NAMF

Twas the night before Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas

Krampus is a horned, anthropomorphic folklore figure described as “half-goat, half-demon”, who, during the Christmas season, punishes children who have misbehaved, in contrast with Saint Nicholas, who rewards the well-behaved with gifts. Krampus is the antithesis of the true Saint Nicholas in regions including Northumbria Legal Services,  Austria, Bavaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia and Northern Italy – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krampus

The Christmas season is here!

This time last year we published an IOD themed parody of Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol.   Rather than starring Ebenezer, our protagonist was a certain senior HR manager of a not-so-imaginary constabulary, hell-bent on reducing the financial impact of those pesky and ‘preposterous injury awards‘™ (©Dr David Bulpitt).

Thankfully, in 2016, that particular HR manager soon was pushed into found  a different job and was no longer tasked with anything injury award related.

A Christmas Carol (Wood)

This year, the ‘fortunate and selfish few‘™ (©Dr David Bulpitt)  would like to apologise in advance to Clement Clarke Moore for taking liberties with his poem  A Visit from St. Nicholas.  We hope it has the same affect on NAMF and their leading acolyte Nicholas Wirz (Principal Solicitor Northumbria Police) as last year’s parody had with Mrs Wood.

Twas the night before Christmas and all though the land,
Those injured on duty were in need of a hand.
The SMPs had excuses all listed with care,
In hopes that injury awards would soon disappear.
“You are just vulnerable!” they all would complain,
We think no-one we see is ever really ill, we’re just on the money gravy-train!”.
When look who appeared! Could this be real?
The Regulations pulling up in a, um … automobile.


“But Nicholas Wirz, is our master when rejecting applications!
and it’s the people at NAMF that tell us to ignore true causation!”
The Regulations smiled at them and encouragingly said,
“It’s up to you to make sure the real law is spread.
You need to ignore Wirz and NAMF and look at the officer’s health.
They need your help, they should have nothing to fear but fear itself.”


“Come closer and listen. If you want to be best,
I’ll share this simple secret to your future success.
If you want to succeed, be real doctors and not complacent,
Remember to always do what’s best for your patients.
WOW the people you examine. Don’t let this ring hollow,
For when you put your patient first, the goodness will follow.”
“Success will be yours when you act like doctors and stop the hustle.
And I’m committed to helping you all be successful!”


“On Judicial Review! On Pension Ombudsman! The bad you do will be chased!
On Case-law! Ignore NAMF guidance! We must make haste!
You shall jettison Wirz! To do it right just abide by me!
Together we can create a lawful Regulation recovery!”


The Regulations winked and smiled; then put the car into gear,
But before driving away, one more statement did we hear.
“Those HR thieves and SMP crooks will soon be all in jail.
And the best SMPs who are true doctors will prevail.”
We heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight,
“This month of Christmas is the start – from now, administer injury awards right!”

Wherever you are in the world, whatever injustice you are fighting, and whoever you’re with, we wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

Thank you for reading our website this year.

Here’s to justice and an even more successful 2017!

NAMF’s Northumbrian Mafia

NAMF’s Northumbrian Mafia

A quick update from the dark-suited, shadowy world of the National Attendance Management Forum (NAMF). November 1st sees the start of the Mexican Día de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead), so is a suitable date to publish NAMF conference minutes.

NAMF is nothing more than a vehicle for certain elements to put into practice “entryism”. Entryism (or entrism [1]) is a tactic in which the members of an organised group conspire to secretly join a larger organisation en masse, with the intention of changing the targeted organisation’s policies or actions. The NAMF contains a hard core of people of ill intent, with the others there to give an appearance of legitimacy and to be led like sheep by the inner circle. Read more about NAMF here



The June 2016 minutes state that “Don” Chris Rowson, Head of HR at West Midlands Police, has left his position of chairman of NAMF.
namf-june18
Northumbria Mafia have pulled off a coup. The new Don Chair is Lesley Ann Knowles, Head of HR for Northumbria Police, with Steve Mitchell of Notts HR as Vice Chair.

Mitchell has form in the maladministration of injury awards.  Along with the late Dr Ralph Sampson, he was the co-host of their rather despicable ‘all about the money‘ PowerPoint presentation performed to delight some cherry-picked NAMF delegates about the Notts mass review program.

It’s rather ominous that the new chair comes from the force with the most judicial reviews in recent times … Crudace, Simpson and Haworth were all High court decisions won against Northumbria and it’s solicitor Nicholas Wirz by disabled former officers.

Northumbria is a well known pit of despair and they now are the “Boss” of a cloak-and-dagger national cabal – a secret society that, even after a ‘search’, the Home Office has pretended they have no knowledge of it.   Gulp!

