time period, open to justification in law by the LPFA and thus Judicial Review; and consequential litigation involving a Scheme Member or Members should they choose individually or collectively to take such a class action against the LPFA in retribution for loss of amenity(money) with compound interest.

4. The legitimate delaying of payment to prove entitlement was clearly intended for simple circumstances where, for example, discussions were being held in goodwill with a Scheme Member or where, for example, as quoted in the Home Office Commentary Page L3-3 2* … “ it is as well to remember that there may be a delay in putting awards into payment, where your fire authority needs to obtain information , eg from DSS”…

This wording confirms that prior to the 1998 DPAct enactment it could do so without recourse to the Scheme Member but in practice clearly not after 1998.

5. Prior to the 1998 Data Protection Act the LPFA failed to anticipate and secure the necessary legal gateways which they had previously used legally prior to 1998 to access Members benefit information held by the DSS(DWP).

6. After the 1998 DPA enactment it became unlawful for anyone including the LPFA  to attempt to obtain such information(subject data) from the DWP and the LPFA’s failure to secure these necessary legal gateways eventually dawned on them with the advent of the Lancashire dispute but the legal responsibility for and the legal consequences of this failure continues to remain entirely with the LPFA to this day because the UK Fire Authorities have not made the slightest attempt to have the 1998 DPAct amended to provide the legalised gateways they require to function within the law.

7. Rightly, the current DWP policy in compliance with the 1998 DPAct will not allow the release of individual ‘subject data’ unless forced to comply with an individual Court Order for Disclosure.

8. Thus the LFB has the Statutory duty to pay the correct pension due to Members of their Pension Scheme and if it fails to legally obtain the correct information then the legal responsibility for its failure, in effect maladministration, rests entirely with the LFB not the Scheme Members.

9. There is no Statutory duty for Members to assist in any manner in the administration of their Scheme nor are they paid to administer in part or in whole such a Scheme regardless or not even though such a duty was implied upon them in any manner prior to or at the point of their discharge in a so called moral imperative(what would the likes of the LPFA know about corporate morality?).

In an interesting footnote the LPFA uses the phrase… “it is your duty”…on what basis in retirement you might ask? There is no such duty, legal or otherwise, nor moral imperative to assist the LPFA in any manner, shape, or form if you choose not to do so.

1. Should all the Scheme Members refuse to provide or withhold, whether positively or negatively, any of their DWP ‘subject data’ information which is their whimsy and which they are lawfully entitled to do, then in each and every individual case, and on every occasion that the LPFA requires such information, then the LPFA must persuade a Court of the legitimacy of its intent before an Order for Disclosure is made against the DWP for it to release an individual’s ‘subject data’ without an individual’s written and signed authority to do so.

2. In so doing the LPFA must bear the costs of such a legal action a fact which was borne out in Lancashire when the Bugler failed to yield to such thuggery and because the DWP refused to release his subject data the LFRS was eventually forced to seek a Court Order for Disclosure, ex parte(without the presence of the Bugler), which it was successful in so doing but it had to bear all the Court and administrative costs.

3. The LPFA should learn from such lessons that if it continues down the path of lawless threatening thuggery and , for example, its 10,000 FSVs take umbrage and refuse to divulge their DWP subject data then the LPFA will have no other option but to seek 10,000 individual Court Orders for Discovery at no cost to the Scheme Members but at incalculable cost to the LPFA.

On top of which it will bear the costs of most certainly losing a Judicial Review which does not look at the rights or wrongs of an issue but whether or not the law has been used or misused by the Fire Authority in its pension management.

4. It will pay the LPFA to be polite and civilised and to seek goodwill and cooperation from its Scheme Members(its employers) and the LPFA should withdraw these unnecessarily uncouth, intimidating, and hostile letters, apologise, tone down its rhetoric whilst increasing its civility to its Scheme Members all the while remembering that they are the servants of We the People who in this case are its Pension Scheme Members.