• Retirement Allowance – More Theft ?

• Unlawful Deduction of Retirement Allowance;

• Hook onto FSV-RRB Guide Line;

• FSV-RRB Guide line to Retirement Allowance Bull’s Eye;

The current pension issue affects those FSV’s who have been in receipt of Reduced Earnings Income Allowance(REA); have now reached the age of 65; and have ceased any form of employment.

At this age point the FSV will automatically begin to receive Retirement Allowance(RA) as a replacement for REA from the DWP, which like REA is tax free. It is normally 25% of REA.

However, even though an FSV has reached the age of 65, and indicates to the DWP that he wishes to, and is continuing in employment for more than an average of 10 hours per week, the FSV can insist that he continues to receive REA which is annually reviewable by the DWP.

If refused, he can write and appeal, the Editor did, and succeeded.

REA is deductible from an Injury Award, provided the REA is being received as a direct consequence of the ‘qualifying’ injury.

It may well not have been. It may be unconnected with the injury, and may be being received because of the loss of a high salary appointment which includes Firefighter rank.

Interestingly the 1973 Pension Scheme( but not the ’92 Scheme) uses the word ‘proportionate’ but does not explain what this may mean?

For example, the London LFPA did not deduct REA from pensions for some considerable time  and then unilaterally decided without consultation, it could. The question which ought to have been addressed, at that time, was to the personal circumstance of every individual FSV and the reason why they were receiving REA in the first place; and whether or not, it was directly attributable to the ‘qualifying’ Injury.

If not, then it is not deductible from the Injury Award and reimbursement with compound interest should be sought by those whom have had this unlawful(unjust enrichment by the FA), deduction.

Next we turn to the unlawful deduction of Retirement Allowance from an Injury Award.

FAs in what is best described as ‘creeping deductions’ quietly decided to deduct Retirement Allowance from FSVs Injury Awards. Once more there has been no consultation except by FAs with the Firefighters Pension Team at the DCLG who issued a decision which the FAs promptly ignored but at a cost to disabled FSVs who then bore this unlawful deduction.

The legal position is unimpeachable.

There is no such Statutory provision in the ’92 Scheme which allows Fire Authorities to deduct RA from an Injury Award.

Many FAs including Lancashire and the London LFPA have been doing so without any lawful justification, other than self-enrichment.

Indeed to act so is simple criminal fraud on their part because they have a Statutory duty, as they regularly inform all FSVs in a punitive sense, to pay the correct pension. That being so they ought to heed this Statutory requirement and their own advice.

In Lancashire, the Fire Authority have been asked numerous times in writing to explain the ‘authority’(this is a legal term) which they are using for this act of self-enrichment.

In other words to publish the Judicial Decision; and/or the case law; or a legal Opinion(which is just that an opinion and thus open to legal challenge), which they are using to justify this deduction and self-enrichment.

Thus far they have ignored these letters, which speaks volumes, and because they know they cannot do so, to continue this deduction is simply a criminal act to defraud their disabled FSVs.

Supplementing these requests to identify their ‘authority’ the Bugler included FPS Guidance Note 4/2010 from the Firefighters Pension Team at the DCLG which categorically

states that RA is not to be deducted and the reasons in law(one supposes from the Treasury Solicitors Department) for not so doing. Go Here.

For FAs to continue to act to deduct this Allowance from disabled FSVs when they have had this issue brought to their attention and they have failed to provide legal justification for this self-enrichment act is to perpetrate a simple act of criminal fraud because there exists no justification in law and because they do so they expose themselves to exemplary damages in legal procedures for compensation.

No provision is included in SI129 which permits this deduction; no Judicial Decision has been made; and no case law established by the Supreme Court to allow Fire Authorities to make this deduction exists and thus in deducting this Retirement Allowance they are acting unlawfully.

All FSVs who are having RA deducted from their Injury Award should challenge(in writing) their Fire Authority to produce the actual legal ‘authority’ which allows them to do so and if the FA are unable to produce an ‘authority’ then they are acting in criminal fraud because they know they are acting unlawfully and are not entitled in law to make such a deduction.