Could it be that Health Management Limited (HML), the firm with the Home Office contract to run PMABs, no longer wants any part in NAMF because of those in charge can’t help themselves to muck things up?

namf-june16-2

The above extract also from the June 2016 NAMF minutes show that HML will no longer be attending NAMF conferences.

Of course, the burning question is why is it that the commercial company which has the current contract to run the PMAB hearings has only just realised that sending their employees to NAMF raises the conflict of interest for HML’s reputation for integrity, independence and contractual requirement for high standards, or may be reasonably perceived to do so.

A sure sign that NAMF is careening off a cliff is when high-level staff start fleeing the sinking ship and begin to go back to their day job or even into business for themselves (e.g. former TVP Head of HR and NAMF delegate Chris Sharp).

With Northumbria in charge, NAMF is in such terrible shape. Those going to the Tally Ho! conferences, seeking the elusive gold-standard best practise, will soon realise they won’t find it there and are in fact being misled by the false prophets of Wirz and Lesley Ann Knowles.  Like Mr Rowson, Mr Sharp and HML, they’ll also begin to plan for their own futures by disavowing themselves from the previously cosy NAMF relationship.

 

Nottinghamshire Injury On Duty Reassessment Program – Part 1

Nottinghamshire Injury On Duty Reassessment Program – Part 1
              A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation.”

Adlai E. Stevenson II

Another definition of a hypocrite is someone who uses PowerPoint slides to say one thing to others although they value and believe something else entirely.

Recently Dr Ralph Sampson and Stephen Mitchel of Nottinghamshire Police (Notts) gave a presentation (perhaps using PowerPoint – other presentation software is available) at a National Attendance Management Forum conference (NAMF) to fellow NAMF delegates.

They were talking about how they do things in Notts.  The bad news for them is the former officers reviewed by them inform us that, not only are they confused about their statutory duty, they are selective in their own rules and advice.  Notwithstanding the rules used in Notts by Sampson and Mitchel, those that they wax lyrically to the NAMF audience, are predominantly worthless.

The presentation concerned how Notts are reviewing those former officers they have medically retired and awarded Injury Awards.  We have obtained the slides for the presentation and have put it out into the public domain. The talk given by Sampson & Mitchel sets out their intention to conduct reviews because of concerns over their obligated cost of paying the awards until the former officer expires at an average of 83 years of age. It also says that reviews are intended to assess degree of disablement. Both premises are wrong.

Constant readers of these pages will not be surprised to hear the conflict of interest of having Dr Sampson as not only the reviewing SMP, but also as concerned with cost savings as his Notts paymasters. Notts-IOD-Presentation.pdf

*click image & use arrows to view all pages

There are 17 pages to the presentation so we intend to spread the talk about the slides over a couple of blog posts.  But before will delve into the first few slides, let’s have a quick look at the words used by Sampson & Mitchel.

As expected with a NAMF presentation where the audience are eager to hear ways to reduce their financial commitments, ‘salary‘ is one of the most frequent words in the presentation.  This table shows the 6 words most prevalent:

programme salary medical band review smp
Word frequency count 6 6 7 8 10 10

The frequent use of ‘salary’ just shows what their real agenda is.

We can’t find fault with slide one.  It just contains the title of the presentation. [edit: A reader has found fault. The use of ‘reassessment’ (unlawful) in lieu of the correct term ‘review’ is indicative of a Freudian slip – thank you Whendie]

Slide two starts with the ‘background’ and mentions ‘earnings’.

2.Background

  • Reg 37(1) of Police (lnjury Benefit) Regulations 2006 Forces can undertake a review “at such intervals as may be suitable, to consider whether degree of …disablement has altered”
  •  SMP to make a determination if/ how much earnings capacity has been affected
    Band 1 (<25%)
    Band 2 (25% – 50%)
    Band 3 (50% to 75%)
    Band 4 (>75%)
  • Minimum = Band 1

The red highlighted text shows that either Sampson is ignorant of the Laws case (unlikely) or he is intentionally willing to review former officers contrary to it’s judgements.  They fail to explain how it is beyond all improbability that the interval is suitable to all the people they intend to review  by pure chance alone.

‘Earnings’ is a word synonymous with salary and has no place in a review. Use of salary as the only measure is a failure to  follow the judgement of Court of Appeal in Metropolitan Police Authority v Laws and can only amount to an unlawful reassessment where a former police officer could find his injury pension being reduced because of a difference of medical opinion on his capability for work rather than there being any real alteration in the officer’s degree of disablement.  Sampson can not just ‘assess’ the degree of disablement.

