This Volume at a Glance :

• Disabled FSV-RT – Ploughing the Lone Furrow in his LFB Pension Labyrinth;

• Disabled FSV-RT – A brief history of this dispute;

• The Progenisus of IDRP;

• A Man called Semper Fidelis;

• The Case of the 'Independent Advisor'(from Lancashire)

• Disabled FSV-RT – Wins His Pension Case Against the LFB:

♦ The Rabbit and the Top Hat;

♦ Pension Scheme Manager?;

♦ IDRP – Stage II White Wash;

♦ When in a Hole?

♦ The Pension Ombudsman's Court;

♦ The Penultimate Analyses;

♦ The Next Question?

Are you being paid the correct pension since it commenced?

This will be a particularly interesting article for all LFB FSVs though it has national implications, as ever…

For some considerable time now the Bugler has been engaged in supporting disabled FSV-RT from the mighty London Fire Engine Establishment its original title-and its correct historical title-back to the time of Captain Sir Eyre Massey-Shaw KCB(A Cork man from Ireland) which with time became the Metropolitan Fire Brigade and then the London Fire Brigade, whilst ignoring the latter day flowery nonsense of ‘civil defence’ where ever that may have come from?

The detail of FSV-RT's years long pension battle need not concern us here for the moment suffice it to say that it involves the usual misapplication of dual standards, failure of duty of care, discrimination, and a clear case of miscarriage of Justice.

Now there is a surprise…

However using the resources and knowledge base of the Morning Bugler FSV-RT is currently forcing the LFB to use the current and established nationally agreed IDRP(DCLG Circular 1/2009) in pursuit of his pension justice.

Briefly, it should be remembered that the spirits of natural justice and fair play were deliberately enshrined in the legislatively based(Pensions Act 1995) Fire Service Two Stage IDRP because most IDRP's only operate a single Stage.

Stage I allowed the Brigade to re-examine its actions in respect of receipt of a formal  pension Complaint and in Stage II, when unresolved, the Brigade had the Complaint removed from their control and the Complaint was then, in theory, placed by the Service before their independent, objectively minded, Elected Members.

As the High Court puts it where such matters are concerned, those so engaged must approach the Complaint ‘with a clear mind’...

It is refreshing to note that the London FBU has finally engaged in this struggle on behalf of an Out of Trade Member, albeit that their enthusiasm is rather lukewarm(except when it comes to collecting their dues) but do not hold your breath where the FBU National Pension person(Starbuck) is concerned.

The FBU, one assumes, perceives an abuse of natural justice and judicial process and because it raises the further major question of when is a National Pension Agreement, the product of the Firefighters National Pension Committee, not an Agreement, and how many miscarriages of justice have occurred under Stage II simply because the  LFB decided unilaterally to run it very own version of IDRP since 2007 ?

This rather strange tale which is emerging into the light of scrutiny may well  have led to a failure of duty of care and a denial of fundamental justice for hundreds of LFB FSVs who have attempted and failed in the use of the LFB pension IDRProcedures since 2007 because the scales of justices had been deliberately weighted against them.

As a consequence of disabled FSV-RT’s determination he has discovered that the LFB are a law unto themselves where  IDR Procedures are concerned and from this seamy background a rather intriguing state of affairs is emerging presided over once more by ‘make-it-up-as-you-go-along-pension experts’.

Put as succinctly as possible the Morning Bugler will look at what the LFB management in conjunction with its Pensions department have been surreptitiously getting up to.

But first we must look at how the remainder of the UK have been doing it -mostly- correctly and how and why the LFB advantaged itself whilst furtively disenfranchising their own FSVs of their legal rights in respect of pension disputes and its supposed IDR Procedures.

First a snap shot of IDRP in 2008 but this intriguing affair also requires a potted history back to 1995 whilst bearing in mind that disabled FSV-RT’s pension battle commenced in 2010 but for the moment visit Library year 1995 for IDRP. Go Here.

At the beginning of this dispute in 2010 FSV-RT challenged the efficiency, accuracy, and the veracity of his pension department version of events when they first began rattling their sabres which then led to them making a wide ranging series of unsubstantiated allegations from an equally wide ranging number of ever changing staff with long periods of inactivity and incompetence in between.

Including the claim that he had been ‘overpaid’ to the sum of £120k.

All of which was painted against the usual background of these ‘experts’  versions of the pension law, supported as usual by unsubstantiated assertions, leading to institutionalised intimidation, bullying, good name smearing and of course, threats to issue proceedings, etc, etc.

All par for the course for unqualified pension ‘expert’ staff which the LFB seem, in keeping with all other Fire Authorities, to employ.

Eventually FSV-RT sought knowledge from the Morning Bugler website which led him in conjunction with the Bugler to use the existing LFB IDR Procedures with the intention ultimately of placing his dispute for resolution before the Pensions Ombudsman whilst drawing the attention of Pensions Regulator to obvious institutionalised contraventions of Pension Schemes laws and their regular maladministration by the LFB Pensions department.