All disabled FSVs should seek full reimbursement of their deducted RA and claim compound interest on the monies for the loss of amenity they have suffered as a consequence of their Fire Authority acting in Ultra Vires(beyond their powers).

No Fire Authority can limit this reimbursement by use of the Limitations Act 1980 (Go Here) because by their error and then wilfulness, after being informed.They have unjustly enriched themselves and furthermore they have done so in the clear knowledge, brought to their attention, that they were not permitted to do so in law and thus this is simply criminal fraud.

Make the case, seek reimbursement at 8% compound interest, and compensation for loss of amenity of the money you ought to have had. FAs would do it to you…

Yeomen of England – One of the Happy Few – arise Sir R.

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition:

And gentlemen in England now a-bed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon St.Crispin’s day…”

Aye, and what of those who today lie abed with their rascals,  ruffians, and camp followers, and disloyally fight against us on Red Rose Lancashire Day, the 27th November, those who do indeed hold their manhood cheap, what of them?

Disabled FSV-RRB is a proud Londoner whose Mother, a proud Ulsterwoman, was from the ‘Holy Land’ of Sandy Row in Belfast. There can be no more potent a loyal fighting force with such a bloodline.

In the company of this ‘happy band’ he, with thousands of other Firefighters, stood for 9 weeks through the Xmas of 1977 on the bleak streets to man the picket lines on their Fire Stations to build a new world, a new future, for the UK Fire Service which as usual their ‘Leaders’ failed to achieve; but as usual from which they would cynically take the pay benefits.

FSV-RRB has trenchant outspoken social views but cannot by any stretch of the imagination be described as a Socialist much as his opponents in the ‘establishment’ would like to label him so; nor can he be described as a right wing Conservative.

Like thousands of other Firefighters at a time when it mattered  he had a vocation to care, firstly for his children and family, secondly the wider public whom he came in contact with during his daily Service, and thirdly those whom he would meet only once in a lifetime, in his international voluntary work.

Greater love hath no Man…

In the early 80’s Lancashire County Fire Brigade led the world’s Fire Services in offering international succour and compassion. Indeed in 1980 the UK was the first nation state in Europe to send a direct assistance mission to another EU State, to the Italian Earthquake, with the unswerving support and cooperation of the brothers of the French and Italian Fire Services.

In late 1988 the Brigade sent its second international mission into the field, to a devastating earthquake in Armenia-at that time-a Republic under the old Soviet system. Once more in brotherly cooperation with the Russian, Polish, and Armenian Fire Services.

FSV-RRB was an early volunteer for this operation and was subsequently decorated by the Soviet Fire Service as a member of the mission team. He and other Lancashire Firefighters brought great distinction to Lancashire County Fire Brigade and raised it to the Pantheon of UK Fire Service Heroes.

The good name and reputation of Lancashire County Fire Brigade was built upon such Yeomen of England.

FSV-RRB served honourably in the Fire Service until injured and was compulsorily medically retired 20 years ago this month.

From the outset in 2007 disabled FSV-RRB has been deeply involved in this Lancashire pension dispute though not at first directly involving himself.

He it was who stepped up to the mark at the very beginning with the Editor to man the picket line at LFRS Service HQ to register his disgust at these establishment ‘Pension Muggers’ and their bullying attitudes to those who ought to have been receiving compassionate pastoral care, a care and respect which they had earned.

This picket action, as might be expected, from that moment forward(allied with personal circumstances over which he had no control) made him a marked man whom the ‘establishment’ would succeed in bringing ‘down, but not out’ to where he is today virtually homeless as an itinerant refugee living with friends and relatives, but continuing in self-respect and pride, to insist he pays his way.

Because he was, and is, a ‘marked’ man these deviants continued to use all in their malignant power to reduce him to penury and in March 2008 the first threats began. Go Here.

In March 2009 it was time to tighten the screws on his income once more and the mailed fist within the velvet glove was applied. Go Here.

In the interim in November 2010 the LFRS  continued to refuse him access to his Personal Record Files(PRF) so that he might check and compute the accuracy of his own pensions income.