The finding of Laws is that the SMP (or board) is not allowed to consider the pensioner’s current degree of disablement and then compare it with the previous assessment. The duty – the only duty – is to decide whether, since then, there has been a substantially altered change.

The right question for the SMP is not “what jobs can this person do today” but the comparative exercise of “has the impact of the index injury on the jobs she/he can do today substantially changed from the position at the last review date”.

The Laws judgement was reaffirmed in the case of Simpson. The conclusion in Simpson is clear. There can be no new consideration of notional earning capacity (i.e. what the officer would have been capable of earning but for his injury) unless and until there has been a substantial alteration in his physical condition or his present job opportunities, that is to say that something has actually changed since the last review, other than the mere passage of time.

But this isn’t what the NAMF delegates want to hear so Sampson & Mitchel play to the desires of their captivated audience.

3.Numbers / cost

  • 380 + pensioners in receipt of an IOD award
  • £3.36 million per year
  • No programme of review for significant period of timetherefore no up to date medical information to ensure pension payments more accurately reflected up to date individual circumstances and ensure public money being spent wisely.
  • Notts Force Executive Board decision to commence programme of review – all Bands included; age under 70 for this programme of review

Slide three mentions the annual spend on injury awards (just to emphasis their mission to reduce this figure).  The point of ‘not having a reviewing program for a significant amount of time‘ is a non-sequitur. A decision not to review is as much an exercise of a discretional power as a decision to review.  Notts admit that they had consciously chosen not to review, and now they have changed their mind.  Not knowing the individual circumstances of any given former officer is down to them and them alone.  Never do these people think that once someone leaves the police service, they want to live their private life without the constant forensic examination and prying into their personal matters by their former force.  Not having a review program is no reason to justify a new programme – quite the opposite.

Not performing any reviews gives a legitimate expectation that is based on the principles of natural justice and fairness, a maxim that seeks to prevent authorities from abusing power.  A substantive legitimate expectation arises where an authority makes a lawful representation that an individual will receive or continue to receive some kind of expectation that they will be not have to undergo the trauma of a force reviewing them.  Not reviewing is as much a lawful representation as reviewing itself.

The last bullet point on slide 3 is revealing.  It was the force executive board that decided to start a review program, not the police pension authority.  In other words finance officers, estate directors and HR directors all decided it was a good idea.  The police pension authority is not a committee – it is the Chief Constable wearing a different hat.

4.Preliminaries

  • Letter sent to eligible pensioners Dec 2013 advising that a programme would commence
  • Tendering process for SMP (OJEU – with Derbyshire and Leicestershire) – SMP appointment Spring 2014
  • Process – Liaised with Federation; NARPO;
    Regional Legal Services
  • Retained HR Admin support identified
  • No Regional OHU involvement

Slide four talks about who Notts have liaised with. It also mentions that there has been no regional occupation health unit involvement.  Could this be because they have destroyed all the occupational information data they have and are reviewing people ‘blind’?  They have apparently briefed local NARPO as well as the local Federation.  This is mentioned in the slide as if such an action provides their review program with legitimacy.  There is no mention of how the liaison progressed or whether any objections were raised.

5.Process

  • Sequence of review – eligible former officers who saw SMP furthest ago
  • Batches of 15 – approx six weekly intervals
    Former officer sent (1) GP consent ; (2) OHU file consent; (3)questionnaire to complete
  • Letters – 3 stages – 28 days /14 days / 7 days
    Following receipt of consent form, GP records requested
  • With completed paper/work, SMP undertakes ‘paper review” to make a determination if there has been potential ‘substantial alteration’ since assessment / last review
  • If no substantial alteration – end of process
    lf substantial alteration indicated – former officer requested to attend meeting with SMP
  • Following assessment, SMP produces report and officer has 28 days to indicate whether they contest findings

Slide five exposes the process.  The bullet points allude to substantial change but here is where the hypocrisy lies.  There is no mention of change to the medical condition.  It is about salary and nothing else.

Note that Notts expect the whole procedure for the 3 stages to be completed in 49 days!  Notts also wants full medical records as well the notorious questionnaire to inaccurately condense decades of life into unrepresentative bite-sized chunks.  The true agenda here is to examine the smallest details: a minute examination to enable apportionment and to revisit the original decision.

How can a questionnaire determine the existence of substantial change when there is no previous questionnaire, completed back-in-the-day, that can be used as a base line? The closed questioning leads to answers being interpreted in such a way that you can accomplish much more on the good days than on the bad days, the HR functionary will ignore any detail concerning your bad days and focus ONLY on what you can achieve on a good day.