It was at this point that the LFB re-engaged properly and it was after the completion of the Stage I procedure(of which more later) and whilst proceeding to a proposed Stage II that FSV-RT discovered that the LFB proposal for the creation of a Stage II adjudicating panel was not only in breach of the national FS Agreement on IDRP, to which the LFB was a co-signatory, but which was also in breach

of the guidance of the DCLG Chaired Firefighters Pension Committee which had jointly with the DCLG issued new guidance on IDRP in DCLG Circular 1/2009. Visit Bugler Library Year 2008 Go Here.

This in fact made the proposed Stage II panel unconstitutional but in retrospection also revealed that since 2007 the LFB, acting unilaterally with its own mutant IDRP, appears to have  deliberately denied its duty of care to its pensioners which has led to denials of human rights, miscarriages of justice, and discrimination against those FSVs who had attempted to use the IDRP provisions since 2007.

All of which were eventually reported and confirmed in the LFB’s own report of 2012 which published the disastrous state that its pension department management was in and which led to the writing off of over £6.12 mil in losses. Facts which have already been reported in the Bugler. Visit the Bugler Library Year 2012 Go Here.

Investigation of this odd mutant LFB IDRP exposes quite a fascinating and arbitrary abuse of power by LFB employees in their pension department in which those involved in 2007 deliberately misled their politicians to seize power and disenfranchise their FSVs of their pension complaint procedures and manipulatively place the whole IDRP procedure under their autocratic and unaccountable power to quash any pension complaints as they arose.

Next it is important to see how the IDRP ought to have worked within the LFB and how it was manipulated by the malignant opportunism of power hungry pension ‘experts’ simply to make their life easier by denying LFB  pension Complainants the LFB’s duty of care,  their basic human rights, and Justice.

It is important at this stage to view the historical legislative background to this dispute to understand the evolutionary process which has for the moment concluded with the issuance of DCLG Circular 1/2009.

For all the relevant documents first go the the Bugler Library Year 1995; 2008. Go Here.

The progenisus of IDRP started with Section 50 of the Pensions Act 1995. This enacted the general requirement for IDRP for all pension schemes including of course the Fire Service Pension Scheme(FPS).

The actual practical detail was a regulatory provision placed on Scheme managers in conjunction with Members and their FS Representatives during which they all agreed the common detail of practices, but this exercise was a legal requirement, not a suggestion.

Although the initial provision was for a Single Stage dispute procedure to fulfil the legal requirement there is, with most law and by common agreement, a facility which  recognises that by voluntary common  agreement the requirements of the law can be enhanced(never reduced) to suit the purposes of a user group and thus it was agreed by the Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council(CFBAC) that the Fire Service would use a Two Stage procedure.

This national consensus also reflected  the additional legislation of the Occupational Pension Schemes (Internal Disputes Resolution Procedures) Regulations 1996 (SI 1996 No 1270) and in October 1996, a CFBAC Joint Pension Committee Working Party was set up to decide and recommend how fire authorities should comply with these IDRP Regulations. 

The recommendations which were agreed between the employer’s side and trade union representatives which recognised natural justice were issued in Home Office Fire Service Circular 2/1997 which was for a Two Stage procedure with Stage II adjudicated on by Elected Members of the Fire Authority – not- by definition- employees.

So at that point in 1997 the LFB, a member of the CFBAC, implemented FSC 2/1997 for its IDRP.

However 10 years later in 2007 the LFB for reasons which will presented here the LFB decided to act unilaterally and commenced using a mutant version of FSC 2/1997 which effectively dismissed the use of independent Elected Members at Stage II whilst surreptitiously retaining total control of the IDRP and de facto any results from the use of  IDRP by an individual pensioner applicant.

Elsewhere this is generally known as disenfranchisement and fraud.

Although in 2012 the Elected Members added a codicil to this unilateral change which required the involvement of a specialist pension expert(wherever that might be found?) when the recovery of maladministered ‘overpayments’ was to be contemplated.

A codicil which of course the LFB pension ‘experts’ promptly chose to ignore until challenged by FSV-RT.

But they were not alone in this respect when the ‘overpayments’ scandal broke out nationwide in 2007 and in particular these ‘experts’ immediately geared up to protect themselves from direct criticism of their collective maladministration; maladministration which was first recognised in the LFB’s own report of 2012  and which has secondly, and more importantly, finally been recognised by the new Pensions Ombudsman Arter in 2015 who determined and blandly stated, quite correctly, in a ‘hen and egg’ situation, that without maladministration there can be no ‘overpayments’.

Recovery of actual ‘overpayments’ under the Limitations Act 1980 is an entirely different matter in law.

In Lancashire, in the LFRS, this self-protection involved clerk Warren as Scheme manager setting up a sub-committee of the Combined Fire Authority on which  4 County Councillors

sat, who must remain anonymous because even under a FOI request, which of course Warren ignored, he refused to name these Councillors, but who gave reassurances to their disabled FSVs that no ‘overpayment’ monies would be recovered without their specific approval and because clerk Warren never placed a case before them they never adjudicated on a single one !

Meanwhile in the LFB until 2007, consideration of IDRP applications relating to the FPS, using the accepted IDRP, were undertaken by the Commissioner or his nominated representative at Stage I, and by the Disciplinary Appeals Committee at Stage II, which of course directly involved Elected Members.