The LFRS, aided and abetted, by an abysmal Information Commissioner who since FSV-RRB  made application for his PRF through him in November 2010 have not only lost his entire correspondence with them but who are now asking him if he retained his correspondence with them and theirs with him and ,if so, could he supply it to them!

Go Here.

It is little wonder given the appallingly lackadaisical and institutionalised incompetence by the ICO and his staff  that they cannot find anything but their own pay slips!

When FSV-RRB turned 65 years of age his Tax free Reduced Earnings Income Allowance(REA) was changed to Retirement Allowance(RA) which is a mere 25% of REA further reducing his already meagre income.

The greatest irony is that the Bugler and its barrister Mr J.M. Coppleston-Bruce have now discovered that disabled FSV-RRB has been underpaid the wrong pension for the past 20 years…

Not satisfied with this imposed penury Wisdom, the Case Work Supervisor at the LCC Pensions Services, and so called LFRS pension ‘expert’(an expert with not a single qualification to her name) decided to deduct RA from his Injury Award which poses the question how can you deduct RA from nothing?

Following research, a DCLG Circular to the Fire Service was identified which stated in 2010 that RA is not deductible from an Injury Award and its legal advice to Fire Authorities could not be more plain, in plain English, and on the 27^th May 2014 a copy was sent by email to the LCC Pensions Services pointing out that RA ought not to be deducted, but still Wisdom et al failed to act. Was this simply spite?  Go here.

On the 17^th January 2014 following enquiries from  FSV-RRB the following reply was received. Go here.

On the 5^th February 2014 disabled FSV-RRB wrote to the Chief Fire Officer and the usual collective falsehood commenced in conjunction with Lister and her staff, Wisdom, Ainsworth, and Mackie.

The question was simple enough, even for them. On what written ‘authority’ was RA being deducted from disabled FSV-RRB Injury Award? Please supply a copy. Go Here.

Once more each is pointing the finger at the other stating it was ‘they’ who took the decision but in fact as usual it was

Wisdom who engaged in falsehood. It was she who took the initial decision to deduct because she was the ‘expert’ and she could make up or ignore any law when it suited her professional ignorance on all matters pension.

The following email makes the point of who was actually the original decision maker in this matter and it was indeed Wisdom, though now it suits her in a continuing tissue of falsehood to ‘encourage’ her Caseworkers to believe that it was the LFRS. Go here.

In contrast the Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Service following the advice and guidance of the Firefighters Pension Team at the CLG quite properly do not deduct RA from an Injury Award. Furthermore they confirm the correct position and if the NIFRS can get this matter right as opposed to ‘Wisdom’s Law’ at the LFRS/LCC Pensions Services why cannot they? Go Here.

Because all those involved were privy to the exchange of correspondence and  no one involved was prepared to be truthful or transparent and furthermore no one was prepared to produce legal ‘authority’ for this deduction it is an easy conclusion to reach that no actual ‘authority’ actually exists.

That being so, to continue to deduct this RA from FSV-RRB pension or any other FSV, in the knowledge that they all possess, this chain of administrators including Lister, Wisdom, Mackie, Ainsworth, Hutchinson, Hamilton, and Warren are all complicit in a case of  individual and collective criminal fraud and because of their actions they are all both individually and severally liable in criminal law for acting fraudulently.

To advance this question of criminal law to the Court of the Pensions Ombudsman disabled FSV-RRB decided to invoke the LFRS Internal Dispute Resolution Procedure (IDRP). This procedure is now elucidated. Go here.

It is important to note that the Pensions Ombudsman requires the exhaustion of Stages I & II before he will consider any formal Complaint.

At this point other FSVs so minded who find that their RA has been deducted from their Injury Award and that no satisfactory explanation, or a copy of their ‘authority’ for so doing, is  forthcoming from their Fire Authority, should hook themselves onto FSV-RRB guide line and follow his pathfinder actions to a bullseye common solution.

Those having exhausted an informal approach without success should write(always in writing) and ask, at this early stage, for both the Stage I and Stage II Application forms which their Fire Authority have a statutory duty to supply without delay.