Be in no doubt that the SMP will not be the one to perform this paper shift. An health professional is too expensive to contemplate and  slide four stated that regional occupational health units will not be involved.  Using a SMP at this stage will cost at least £500 per person if a competent preliminary valuation of the former officer’s condition is conducted.  It is ludicrous to insinuate that for 380 former officers they will spend £190,000 just to consider whether there has been substantial change before they call the person to attend a face to face assessment with the SMP.

Mass reviews, blanket reviews, wholesale review programmes; they are all names for the same thing – always an attempt to reduce, never to increase an award.  They are a conveyor belt with a predetermined agenda.  For the former officer it is equivalent to entering a Mafia controlled casino where the dice man, pit boss and croupier all have complete control over the outcome.  The review casino is selling an illusion that they are paying due regard to the medical condition correctly and that they are abiding by the Regulations.

That’s it for part one.  Part two will follow in the next couple of weeks.

Bogeymen

Bogeymen

“If there is anything more annoying in the world than having people talk about you, it is certainly having no one talk about you.”
Oscar Wilde

A bogeyman (also spelled bogieman, boogeyman, or boogie man) is a monstrous imaginary figure. But it seems that some HR Departments believe he is real and even now stalks the land in human form.

The bogeyman of legend and fairy tale has no specific appearance. Children are told stories of shadowy shapes that flit into the corner of one’s eye and then disappear. The bogeyman might live under the bed, or in the wardrobe, or might be lurking in the dark overgrown bushes at the bottom of the garden. No matter where he hides, he is out to get you, so beware. Hurry home, children, dive into bed and pull up the covers so he can’t seize you by the toes and drag you off to his lair.

HR managers give the bogeyman more corporeal form and substance. They seem to think that the bogeyman appears in the borrowed shape of disabled former police officers. A guise quite at odds with the spirit of the legends and, as a modern take on a traditional myth, is really very inventive and clearly the product of a disturbed mind.

The etymology of the word “bogeyman” is uncertain, as is when it first appeared in the English language. Some sources date it to the 16th century, while others to around 1836, as a term for the Devil.

The Devil is now, according to the rumour mill being circulated by some police forces, stalking and abusing, not children, but stoical adult medical practitioners who work for police forces.  By these accounts one force in particular is telling people, ‘that a doctor has been subject to stalking and that threats have been made against FMAs [Force Medical Advisors] by a campaign group’.

We at IODPA are extremely shocked and concerned at this revelation.  Apparently there is a militant and anarchist campaign group out there that is actively seeking out and physically targeting force medical advisors (selected medical practitioners were not mentioned).   The force spreading this malicious and unsubstantiated gossip mentions FMAs, plural – as in more than one single incidence.  The source of this fairy tale we suspect to emanate from the National Attendance Management Forum, which is where HR managers and others gather together, safety in numbers, to exchange gossip and misinformation.

The unsubstantiated Chinese whispers we have heard are that the stalking typically involves a sped-up chase scene involving a crew of scantily-clad injured persons hobbling with their canes and struggling with their mental illness, with a doctor being the one chased, due to silly predicaments that he himself caused.  A take-off on the stereotypical Keystone Kops chase scenes.

In all seriousness, we are in IODPA a cooperative made up solely of responsible, adult, medically retired police officers, who were all injured in the execution of their duty.  It is generally known that it takes a high standard of character to be recruited into the police and that police work can be dangerous. Our members were all injured through no fault of their own and are now disabled members of the public with a strong core of moral code.  We have been subjected to unlawful behaviour by police pension authorities but we will never reciprocate like with like. Injustice cannot be overcome with injustice.

The injuries of our members range from physical to psychological.  Quite often the physical injuries have psychological repercussions.  The psychological injuries are often extremely severe.

Perhaps IODPA is being too precious, but we hope that the Devil that these forces believe is stalking doctors is not meant to be a reference to us.

We therefore challenge any FMA, SMP or HR person to produce concrete proof of these allegations. If any person has been stalked, tell us who, when and where. If there was evidence of harassment, abuse and threats then any competent and  independent person would expect there to be a criminal investigation and a prosecution.  It speaks volumes that there has been no such thing.  All police forces should be above the childish playground behaviour of spreading rumours.

In the meantime, we will take these bogeyman tales as no more than a foul ploy to divert attention away from the very real, and evidenced accounts of harassment and, yes, stalking, of disabled former police officers by police forces.

The fact is, members of our association have been stalked.  There are instances where people with IOD awards have been put unlawfully under surveillance. We can never forget the case of the West Midlands consultant psychiatrist, Dr Nicholas Cooling, who personally hired a team of private detectives to stake out and video an injured police officer.  The GMC suspended him over that little lapse of ethics.