On 21^st  September 2007, the LFB  Authority received a report from the Head of Human Resources (FEP 1091) which, amongst other things, noted that :-

‘With the subsequent repeal of the Fire Services (Discipline) Regulations 1985, this Authority has amended the terms of reference of the Disciplinary Appeals Committee so that it no longer deals with individual staffing matters e.g. in relation to disciplinary appeals. Officers now deal with disciplinary appeals.’

This of course is another forgotten abuse of human rights coupled with a denial of justice by reason of lack of independent scrutiny of discipline cases.

A proposal which had been smugly slipped before bovine Councillors and then whipped away with their approval before they realised they were being tricked and misled yet again.

Not that they would generally care in any event.

One must assume that having got away with this abuse of human rights coupled with a denial of justice abuse once that they would try it again over the matter of their maladministration and ‘overpayments’ only this time used to directly protect these pension ‘experts’ from criticism of their maladministration.

The Authority approved the report’s unconstitutional recommendations that delegated authority be given to the Heads of Human Resources and Finance(employees) to determine Stage I appeals, and for the Director of Finance(employee) to determine Stage II appeals.

All very neat though deceitful and of course erosive of civil liberties, and with the recovery of monies from disenfranchised FSVs completely and knowingly criminally fraudulent.

For the LFB report Go Here.

In 2008/9 the DCLG Chaired Firefighters Pension Committee(of which the LFB is a member) set about clarifying the legal position in respect of IDRP from its enactment in the 1995 Pensions Act  which concluded with the issuance of DCLG Circular 1/2009 which unequivocally still required that Stage II be adjudicated on by Elected Members which ran directly contrary to the mutant unconstitutional  IDRP which the LFB had been illicitly practising since 2007 and which will have undoubtedly have been used by countless numbers of London FSVs to their personal financial detriment.

The scandal was that the LFB in fraudulently gerrymandering this unconstitutional situation had in effect 'packed the judge and jury' in its favour.

A 'judge and jury' which with time and rote will have denied culpability for every single one of their 'errors' and when challenged grotesquely deciding that there was no error; aka Nelson ‘I see no ships’  with the consequence that they denied justice to every single applicant under IDRP since 2007.

There is little doubt that not a single dispute will ever have made it to the Pensions Ombudsman scrutiny and a simple search of the PO’s archives will indubitably confirm this position…

In 2015 after fighting his dispute alone through many dark years even though he is an Out of Trade Member, without FBU support FSV-RT decided to use and exhaust the IDRP(usually a requirement of the Pensions Ombudsman) before eventually taking his dispute to PO Arter and to The Pensions Regulator, the latter for identified failures to manage disabled FSV-RT’s Pension Scheme records properly; to respond promptly to his queries; and for non-compliance with the relevant pensions law affecting his Scheme membership.

So having implemented Stage I and eventually having received an unsatisfactory response which did not include an independent overview by a pension ‘expert’ as required by Elected Members following the London pension report(debacle) of 2012, FSV-RT decided to use his entitlement to take his dispute to Stage II.

It was whilst exercising his entitlement to take his dispute to Stage II and whilst  preparing and submitting his documentation that he discovered that it was proposed by the LFB that it would assemble an adjudication panel consisting of LFB employees-the title and rank need not concern us here – suffice it to say that it was proposed to use LFB employees again at the Stage II level –  and in all likelihood the very same employees who had adjudicated on his Stage I ?

It seems that in keeping with clerk Warren of the LFRS they also have a rather warped vision on how natural and lawful justice is meant to work.

Disabled FSV-RT challenged this proposal on the basis that he would be disenfranchised of natural justice and the objectivity of ‘clear minded ‘ Elected Members being asked to adjudicate fairly on his dispute by the proposal that the LFB  would continue to ignore not only the original 1995/6 enactments but in particular DCLG Circular 1/2009 to which they were  co-signatories.

The newly appointed Ms Yvonne McKenna Solicitor, Head of Employment and Litigation, Legal and Democratic Services responded promptly with a summary of the situation as she saw it, omitting in an oversight, to comment on the codicil aspect which Elected Members had insisted on  in 2012 when dealing with disputes involving so called ‘overpayments’ though in this complex dispute this was but one of many aspects of disabled FSV-RT dispute.

It now remains to be seen how this dispute can be rapidly resolved given the recent surprising LFB u-turn coupled with a 'new' transparency which disabled FSV-RT is being treated with contrary to a continuously troubling dispute with its perpetual undercurrents of human rights erosion, denials of natural and actual justice, and the complete failure of duty of care and shameful lack of pastoral care to a Firefighter who served his London community with care, commitment, and distinction.

But is this a 'Greek bearing gifts'?

For Ms.McKenna's letter and the ensuing correspondence. Go Here.

Update 28th January 2016:

Ms.Y.McKenna has provided unsolicited clarification indicating that disabled FSV-RT's Stage I  decision will not be reviewed in fact it will be scrapped and an entirely new Stage I Hearing will take place which will include the receipt of advice from an 'independent advisor'.

It should be said, with caution, that there seems to be a more human and caring approach from Ms. McKenna, unlike her former colleagues, on an issue which has greatly troubled disabled FSV-RT's life and that of his family.

This is a refreshing attitude and would that it was practised elsewhere in the Fire Service world…

Update 29th March 2016:

Ms.Y.McKenna emailed disabled FSV-RT on the 8^th March 2016 in which she confirmed that an ‘independent advisor’ had  now been appointed to review his Complaint reporting to a newly assembled IDRP Stage I panel for a Hearing on the 22^th March 2016 during which his Stage I Complaint “will be considered afresh”.