The point, if not already obvious, is that the Fire Authority are enriching themselves by yet another fraudulent act and there is only one pocket that this money belongs in which is the FSVs’ , their Widows, and their beneficiaries.

On the 1^st September 2014 FSV-RRB sent a final request for a copy of the ‘authority’ that both the LCC PS and the LFRS were using for this deduction. He received no replies.

On the 5^th September 2014 FSV-RRB sent a Stage I IDRP Application to the LFRS by email with an automated read response certificate. In addition he hand delivered his application for the attention of named persons, in this case Hamilton, the deputy Pension Scheme Manager, and Warren the Scheme manager. Finally he sought and retained a timed receipt for his documents. Go here.

It is extremely important to follow this private procedure, though Recorded Delivery would also suffice.

The Fire Authority have a Statutory duty to acknowledge receipt and within 2 calendar months the Chief Fire Officer(for Stage I) must issue a detailed legal response, positive or negative. If in the negative then a dissatisfied FSV-RRB is entitled to immediately initiate Stage II.

When this period expired and FSV-RRB  had not received a response he raised the matter with Hutchinson(the HR Office Manager under Hamilton) who also deals with pension enquiries.

She stated in two direct falsehoods that the LFRS had either not received FSV-RRB Stage I Application, or had lost it.

Accordingly FSV-RRB requested her to send him an Application for Stage II though after several follow up calls nothing happened.

In parallel FSV-RRB, unknown to Hutchinson, requested the Stage II Application Form from the Lister et al at the LCC Pensions Services-County Hall.

On Monday 17^th November 2014 at approximately 17:30 hrs the Editor of the Bugler received a call from LCC Pensions Services for FSV-RRB who was not present at that time. The female caller said it was concerning Application forms and stated that she would contact FSV-RRB on his mobile.

At 14:00hrs on Tuesday 18^th November 2014 the Editor called at County Hall to pick up the Stage II Application forms for FSV-RRB.

Reception had difficulty in contacting the in-house Pensions Services department which is not surprising even though there are only 65 ‘experts’ employed on the Taxpayers pay roll.

At 14:25hrs the Editor received a call at reception from the Pensions Department asking was he still present and indicating that they were having difficulty in finding the correct Form.

At 15:00hrs Ms. Hunt arrived in reception from the  Pensions Department with an apology and explanation why it had taken 1 hour to deliver these forms. She stated(and no fault can be attached to her) that she was tasked with, for some curious reason, delivering these forms even though she did not work in the ‘Fire’ section within the department and the reason it had taken this inordinate amount of time was because the forms had to be faxed over from, none other than Hutchinson at the LFRS SHQ!

On the 22^nd August 2013 Warren interestingly wrote this…

 “If however you disagree please note that the IDRP is a separate process requiring a special application form to be submitted which must be obtained from Your Pension Service and returned to them at the address below.

Your Pension Service PO Box 100…

I trust that you find this of assistance.”

One supposes that it was intended that a little smirky jaunt around the ‘stonewalls’ would do the Bugler’s health some good. Yet another example of  the habitual liar Warren at work…there will be more…and more…

The Reader of the Stage II Application ought to identify and satisfy himself that deliberate deceit and cover up by Hutchinson occurred after studying the timeline of events which are contained within FSV-RRB Stage II Application. Go Here.

The Combined Fire Authority have now 2 months to have this presented to them for a decision, if of course, it gets past Winterbottom’s interference in the Statutory and Democratic process.

Clearly this is yet another trail of falsehood upon falsehood as the collective integrity of the management of the LFRS collapses totally. This is the natural consequences of spinning a web of lies and deceit by all those involved, only to be caught up in it themselves.

One wonders if the elected Members of the CFA have sufficient collective wit to arrive at the natural conclusions they ought to and to take the necessary investigative action which they ought to have done years ago before CLG Secretary of State Pickles does it for them?