Another tale of harassment concerns a former South Wales officer whose police career ended after he was severely traumatised following the 2002 clash between Cardiff City and Leeds United fans, and who won a victory in 2009 against South Wales Police, which had kept him under surveillance for months.  The Police Medical Appeal Board (PMAB) was highly critical of South Wales Police, which had claimed he was not entitled to an injury award. The Appeal Board adjudication said video evidence of him was irrelevant. Material disclosed subsequently showed that 11 officers from South Wales Police and the neighbouring Dyfed-Powys force were used to spy on him for months in an operation estimated to have cost more than £100,000.

There have been too may instances to list here where a person with an IOD award has been abused and harassed over a course of years not just by a SMP but also by the bullying machinations of a zealous and uncaring HR department.

We will mention one incident, which concerns a very ill retired former officer who was summoned to be reviewed. Two friends drove him to the appointment at the force’s occupational health offices, and waited for him in the car-park.  When the review was under way a uniformed police officer with their epaulettes removed came out of the building and blatantly took photographs of the waiting vehicle and the occupants.   Here was no RIPA authority, nothing that allowed this intrusion into civil liberty.  Not prepared to be taken at a disadvantage, the occupants themselves took a picture or two of the uniformed officer taking pictures.  Then a doctor came out of the building, walked up to the car and spoke to those within saying, ‘Do you want a close up?’

We know of another incident where a person with complex psychological issues was forced to undergo a review just because he was a band four.  Despite his condition down-turning and his clinicians warning the force and evidencing his severe deterioration during the months of delay cause by the police pension authority, the force in question kept up their sanctimonious fishing trip.  This sorry episode was reported in this blog post.

Driven to the realms beyond madness he told his crisis clinician during a mental health crisis team counselling session that he wanted to kill those who he saw were harming him.  This clinician took the threats seriously and was duty bound to escalate his concerns to the relevant authorities.  There are always two sides to every story.

The shameful outcome of this shameful event is the force ‘deferred‘ the review (a made up thing that does not exist in the Regulations), saying the former officer is too ill and that he should be reviewed again in 3 months, ‘when he is better’.

A review isn’t a benign thing.  It damages people.  And if they are damaged already they become more and more unstable.  IODPA does not condone unlawful behaviour.  That said, we can understand why someone with complex PTSD isn’t always in control of their own responses.

When a force proclaims that a campaign group is physically threatening Doctors, and it uses this as an excuse to withhold information, it tarnishes everyone.  This circus show encourages guilt by association, and seeks to demonise all disabled former officers. We say, you hypocrites, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly there is no speck in our brother’s eye.

IODPA only asks for fairness, respect and the fundamental and lawful following of the Regulations.

Those injured former officers who contribute to this association are all law abiding citizens.

If only those that administer the police injury award scheme were as conscientious as we are.

 

NAMF and the Finality of the SMP Report

NAMF and the Finality of the SMP Report

“The purpose of the boards is to consider appeals from police officers or former police officers who are dissatisfied with a decision made by a medical practitioner, selected by the police authority, in relation to their qualifying for ill-health and injury benefits”

― Contract Between the Secretary of State for the Home Department and Health Management Ltd FOR THE PROVISION OF REGIONAL BOARDS OF MEDICAL REFEREES FOR POLICE MEDICAL APPEALS IN GREAT BRITAIN

When the question of the degree of disablement is passed to the Selected Medical Practitioner (SMP) the Regulations are quite clear that it is only the SMP  that is able to give a decision:

Reference of medical questions

H1(2) of the 1987 Regulations, a final decision of a medical authority on the said questions under Part H of the 1987 Regulations shall be binding for the purposes of these Regulations

[….]

The decision of the selected medical practitioner on the question or questions referred to him under this regulation shall be expressed in the form of a report and shall, subject to regulations 31 and 32, be final.

(7) A copy of any such report shall be supplied to the person who is the subject of that report.

There is no ambiguity that the question, once answered by the SMP as the medical authority, is anything other than final.

The judiciary agrees with this.

Haworth v PMAB

presumption of finality in respect of the decisions of the material medical authority

Pollard V PMAB

The decision of the SMP on the issues referred to him are final, subject to appeal or a review or reference back (see regulation 30(6))

Crudace V PMAB

The SMP is obliged to produce a report with reasons to explain the basis for his decision on both entitlement and on quantum. Under regulation 30(6) the decision is final subject to any appeal under regulation 31 or a reconsideration under regulation 32(2).