Rightly, disabled FSV-RT wished to know the qualifications and capability of this ‘reviewer’ and in due course without demur, and probably in all innocence without checking her facts, Ms.Y.McKenna supplied the CV of her ‘independent advisor’ to him, reasonably assuming that anyone supplying her with a CV would of course be stating the truth, but as Lancashire FSVs know better their YPS  ‘pension experts’ also specialise in mendacity.

To understand where this ‘independent advisor’ came from it is necessary pause for a moment of reflection that some time ago the LFB Pension Fund decided that it would join pension forces with our old friends Lister, Wisdom, et al at the Lancashire County Council ‘Your Pension Service’(YPS).

At that time the Editor wrote to the political leaders in both organisations expressing concern and pointing out, in particular to the LFB, that it would be fortuitous to look at the ‘pensions managers’ at the YPS whom they proposed to utilise in this joint venture but as ever no reply was forthcoming from either party.

It also ought to be said that this government encouraged this joint venture as part of a national policy whereby apparently ‘large is good’ in pension fund consortia, at least presumably in the envisaged finance terms of saving by elimination of duplication, and for government future tax purposes.

The consequence of these actions is that the disabled FSV-RT Complaint faces yet another LFB Pension Service debacle which will ultimately be placed before the Pensions Ombudsman for his scrutiny.

The debacle of course being that the LFB Pension Service seemingly appointed, in good faith, an ‘independent advisor’ from Lancashire in the presumption that this person was an expert in pension law and management who is in point of fact far from ‘independent’ because she is part of this new pension fund consortium and is none other than  the mendacious Ms.Wisdom(YPS).

Someone who we all know is currently under public investigation by the Clerk to the Lancashire Combined Fire Authority and The Pensions Regulator who are both acting on and investigating Complaints of ‘misconduct in public office’ and more importantly ‘conspiracy to defraud’ lodged against Ms.Wisdom and others by a Lancashire disabled FSV~RRB in the matter of his Injury pension.

In February 2013 Readers will recall that in the Preston County Court in the Witness Box under Oath, an exposé  which the Bugler has already published on Ms. Lister the Head of YPS and Wisdom’s immediate line manager, Ms. Lister confirmed when asked what national pension management qualification she possessed to hold her appointment replied “none”.

When Wisdom repeatedly failed to publish or reveal her own formal national pension management qualification and when subjected to face to face public challenge at an interview with disabled  FSV~RRB she simply resorted to repeatedly stating in response,  ‘No Comment’ .

This is quite extraordinary from someone who claims to be a "Performance Manager" who presumably sets the standards for those who whom she presumably performance manages?

However, she has now unintentionally released her CV via the LFB to disabled FSV~RT for his scrutiny which simply confirms that Wisdom is as usual being economical with the truth at which she is rather adept at avoiding.

This is a remarkably short though fascinating CV document for someone who it appears has been engaged in Fire Service pension ‘management’, or more accurately clerking, for the last 18 years holding little if any heavy weight leading national pension management qualifications of any note. Go Here.

It seems rather like her boss Lister that she does not hold any national qualifications of substance for her  multi million Pound dispensing Fire Service pension Schemes though in a Pulitzer prize winning CV of creative writing she gives the distinct impression that she does.

For example, in following the usual protocols used in such CV matters she baldly states without further elucidation – ‘CIPFA – Association of Payroll and Superannuation Administration’ – but gives no explanation of the year this ‘qualification/certificate’ was attained nor,  if any, the grade attained, nor indeed if only for disabled FSV~RT’s benefit even what this might mean to him in professional pension management capability to 'advise'?

In fact this CV is meaningless gibberish.

A fleeting glance simply informs disabled FSV~RT and Ms. McKenna that in all likelihood Wisdom is , as we in Lancashire well know, just a fee paying member of this Association as a pay roll clerk.

Neither more nor less, in which case we must assume perhaps that it is all rather like joining the Women’s Institute, just a hobby thing?

Her next claim to fame and ‘qualification’ seems to be ‘IPPM’ though she does not explain in detail what this is either.

Perhaps it is Integrated Program Performance Management though once more in continuing vagueness she does not elucidate further but continues to claim a “Foundation degree”, noting,  'degree' not Degree.

Perhaps Wisdom means the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals(CIPP) which is a commercial distance on the job learning organisation which describes itself thus :

“The CIPP has been providing payroll and pensions support to individuals and businesses since 1980 when the Association of Pensions and Superannuation Administrators (APSA) was formed.”

It is interesting to reflect that Fire Service pensions have been in provision since early last Century so CIPP is rather a new boy on the block.

It is also interesting to note that Wisdom did not commence administering Fire Service Pension until 1997, a year after commencing clerical work in 1996 at the LCC after which it seems she became fully engaged with the LFRS Pension Scheme in April 2002 thence forward becoming the recognised LFRS ‘pension expert’ for the ensuing 14 years.

In 1998 the APSA merged with the Institute of British Payroll Managers (IBPM) and became the Institute of Payroll and Pensions Management (IPPM). Following research and feedback from members the IPPM became the Institute of Payroll Professionals (IPP) in 2007 and was granted Royal Chartered status in March 2011 – under the title CIPP.

