Oh dear.
If you just read DCC Baker’s statement to Police Oracle, one could be forgiven for thinking that (a) Staffordshire never, ever would dream of doing “a Merseyside” and reducing a person based on the questionnaire’s answers (b) failure to fill in the questionnaire would never, ever mean that your injury award will be suspended or reduced.
Force will not withhold pensions if ex-officers don’t fill in medical forms
Solicitor warned others over the issue last week following legal action against Merseyside Police. A force which asks retired officers who were injured on duty to fill in medical assessments says the information will not be used to withhold pension payments. Staffordshire Police says it only asks for the process to be followed to make their…
DCC Baker has offered a perfect example of contrary rhetoric. It’s very interesting to note what has changed on the Staffordshire website since Police Oracle published this story last week.
Let us see how the Staffordshire website looked two weeks ago using our “wayback machine” – FAQs – Injury Benefit Reassessment – Staffordshire Police 18-07-17” taken from Google web cache. Oh look! Note the threat to suspend the injury award 
You will be given 28 days to reply…
At the end of that 28 days your injury benefit pension may be suspended or reduced to band 1 if we have no satisfactory reply from you
Oh my! A reply will not serve. Staffordshire will punish you if you don’t reply “satisfactorily“. Rather ominous.
And how the same page looks as of today 1st August 2017 …
In a brave new world of bunny rabbits and rainbows, you will now be sent a lovely reminder and then only a failure to attend a medical examination may mean a decision is made. “As thought necessary” isn’t a concept in the Regulations by the way.
Staffordshire was threatening vulnerable disabled former police officers that non-compliance of failing to return the forms will mean a suspension or an automatic reduction to band one. They got caught.
Now DCC Baker is telling Police Oracle that this is all made up and Staffordshire would never stoop to such lowly, despicable and unlawful practices.
Hmmm … what were we saying about a perpetually shifting succession of imaginative falsehoods?
When the Eight Bells Toll
We have all made mistakes. This author makes them all the time, but, sensible people, and greater people should not only learn from theirs or other’s mistakes but they should also admit them.
It does seem that the Powers that Be, in Staffordshire, have somehow been emboldened by the climbdown from the Avon and Somerset Constabulary, because they got stuck in a coke bottle, and Merseyside’s little faux pas, to be the next candidate for ” How Stupid can we be ” or a feature length film maybe!
Whatever, or whoever is driving this, obviously has a desire to have egg on their face, or something even more disgusting.
The Japanese have a programme dedicated to the lengths some idiots will go to, for their moment of fame. Perhaps Baker should apply.
What will come out of this, is assured.
No one, will be held accountable.
No one will be disciplined, No one will carry the can.
They will simply gather all their wagons around, in a circle, just like in the old days in the mid west, and fend off the attacks, until the bells toll.
As the film says ” Welcome to Hell ” emblazoned on the sign. For sure Staffs are going to find out, not just the hard way, but the costly way too.
Where is Clint Eastwood when you need him.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=police+staff+council+circular+54&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari
To DCC Baker and the Staffordshire Cohort, hand on heart can you justify your actions, can you individually think of anything you may have got wrong or wish you had not done?
Do any of you lose any sleep?
Do any of you ever think that it could be you that is made into the scapegoat?
It is said that leadership comes from the top but you are all individually accountable for your actions!
What you have said cannot be unsaid
What you have sent cannot be unsent
What has already been published is now in the public domain
Who is responsible?
Who will be held to account?
It may take some time but be in no doubt that someone will have to answer for this whole misguided, ill informed and most importantly illegal process!
It has cost you time and money, if it continues it will cost you more time and more money.
Public money which will have to be properly accounted for at some point.
As Winston Churchill once said
All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
I hope that it is not too late for you all to take a fresh look at all of this?
Will one or more of you have the guts (honor and duty)to go on record, defy your master and to stand up for what you should know is right, ethical, moral and legal?
Surely by now you have to realise
that what is happening is wrong on EVERY level and if self preservation is your reason for blowing the whistle then so be it.
Those of us subjected to this mass review are fighting for justice!
Well done staffs, another f**k up to add to the long lists of f**k ups. You seem incapable of getting anything right these days, no doubt a reflection on the ACPO level of intelligence.