So why does the National Attendance Management Forum (NAMF) state in their non-statutory and misleading ‘guidance’ that the report made by SMP  as the medical authority is not final?  That they proclaim it is the Director of Human Resources as the delegated police pension authority (PPA) that is the ultimate adjudicator, and the SMP report is just an exercisable Pollice Verso – the thumbs down decree of death made by a Caesar upon a fallen gladiator.

Here is the offending paragraph from the NAMF ‘guidance’:

Section 3.6.5

The SMP’s role is to measure degree of disablement using admissible evidence.  On receipt of his decision it is for the PPA to decide whether any identified change in the degree of disablement represents a substantial alteration and if so they shall revise the IOD pension accordingly’

NAMF agrees that the SMP – as the medical authority – gives a decision.  But that is all it gets right.  Remember this is the decision that the Regulations clearly state has to be referred by the PPA to a suitably qualified medical practitioner.

NAMF now goes off into Alice’s Wonderland territory by continuing that a non-medical HR senior manager now determines the ‘determination’ of the degree of disablement by declaring whether he thinks its substantial (or not).

Reading the finality quotes from case law and from the Regulations, there isn’t any allowance or interpretation to permit the medical authority’s decision being over-ruled or quantified by the delegated PPA … quite the opposite.  The high court has determined that the SMP not only considers any alteration on a review but he alone determines whether it is substantial or not – not the Director of HR.

Simpson V PMAB

The only duty on a medical authority when conducting a Regulation 37(1) review is to decide whether, since the award or last review – whichever is the latest – there has been a change in the degree of disablement; whether, in the language of the regulation, there has been a substantial alteration.

One of the many troubling consequences of NAMF ‘guidance’ is that it fails to grasp that Regulation 37 is only a gateway into reviewing the degree of disablement via Regulation 30-2(d).  Their recalcitrant proclamation that a delegated PPA can basically override the medical authority not only has implications at review – it reflects by corrupting the root power that enables a  revision of the degree of disablement; in other words Regulation 30 itself.

NAMF has ignorantly misconstrued, and taken out of context, the wording of Regulation 37 by manipulating the sentence ‘[…]and if after such consideration the police authority find that the degree of the pensioner’s disablement has substantially altered, the pension shall be revised accordingly’, and omitting that the consideration IS the referral to the medical authority under Regulation 30’s ‘Reference of Medical Questions’.  It does not permit a dictatorial decree, in the style of Alan Sugar, by the PPA himself.

Imagine this scenario that is perversely permitted under the NAMF ‘guidance’:

  • The SMP answers the relevant questions from Regulation 30 that the appellant has an injury and is disabled from performing the ordinary duties of a member of the police force.
  • The disablement is likely to permanent.
  • That the condition is the result of of an injury the execution of duty
  • and that the earning capacity has been affected at 40%.
  • * Non-regulatory & unlawful. The PPA now decides that the degree of disablement shouldn’t be 40% – it should be 20%

Or on review:

  • The medical authority determines there has been substantial change to the degree of disablement and revises the award from a band 2 to a band 3
  • *Non-regulatory & unlawful.  The PPA now decides that the degree of disablement does not construe substantial change and orders the award to remain at a band 2.

Can you just imagine how a Director of HR would defend such an horrendous intervention at a PMAB panel or Judicial Review?

Let us emphasise our message to the nth degree that, despite NAMF’s ‘guidance’,  the PPA does not have the final decision regarding determination of the degree of disablement.  This blog  post started off with a quote from the contract between the Home Office and the company selected to administer police medical appeal boards.  The framework mentioned in paragraph 1.3 is that the PMAB considers appeals on the decisions made by the medical practitioner, selected by the pension authority.  Note the distinction between ‘decision made’ and ‘selected by’.

ho contract 1_3

There has obviously been no mention ever, in any judicial review, of the delegated police pension authority having the ultimate decision.  An example being the following Judicial Review .

SOUTH WALES POLICE AUTHORITY (CLAIMANT) -v- THE MEDICAL REFEREE (DR DAVID ANTON) Dr Davies, as the Selected Medical Practitioner, answered the relevant questions from H1(2), in his certificate of 10th January 2002, that Mr Crocker was suffering from “psychotic illness”, and was disabled from performing the ordinary duties of a member of the police force. The disablement was likely to be permanent. He said that the matter should be considered in two years’ time. He said that the condition was the result of an injury received in the execution of duty and that the earning capacity had been affected at 40 per cent.

Of course not, because it is not permitted.  The decision of the medical authority, whether incorrect or not, is final and binding to the PPA.  It can only be appealed by the former officer or taken to Judicial Review by the PPA.