It is unclear, perhaps deliberately so, when Wisdom commenced this ‘Foundation degree’ course  but CIPP rather confusingly and in commercial and prose licence sell a "Foundation Degree in Pensions Administration and Management" but in its curricula it only describes the course in Year 1 as issuing a ‘ Practitioner Certificate’; in Year 2 as issuing an ‘ Advanced Practitioner Certificate’; and finally in Year 3 a ‘Diploma in Pensions Administration and Management’.

It makes no claim for this course that after completion it issues a nationally recognised 'Degree' pension practitioner qualification or that it is in any way the lead qualification.

A further search does not reveal the award by accreditation to a University of a post nominals ‘Degree’; nor does this ‘foundation degree’ lead into a Masters Degree or even a Doctorate(PhD)?

So much for the ‘degree’ qualified ‘independent advisor’ who is simply a clerk in pensions in the 'back office' in Lancashire.  

When Ms.McKenna was urgently asked by disabled FSV~RT whether she was aware of the Bugler published exposés on Wisdom and Lister, after a pause, Ms.McKenna replied stating that she was ‘taking instructions’.

This expression is usually used by a Solicitor taking advice from a case involved barrister so the Bugler will report in time what that advice transpires to be.

Clearly as objective by-standers one must ask how long this waste of money by the LFB engaged in disabled FSV~RT’s case is going to continue, to say nothing of the continuing ruination of his life and his family life?

As the inheritor of this debacle, on her recent appointment, Ms. McKenna would be well advised simply to write this particular case off and put it down to the LFB atrocious experience of the maladministration of London’s FSVs pensions over the past decades.

Culminating in their own internal 2012 Inquiry and Report of their own pension management debacle which was finally concluded by the writing off of…what was it?…£6.12+mil…

It was at this point that the LFB solicitor Ms.Yvonne McKenna and her pension associates wisely appeared to have had a serious strategic rethink about which bog the LFB had entrapped itself in and where it was bound to end up if it continued with its contravention of the 1995 Pensions Act coupled with its typically arrogant decision in 2007 to deny its Fire Service Veteran pensioners their basic rights under the LFB/National Firefighters Pension Scheme IDRProcedures.

This ethos of  institutionalised arrogance is personified in its appalling treatment of disabled FSV-RT during his disgraceful and unnecessarily prolonged pension battle. A battle in which the LFB intended to sap his determination which was, reasonably, to get the LFB to put  it right.

It certainly harmed his health and his family’s tranquillity in his retirement but the LFB did little to sap his determination, in fact paradoxically, they just increased it.

From beginning to end, and the legal end is only in sight when the Pensions Ombudsman finally adjudicates on the LFB and its variant pension Internal Dispute Resolution Procedure, disabled FSV-RT’s fought for 7 years against a classical living example of the abuse of bureaucratic power by a group of chameleon like unqualified clerks otherwise known as so called pension administrators/experts of the London Fire Brigade.

Clerks promoted well above the level of their own incompetence with not a single pension management qualification in their command structure; clerks who had access to unbridled power over the individual, a heady mixture which they willingly and knowingly abused.

We should recall that at the outset of this lonely pension battle in 2010 the LFB alleged that disabled FSV-RT had been ‘overpaid’ £120k. As a consequence he and his family faced bankruptcy and loss of their home.

Years later, as the LFB progressively lost legal ground, at one laughable point it proposed in desperation a special face saving ‘deal’ by which it would accept £19k provided he ‘pleaded guilty’ and accepted their bullying.

Well, if disabled FSV-RT was not going to accept their premise of an alleged £120k ‘overpayment’ it was hardly conceivable the he was, in reading the wind, likely to accept their premise of an alleged £19k ‘overpayment’ either.

But then logic and common-sense at the LFB are scarce commodities.

This was where  their ‘horse trading’ rested until disabled FSV-RT invoked the pension IDRP during which the LFB then proposed a re-run of its flawed IDRP Stage I  Complaint ‘determination’ the complete cynical purpose of which was, firstly to wash its hands publicly to demonstrate that it had done no wrong, whilst knowing full well that they held all the stacked aces which would inevitably lead to disabled FSV-RT’s defeat.

Surely the LFB could not get more cynical than that?

Meanwhile back at the ranch and the strategic navel gazing.

After much correspondence, both external and internal, this strategic rethink culminated, like many another sleight-of-hand 3rd rate conjurer, with the last minute pulling of  a rabbit out of the LFB top hat which stated in a second formal letter from the LFB solicitor Ms.Yvonne McKenna to  disabled FSV-RT that the LFB did not intend to pursue him any further for their so called £120,000.0 ‘overpayment’, or indeed even to pursue him for the ‘new deal’ figure of £19,000.0; either now, in the past, or in the future.

In effect it finally wised up and ceased all their bullying, their sabre rattling, their reprehensible smearing tactics, but not its deceit whilst abandoning its threatened so called litigious action.  

But even then it was not minded to treat disabled FSV-RT and his family with dignity or simple human compassion.

Not a single word of apology or expression of regret appeared in this anodyne letter of capitulation and defeat.