Why didn’t you learn anything from the Avon and Somerset debacle, or is it that you always think you know better.
About time we had a national Police force and get rid of some of you over promoted twats.
How come they send out this questionaire, expect everyone to reply and get upset when they dont..
At the same time they are either refusing or delaying replies to DPA compliant subject access requests which have been paid for by the applicant!
In another twist letters are now being sent to applicants asking if they really want Staffs to comply with the request?
I never ever thought that any Police Force was capable of such duplicity!
Oh dear! They still don’t get it do they? We all know that following the Merseyside decision there is no requirement whatsoever for IODs to consent to disclosure of medical records, yet Staffs still bang on about them in their FAQs. Even in their amended version they lump together medical records with medical examinations which are two entirely separate issues.
The bottom line is that if they were applying the regs correctly, in order to first ‘consider’ a review, they need only to ask the IOD pensioner if there has been any substantial alteration in their degree of disablement. If there has been a substantial worsening of his/her condition, it would be reasonable to request medical evidence to substantiate the claim. If there has been no change, then that is the end of it unless the Force has some concrete evidence to the contrary. They could then save themselves a whole lot of time and expense by not proceeding to the next stage of requiring the IOD to attend a medical interview/examination.
That would be the reasonable (and lawful) approach, but will they ever learn?
Given the choice between stating the law correctly and producing their own version of it, forces will always tend to default to the latter.
Staffordshire’s latest version of what might happen to any IOD pensioner who does not dance to their tune bears little relationship to what the Regulations actually say, and intend.
So, let’s make this clear for Staffs Police Pension Authority (who is the Chief Constable). You have some major hurdles to clear before you can make any decision whatever in cases where an individual is not following your illegal review process.
This is what is written in the Police (Injury Benefit) Regulation 2006:
‘Refusal to be medically examined
33. If a question is referred to a medical authority under regulation 30, 31 or 32 and the person concerned wilfully or negligently fails to submit himself to such medical examination or to attend such interviews as the medical authority may consider necessary in order to enable him to make his decision, then—
(a) if the question arises otherwise than on an appeal to a board of medical referees, the police authority may make their determination on such evidence and medical advice as they in their discretion think necessary;’
A PPA is required to show that the individual behaved either wilfully or negligently, before any decision can be made.
If an individual has good reason to believe that Staffs is not applying regulation 37 – te ‘review’ regulation – then they will not be willfully refusing ‘to submit himself to such medical examination or to attend such interviews as the medical authority may consider necessary in order to enable him to make his decision.’ You can’t willfully refuse to cooperate with an unlawful process. Only if the process is lawful could a refusal to cooperate be deemed to be wilfull.
Similarly with the ‘negligently’ route. It is not being negligent if the individual is engaging with the PPA – arguing that the process as run by Staffs is unlawful, requesting an explanation, asking for an Internal Dispute Resolution Procedure, or making a complaint to the Pensions Ombudsman.
Even if Staffs PPA could show either willful refusal or negligent refusal, then there is still the small matter of the PPA actually having to find medical evidence and advice sufficient to allow them to make a rational decision.
It would surely be irrational to decide anything other than there was insufficient information, advice, opinion or evidence to support a decison that there had been any alteration. No evidence = no alteration.
So, Staffs PPA, carry on with your unlawful behaviour and expect to be made to attempt to explain and justify your behaviour in when you get dragged along to a ‘review’ arranged by one or more of your IOD pensioners – that is, a judicial review.
Another force outed and busted doing unlawful IOD pension reviews. Staffordshire save the money you will waste now by ending this unlawful procedure. We have an ace up our sleeve and is ready to be used, it will be like an atom bomb. You have been warned.
Which one of the 43 will be next? IODPA is ready and waiting to shoot you down.
Staffordshire’s ‘Command’ (although ‘Demand’ would be a better word) team and their accomplices are a disgrace to the profession.
If they are prepared to treat their own pensioners in such an unprincipled, immoral and oppressive course of action, my heart goes out to those having to serve under this bunch of self-serving fools.
When a front-line officer sees that this may be their future, will they take the risks that go with the job, or will they turn away? It isn’t just the IODs who are affected by this, it’s those who are serving, and ultimately the public.
Baker and Co, like Giffard before them, will retire to spend more time with their money, not giving a toss about the damage they’ve inflicted.