Blindly following NAMF ‘guidance’ is no better than saying we’re ‘just following orders’ and is not a justification for morally questionable actions that a Force  invoke when questioned about the rightness or necessity of such actions.  Just saying ‘we are following NAMF guidance’ does not absolve the HR managers from using their own brains and reading the Regulations and understanding the case law.

Just following orders didn’t work for the Nazis in Nuremberg.

Rules? What Rules?

Rules?  What Rules?

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

The authors of this blog have been weighing up what to write for our next post.  Not because we lack material – quite the opposite; in fact we have an embarrassment of material. The embarrassment would be all Avon and Somerset’s if they had any ability to feel shame for what they have done

The reason for our publishing predicament is that at the moment some of the material we’ve gathered from various sources is ground-shatteringly explosive.  It’s an agreeable predicament, in that by writing about it in a public blog we expose the existence of the ticking nuclear device which IOD pensioners have obtained and are preparing to use.  So we won’t ruin the surprise. Let’s just move on for the moment and we can talk about this another time, when the fall-out dust has settled and the heads have rolled.

So, after a bit of consideration, we are back onto our least favourite topic. A topic which makes it hard for us to hold on to our view that human beings generally chose to do the right thing when given a choice between doing harm or doing good. Our hearts sink when we contemplate the walking contradiction which is the supposedly ethical medical doctor who consistently prefers to cause harm rather than do good.  Yes, we are talking about Dr Philip Johnson.

He is the medic who ambled blindly into the role of being the patsy for A&S. We think he was conned. He was told he would be paid handsomely for performing a routine assessment of disabled former officers. A task which would take an hour of his time per pensioner, plus another hour to write up a short report. ‘Nice little earner,’ he was told. ‘We have 480 of them all lined up like ducks in a row.’

Kerching! Johnson did the maths. Visions of barrows loaded with money.

A&S didn’t tell him that two other doctors had been approached earlier and had seen right through the cunning plan devised by A&S to save money by unlawfully reviewing and reducing pension payments made to disabled former officers; 2 doctors that A&S attempted to groom in-house for the exclusive role of reducing the banding of injury awards by any means necessary. Those doctors left suddenly under a cloud – they had declined to prostitute their talents by dancing to A&S’s tune (that’s a story deserving of its own blog post).

His dreams of cash-flow were soon shattered when he realised it wasn’t about to be so easy. There was a small problem called the Police (Injury Benefit) Regulations 2006. It came as a shock to him to realise that he actually had to follow them. You see, Johnson was told otherwise.

He was subjected to a ‘training event’ held at the College of Policing. The core of this ‘training’ was a rambling load of crap delivered by none other than that fine upstanding example of legal rectitude, Nicholas Wirz, who is the head solicitor for Northumbria Police. He is the pheasant plucker who advised Northumbria’s SMP Dr Broome to unlawfully reduce the pensions of some 70 disabled elderly former officers to band one.

Yes, you read that right. A solicitor whose advice was to do something against the law, on the basis that the intended victims were too weak to do anything about it.

When the inevitable applications for appeal were made, our old Nick threatened the applicants (he would say he warned them) that their appeals would be deemed vexatious (where have we heard that word more recently?) and they would have to pay £6,200 adverse costs when their appeals failed.

Johnson had soaked up the wonderful professional atmosphere of the College, enjoyed the socialising with his intellectual equals, and hung on the words of the eminent legal expert Wirz. Being naïve, Johnson took as gospel everything Wirz and his little sidekick Trevor Forbes had to say.

But when pensioners began to tell him that he was breaking the law, that he was not following the Regulations and that they would not bow to his ridiculous demands to allow him unrestricted access to their medical records from birth, and that if he insisted then they would be seeking legal representation – from a proper solicitor – he slowly began to realise that his nice little earner was in fact a purse of counterfeit currency.

He turned to the other ‘organisation of excellence’ the National Attendance Management Forum (NAMF).

Before detailing how the NAMF influenced Johnson we have to divert for a moment and wonder what a bunch of HR functionaries and others are doing when they diversify from discussing issues around why employees go sick and what can be done about it, to issuing detailed so-called guidance on complex legal matters concerning police injury pensions.

For that is what the NAMF did. It produced some guidance for SMPs like Johnson. Presumably on the basis that some SMPs were so thick they couldn’t be trusted to understand the Regulations and apply caselaw properly.

Johnson was fully trained and guidanced-up. He was good to go.

Then it all went pear shaped, with queries and challenges. And that was when he showed his true colours. That was the moment when he had a choice to make. Brave soul that he is, he did not hesitate – and chose to cover his substantial ass. He chose self preservation over doing the decent thing.