This infantile attitude simply reflects the immaturity of an organisation and in particular those bemedaled fools who think they are up to the task of running such a large organisation whilst copiously and regularly supping from their cup of self-aggrandisement, as their pompous job titles grow, uncontrolled, to match their jobsworth salaries.  

Without trust, it being long departed, disabled FSV-RT sought clarification on what exactly this ‘rabbit’ might mean from solicitor Ms.Yvonne McKenna and she, having the LFB position confirmed to her by her boss, reiterated  in a second similar letter to disabled FSV-RT the abandonment of the LFB untenable position. Go Here.

 It would be revealing to look at this strategic rethink, who was involved, and who was the ultimate decision maker in disabled FSV-RT’s exercise of the LFB’s variant IDRP and whether this person was uniformed or non-uniformed.

Someone who had ultimately, as correspondence reveals,  usurped the complete mantle of democratic power from those Elected Members of the LFB whose ultimate responsibility pension management actually is in law; the LFB pension Scheme Management Board.

A person who, since before this debacle commenced in 2010, indeed before LFB solicitor Ms.Yvonne McKenna had even arrived at her appointment, had remained carefully hidden in the shadows but who nevertheless pulled all the vicious strings.

This pervasive secrecy is yet another symptom of the endemic disease which afflicts 21^st century local authority civil servants – the automatic knee jerk secrecy which inevitably leads to an automatic cover up of their misdeeds and manipulations.

This shadowy figure was none other than Ms. Sue Budden who arrived at the LFB in 2006 from Norfolk via various London ‘borough councils’ in the process collecting her CIPFA qualification which,  it should be recalled, is the same ‘qualification’ that the illustriously mendacious Wisdom of the LCC Pension Service lays claim to in Lancashire.

A ‘qualification’ containing no element whatsoever of pension management and which can best be summed up as a clerk bean counter ‘qualification’ necessary before handing out the wages.

Ms.Budden and her new chum Wisdom have much in common.
Intrinsically both claim by practice to hold the same ‘qualifications’ to administer and manage, in Ms.Budden’s case, the largest Fire Service Firefighters Pension Scheme in the UK with what amounts to, in pension management qualification terms, the Princely sum of none.

Ms.Budden’s veiled role and identification in disabled FSV-RT’s pension outrage was always there and was always very carefully hidden in the correspondence by deliberately oblique references to ‘senior’ this or ‘principal’ that but in the end Budden’s presence had to be revealed by an adroit and neat piece of legal footwork by Ms.McKenna passing the well-deserved buck to Budden at disabled FSV-RT’s Stage II Complaint because, quite properly, this wonderful quirky LFB IDRP required her to do so.

 An astute Ms.McKenna can also foresees the financial implications when the PO gets this all right and the LFB gets it all wrong.
Resulting in another pension fiscal disaster with the same potential of that which resulted in the reported pension debacle of  2012 which lost £6.2mil from the LFB coffers and for which, most certainly, the Head of Finance Ms.Budden was directly responsible having been in post the 6 years previously.

How then did all this scandalous fiasco get from a proposed re-run Stage I to an actual Stage II Complaint with all its predictable hand washing and white wash results?

Results which can in part  be attributed to the involvement of the usually  mendacious Wisdom who, despite the provision by disabled FSV-RT to Ms.McKenna/Budden of evidence from  The Morning Bugler before this Stage I re-run occurred; rejected hard evidence which firmly pointed out to Ms.McKenna (and to a background Ms.Budden) just how accomplished a liar and fraudster Wisdom was in all matters pension.

These evidential revelations were dealt with great self-evident fudging unease by Ms.McKenna who, clearly under the direction of Ms. Budden, decided to simply ignore the elephant in the room

But how then does one actually deal with an ever increasing self generated quick sands of their own collective making?

The answer to all this was of course was very simple. Had this great ‘strategic re-think’ of Ms.Budden’s been carefully thought through, given the appalling treatment which disabled FSV-RT and his family had received for 7 long years by considering just how he was likely to react to having his Complaints arrogantly  ‘dismissed’, yet again, the outcome might have been more successful.

 Perhaps if Ms.Budden in bringing this LFB debacle to a closure had handled it all rather differently with tact, sensitivity, and humility rather than having missed a golden opportunity to regain lost ground and some credibility she might have found that disabled FSV-RT’s mature reaction might well have also been different. But she did not.

Mature individuals with considerable experience of life tend to be rather forgiving provided a sensible and reasonably  mature approach is made to them.

Surely even an insensitive Ms.Budden cannot have been totally unaware of disabled FSV-RT’s  feelings(she had been involved since 2010) because just before the ‘rabbit’ of  the LFB ‘Cave in’ had appeared in print disabled FSV-RT in his usual polite correspondence had  alluded to his wicked treatment  in the vain hope that the ‘Cave in’ might commence with a profound apology and an expression of sympathy for all the hurt and damage it had unnecessarily caused him and his family.

But it seemed that Ms.Budden’s immature strategy of inhumanity was simply to dump and run from the problem which of course is not the brightest way to handle such a major LFB self-generated debacle and in doing so displayed yet more insensitivity of what was in effect , and remains, yet another of her management failures, when quite simply the day could have been saved by saying ‘sorry’ the failure of which expression led to a rather violent reaction, namely by  disabled FSV-RT implementing a IDRP Stage II Complaint.