It still says on the administrative process page that “Individuals who do not respond, or who refuse to participate will be referred to Occupational Health for an SMP appointment”
It’s threatening and tantermount to blackmail. SP are bullies!
Caught red handed! Now an investigation should be commenced into finding the ONE person who dreamt this diabolical scheme up and drove it into its reality!
He / she should me made to explain their actions in a court of law – examples need to be made to deter others! Imagine if lowly Police Officers broke the rules like this?!
Why is this not now being picked up by the local and National press?
The whole sorry episode smacks of Home Office intervention and a Force needing to reduce its pension outlay!
Is this a local or national issue?
Now it has started, where will it end and who knows what else will come out of the woodwork in the fullness of time.
Just plain wrong, how can communities trust the hierarchy in Staffordshire or anywhere else for that matter when they turn on their own, a minority group who they have chosen to target by devising underhand methods and illegal instruments to further their cause.
What next, covert & open source surveillance, employing additional resources to fill a ‘skills’ gap, current resources diverted and stretched to the limit and public money diverted from front line policing…
Tell you what, when the wheels fall off the wagon and this all comes into the light how will they justify the cost and the damage done to the forces themselves, individual reputations and for goodness sake the ongoing assault on officers who did not ask to be injured!
Who will be accountable?
It is morally and ethically corrupt and at the end of the day how can the public trust any of them!
OH the wonder of having IODPA! A great organisation that researchers and gathers (and keeps!) information for the benefit of bullied and bruised IOD Pensioners to help them achieve justice and their rights.
DCC Baker should not get a slap on the back of his legs for that lie he told! He has been well busted!
Well, well, well. The naughty DCC Mr Baker, or whoever was the author of the FAQ’s on the Staffordshire Police web pages caught as they would say in Parliament using “terminological inexactitudes” Others may say that they couldn’t lie straight in bed, but that’s for you to decide.
They know that they cannot demand that IOD’s complete questionnaires or agree to sign medical records release forms, yet they still ask hoping that some anxious physical or mentally disabled former colleague will be so caught up in this that they will agree to anything, hoping it will just go away.
They are aware that the recent conceded JR in Mersyside means that they cannot be demanded. Strange that Staffordshire recognise this whereas the spokesperson from Merseyside has tried to spin it much differently in that it only referred to the unlawful removal of their IOD’s award because he had failed to co-operate in an unlawful process.
So Staffordshire now recognise that this request is unlawful. Surely it is only a matter of time before they realise that these whole sorry state of blanket reviews which exclude certain groups are unlawful. It reminds me of the ancient Greek tale of Pandora’s Box. Well here we have a real Life Baker’s Box. He has opened it and believe you me, the evils of the whole process of Staffordshire’s Injury on Duty processes have been exposed for the world to see. Just as in ancient Greece he must be hoping that if he ever manages to close it again, it will contain just that, yes Hope. Hope that it is never opened again, and those who served and paid a high price, are left to enjoy their retirement as best as they can whilst carrying the scars of their service.
I think DCC Baker needs to speak to his IT department and whoever formulates their web pages to get the facts right before he make claims such as this. Clearly the original web page tells a different story. I wonder how the officers that so loyally served this force feel now being threatened by their former employer. Disgusted! Staffordshire Police isnt what it used to be.
Pinocchio is known for having a short nose that becomes longer when he is under stress (chapter 3), especially while lying. In the original tale, Collodi describes him as a “rascal,” “imp,” “scapegrace,” “disgrace,” “ragamuffin,” and “confirmed rogue,” with even his father, carpenter Geppetto, referring to him as a “wretched boy.” Upon being born, Pinocchio immediately laughs derisively in his creator’s face, whereupon he steals the old man’s wig.
Pinocchio’s bad behavior, rather than being charming or endearing, is meant to serve as a warning. Collodi originally intended the story, which was first published in 1881, to be a tragedy. It concluded with the puppet’s execution. Pinocchio’s enemies, the Fox and the Cat, bind his arms, pass a noose around his throat, and hang him from the branch of an oak tree.[7]
From Wickedpedia
Oh dear I think Staffordshire have been caught out. I think the only way they can answer this is too come clean and admit they were wrong. I wonder what else have they got wrong with these reviews?