To paraphrase Warren’s threat from Judge Butler to the Editor these employees should ‘have a care’ about their own employment and their unsecured pensions, including Hamilton, Warren, Gardiner and others…

In laying his guide line through the smoke and mirrors of LFRS and other Fire Authorities deceit disabled FSV-RRB has reached one of his two bulls eyes, the Retirement Allowance.

His research has uncovered a ‘Review’ document by the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority entitled ‘Injury Awards Verification Exercise’ date 16^th July 2012 which was reported to the Audit Committee of the LFEEPA in September 2012.

This must surely make an interesting read for the moribund Chair, CC De Molfetta, and Members of the Lancashire Combined Fire Authority who unlike their counterparts in London(the largest Fire Service pension providers in the UK) were not prepared to hold up their hands and acknowledge their Fire Service pension management melt down for which their Warren is directly responsible.

In fact they took a particularly savage delight in scandalously punishing their disabled FSVs, Widows, and families for the maladministrative mistakes that the LFRS and their pension contractor the LCC Pensions Services had made by putting them down Warren’s ‘Hardship Route’ as he described it.

Misguided fools is a charitable description for these Councillors though it is clear in hindsight that they were made fools of by their clerk Winterbottom, CFO Holland, and Warren in particular.

But how do Councillors get to know if they do not know?

The first rule for Councillors is not to get too close to the ‘officers’ in this case the LFRS; the second rule is not necessarily to believe all that they have been told by them; and the third rule is to continually ask scrutinising questions which one assumes was what they were elected by the Taxpayers of Lancashire and elsewhere to do?

So where does that leave disabled FSV-RRB?

In the first instance Warren at the LFRS should learn to disregard the ‘expert’ advice of Lister and Wisdom at the LCC Pensions Services because to put it simply they do not know  a bee from a bull’s foot as the Bugler has repeatedly recorded.

In the second instance Warren has now had placed before him, incontrovertible legal Opinions(Two Senior Counsels in London) that he was, and is wrong, to deduct Retirement Allowance from all those over 65 years of age FSV’s in Lancashire who are entitled to this DWP benefit.

Disabled FSV-MM whose Widow(and other Widows) will now become the beneficiary of Warren’s mistakes during FSV-MM lifetime when Warren insisted against the evidence of a produced CLG circular of non-deduction that FSV-MM

must pay back a substantial amount of monies alleging that disabled FSV-MM, RA had not been properly deducted.

Now is that not an interesting situation for Warren and the Fire Authority? How many others are there in Lancashire and throughout the UK?

In the third instance Warren must now like London, using them as his ‘guiding principle’, without employing his infamous delaying tactics put all these Injury Award deductions immediately back into correct payment which includes the period of the lifetime of the Injury Award during which RA was  unlawfully deducted and now must be repaid to the disabled FSVs.

However, unlike London, Warren and the Lancashire Combined Fire Authority must include in their calculations the addition of 8% compound interest because this self-enriching mistake under the Limitation Act 1980 requires them to do so.

The Bugler also reminds him that the previous decision by the CFA not to pay interest in over and under payments was quite simply unlawful and ultra vires and is of no account when recalculating these repayments due to disabled FSVs who by his and their Fire Authority’s error they have short changed.

Mr. Warren needs reminding that should he fail to take immediate corrective action in the knowledge that disabled FSV-RRB and the Bugler has supplied him with he will be acting in malfeasance as the pension Scheme manager and in addition he will be acting in both an individual and corporate sense fraudulently and so will automatically expose the CFA to exemplary damages should any disabled FSV be minded to pursue him and the Lancashire Combined Fire Authority.

Those disabled FSVs UK wide who have had, and are having, their RA unlawfully deducted from their Injury Award should take the immediate appropriate steps to have their Injury Award checked and corrected and should insist on immediate repayment of monies deducted from them with the addition of 8% compound interest.

Of course any liability for payment will fall directly on the appropriate Fire Authority because Injury Awards are carried in payments directly from the FAs budgetary reserves.

Once more the Bugler is grateful to Mr. Warren(LFRS), Mrs. Lister and Ms. Wisdom(LCC PS) for drawing this matter to the disabled FSVs of Lancashire’s attention.

For the full Report. Go here.