Up to this point to her credit the LFB solicitor Ms.McKenna had created a constructive and caring dialogue with  disabled FSV-RT which had Ms Budden  recognised the value of her preparatory work could have led to compassionate closure. But once more she did not.

Ms.Budden really does not know a whole lot about Firefighters nor their individual or collective values which they exercise in their daily lives.

Their commitment to succeed at all costs; their innate sense of fairplay and justice; and when affronted their sense of disciplined outrage when maltreated.

Ms.Budden and her non uniformed colleagues in the LFB seem to have a lot to learn. She is not alone…

Disabled FSV-RT personal position was quite understandable at this late point in proceedings which after a predictable white wash of the re-run Stage I was followed

by yet more arrogantly dismissive letters in which the LFB was terminating its  perceived legal action to recover this alleged ‘overpayments' either now, in the past, or in the future.

After 7 long years that was it was it? The LFB was closing the case file and moving on having learned not a single thing?

On the one hand disabled FSV-RT had single handedly fought Ms.Budden, her cronies, and the LFB to a complete standstill leading to their ‘Cave-in’ from their position which had been that he was allegedly ‘overpaid’ £120k; then through a ‘special deal’ of his ‘admitted guilt’ of £19k; to a point of a £000.0 balance sheet of alleged ‘overpayment’ which by any standard is no mean feat.

The human problem for disabled FSV-RT was the lack of magnanimity in defeat by the Ms.Budden and the LFB, which was hardly unexpected, compounded by her adding insult to injury by her lack of common humanity when clearly a sincere and profound apology was due not only to disabled FSV-RT but to his family and to his good name and reputation which the LFB had repeatedly smeared.

This was an immature organisation led by immature so called professionals dealing immaturely with a highly sensitive subject which required a deft touch and maturity which they collectively did not possess.

Thus disabled FSV-RT decided that this matter was not concluded and from a point of legal principle that even though he had won his personal pension battle he felt that the LFB had not learned its lesson in recognising that it had, and has, a Statutory duty to comply with the law of the land and to recognise that when it signs a Fire Service National Agreement(FSC1/2009) it has a civil law contractual duty as well as a moral duty to comply with the terms it has signed up to.

These duties do not entitle it to derogate from those terms if it realises later they may well be unpalatable . That is called management failure which does not entitle it to ‘rectification’ on the basis of  an arrogant action ‘I will because I can’ which was to surreptitiously  disenfranchise its Fire Service Veteran pensioners of their Statutory IDRP in which they formerly had complete trust.

Such ‘rectification’ was quite simply an unequivocal breach of trust with its pensioners.

In this rather ‘unforgiven’ atmosphere disabled FSV-RT decided, for all these sound reasons, that he should test the waters again to see whether or not the LFB had the slightest intention of reviewing its variant IDRP process to bring itself  into compliance with its own obligations;  to set matter right for those in the future who might with confidence use a revised and corrected Pension Complaint IDRP; and to attempt to rectify the miscarriages of justice it had clearly already perpetrated  throughout the past decades by the employment of an unlawful and illicit variant IDRP against its own FSV pensioners by blatantly ‘packing the judge and jury’ to always arrive at every IDRP conclusion which was that it was always whiter-than-white.

This is called corporate corruption.

Disabled FSV-RT then implemented Stage II whilst warning Budden and company that the continued use of their variant IDRP would inevitably bring them into conflict with the Pensions Ombudsman and the Pension Regulator.

But in the eventuality after another Stage II white wash 'Determination' taken directly at long last by a visible Ms.Budden emerging from her protective gloom to reluctantly accept her responsibility she simply ploughed erroneously on without doubt ignoring all the legal advice she had received.

They do say that where there is little sense there is also little feeling.

The LFB needs to swiftly recognise that in matters of their Firefighters Pension Scheme they are ill-served by a Director of Finance and Contractual Services who has not the slightest qualification to run or ajudicate on a Firefighters Pension Scheme because if she did she would understand where all this is leading and the financial implications leading therefrom; but the LFB solicitor Ms.Yvonne McKenna certainly does and must surely have advised Ms.Budden so?

Before attempting to give a Stage II IDRP decision an unqualified Ms.Budden ought to have sought her solicitor’s advice and taken the necessary steps to set in motion the essential corrective action to ensure that the LFB is in legal compliance with its Statutory pensions procedures and Fire Service National Agreements which it has signed up to whilst explaining to reasonable though disabled FSV-RT that this would take some time before his Stage II could be properly adjudicated on by the Elected Members of the London Fire Authority.

Yet again Ms.Budden missed yet another opportunity to set matters on the correct legal tracks and again ploughed on regardless concluding by writing a really confusing tome to disabled FSV-RT Go Here

To digress to the rubric rustic rural for a moment’s badly needed reflective tranquillity.
The Bugler has on  many occasions watched his bovine treasures follow their own rather impenetrable philosophies. One of which amounted to, if the head can be put through a hole in a hedge it seems only natural that the rest must follow.

It is not always the case…

And so in drawing a rough straw sucking analogy it is simply quite facile for any pension scheme manager to place one’s head through a hole in the legal wall it has created  by loudly and repeatedly proclaiming that the procedures which the LFB follows in respect of IDRP are correct just because it is following its own philosophical ‘idea’ of how its created pension ‘law’ works.

Like its bovine philosophers counterparts it does not always follow. In fact it is all rather bizarre and quite imbecilic.

Currently Ms. Budden has stated that when she reached her Stage II decision on disabled FSV-RT’s Complaint(though this “determination” cannot actually be found) acting entirely contrary to what the LFB ought to have been doing in law, she claims that she received independent legal pensions advice.

When asked who might have provided that advice and what were their ‘independent’ nationally recognised qualification which allowed them to offer such advice Ms. Budden rather disingenuously asked why disabled FSV-RT needed to know this.

When it was explained to her she then claimed a hesitant legal privilege for not disclosing the ‘who’ and the ‘qualification’ (she had not been asked for the actual advice) and became all rather coy and evasive though we might hazard a guess who her ‘independent’ pension legal advisor might be and time will tell? Go Here.

The fact of the matter is that Ms.Budden is completely out of her depth and she knows it. Secrecy, cover ups, evasion, and deceit cease at the Court House steps as she will find out.

It seems to the Bugler that Ms. Budden is unaware that the Pensions Ombudsman Mr A. Arters(a pension qualified solicitor) acts as a properly constituted Judge who when he has cause to investigate and reach a judgement on an IDRP  Complaint does so within the jurisdiction of his own Court of Law.

Ms.Budden will find that disabled FSV-RT in preparing his Complaint for the PO  will in all probability  start by raising the question of the constitutionality of the variant IDRP which the LFB have forced disabled FSV-RT to use throughout their IDRP pension debacle closely followed by the questions of  who offered her this independent pension advice in Stage II; their national pension qualifications; and their professional capability and competence to do so( but not the substance of that advice).

It was upon this input that Ms. Budden claims to have made her ‘Determination’ (though the actualité of its existence  remains somewhat of a mystery) and she surely must have the expectation that Judge Arters will also wish to explore this salient point  upon which she acted to reach-albeit an unlawful decision- during which Judge Arter’s expectation will be that she will comply with those enquiries; an exploratory exercise during which he will undoubtedly dismiss her ludicrous defence of legal privilege.  

Ms.Budden will after all be in a Court of Law.

In point of fact if she or her ‘independent advisor’ Wisdom fails to truthfully answer his question in whatever form he cares to put them, then they both must expect that he will

treat any mendacity, refusal, or false claim of legal privilege as Contempts of Court for which any Judge  can apply a complete range of sanctions, including a term of imprisonment.

This as Wisdom who is deeply involved and well knows is ‘tricky territory’ because the person asking the questions will actually know what he is talking about.

It would seem wise for Ms. Budden and Wisdom to prepare for that and any other eventuality when disabled FSV-RT’s Complaint comes before Judge Arter’s Court.

A procedure which includes  the use, before the commencement of proceedings, of a legal rite known as ‘Discovery’ whereby,  under Discovery, it is  necessary for Ms.Budden to disclose to the Court and the Plaintiff( disabled FSV-RT), who provided the pension legal advice and the qualifications of person/organisation she received it from, including their nationally  recognised pension management qualifications, qualities which entitled them to offer the LFB and Ms.Budden such specialist advice.

Finally, Ms.Budden would be unwise to disregard the fact of how important this Complaint will be nationally.

It raises FSVs'  interest, both personal and collective, in the thousands of miscarriages of justice which the LFB have already perpetrated on its own LFB pensioners for the past decades in mass breaches of trust and duty of care by dealing unlawfully with their Stage II Complaints in the unlawful manner the Bugler has revealed.

Disabled FSV-RT has the penultimate word…Go Here.

Having read the evidence and accepted that the LFB are prepared to ‘Shift-the-Goalposts’ where the pension rights of their FSVs are concerned, especially when it gives them a financial gain to their pension fund at the expense of its pensioners, the next question which LFB pensioners might care to ask themselves, particularly those disabled FSVs who were compulsorily discharged from LFB service due to ill-health +/- Injury combination, ‘Am I being paid the correct pension today since it commenced'?

In all probability the answer is No!

It has been common practice for decades in Lancashire to compulsorily discharge disabled FSVs using Rules B3 and B4 of the 1992 Scheme, Rules which were designed by government actuaries to pay an enhanced pension in recognition of lost employment/career due to either ill-health and/or injury, or a combination of both.

Lancashire, now a partner with the LFB in their joint Firefighters Pension Scheme, in a deliberately corrupt breach of the 1992 Pension Statutory Instrument decided to surreptitiously substitute Rules B3 +/- Rule B4 pension payments(even though it claims it is paying B3/B4) for a Rule B1 standard pension payment which is significantly less(30%) than a Rule B3 +/- B4 pension.

A Rule B1 'standard' pension is normally awarded to those upon completion of their service who are time served and fully fit in fact if a Rule B3 +/- B4 pension is proposed to be paid it is unlawful to pay a Rule B1 instead(See Rule B1(c) ).

Thus the LFRS and the LFB by unlawfully paying a Rule B1 instead of a Rule B3 +/- B4 pension are significantly shifting the pension fund balance sheet in their joint favours by these unlawful reductions in pension payments to its pensioners.

For the 1992 Rules see Part B Personal Awards Go Here.