Drawing on his considerable Army experience, (and on the Book of Wirz) he decided the best form of defence was attack. He insisted he was right, that he could demand access to medical records from birth. In this way, he was able to not conclude the reviews he had conducted, and blame the lack of a decision on the pensioners who had failed to cooperate with his demands.

By not making any decisions, he reckoned he could not be criticised as there would be nothing to appeal against.

However, Johnson, he who can’t spot a legal charlatan when he sees one, who is blinded by thoughts of earning easy money, who seems to lack the wit to read and understand the Regulations, who has difficulty in researching the readily-available transcripts of relevant High Court cases and who when given a choice between doing good or doing harm, chose the latter in a feeble attempt to save his own skin, is a man who can’t even follow the guidance issued by the NAMF.

Here is the NAMF politburo directive in black and white:

namf directive

… the only evidence he may consider upon review is that which post-dates the earlier review.

Seems straightforward enough doesn’t it?  This comes from the NAMF’s verbosely titled ‘Procedural guidance on Assessing and reassessing the degree of disablement as a result of an injury received in the execution of duty’ [sic] dated 01/03/2013. It seems that even in a pile of manure there may be found a single pip of legal accuracy.

We all know that NAMF has zero legal jurisdiction on matters covered by a statutory instrument passed by Parliament, a.k.a. The Police (Injury Benefit) Regulations 2006; but NAMF guidance is what some forces cling to for legitimacy.

It’s a crying shame then that this willing recipient of NAMF codswallop can’t even follow its directives.

Our premise is that Johnson was conned. Not just by A&S when they hired him and failed to mention the intention was to have him conduct unlawful reviews so that injury pensions could be reduced – to act as the front man, the fall guy, should anything go wrong. The first fifteen reviews were, it is now admitted by A&S, to be a ‘trial’ of the process (we haven’t miscounted, we know the saga of all the 16). You don’t need to trial the law – you need to apply it correctly. What was being trialled was a way to abuse and subvert the law.

Johnson was further conned by the training event held at the College of Policing. There he listened attentively to what will in due course go down in injury pension history as the biggest load of bovine excrement ever produced.

To a neutral observer it’s clear that he lacked the moral fibre to do the right thing and tell those who hired him that he would follow only the Regulations, not so-called guidance from any source. When he saw the harm the review process was causing to vulnerable, damaged, disabled people he suppressed his Hippocratic principles and chose not to do what he could to repair the harm. Instead of accepting responsibility for his failing to make decisions for over a year, he chose to seek to blame the pensioners.  Instead of acting honourably and resigning his position, he chose to cling on by his fingertips, hoping that by so doing he would not be exposed to the inevitable litigation that would result from such widespread and determined maladministration. Rather than blow the whistle on the damning evidence of unlawful intent in the conversations he has been privy too at A&S he chose to keep silent.

Dr Johnson has made his choices. He must eventually face the consequences. He may not have long to wait.  That said, it might be wise to find a tin hat to wear if you are also part of the ‘J-K-W-B’  posse of four employee ‘enablers’ who merrily have overseen the maladministration.

Neither Lawful or Unlawful

Neither Lawful or Unlawful

“If it doesn’t say it’s not, then its allowed” to misquote and paraphrase Dostoyevsky’s  “If there is no God, everything is permitted” .

Without a rule of law as a higher authority  – so the story goes – there is nothing ultimately to prevent us from ruthlessly exploiting our neighbours, using them as tools for profit and pleasure, or enslaving, humiliating and killing them in their millions.  This isn’t the case in truth – an action can be known to be unlawful even though there isn’t an exact line of text that defines without ambiguity it’s legitimacy.  Just because an esoteric Law or Regulation is silent on a particular transgression does not mean that the transgression is permitted.

The Police and Injury Benefit Regulations 2006 does not allow for the interpretation that on reaching 65 years of age a former officer has no earning capacity.  However nowhere is this explicitly mentioned; but it is still a given.  A given because the nature and purpose of the statutory scheme is to provide an entitlement of an award for life.

The Police Pension Authorities and the Home Office knew this and were ‘trying it on’ hoping that their illegality wouldn’t be challenged. And it was,  and they lost.

They are at it again…

The minutes of the National Attendance Management Forum hosted by West Midlands Police on Friday 27th March 2015 has this to say about PEAM (Police Earnings Assessment Matrix):

neither lawful or unlawful

If a matter is not lawful then it must be unlawful.  The opposite of lawful is unlawful, illegal, illegitimate, incorrect,unacceptable, wrong, illicit, prohibited, taboo.  So there is nowhere for NAMF to go on this; they state themselves that PEAM is not lawful.

Not lawful because it is up to the SMP to decide the degree of disablement as a medical matter by assessing the impact of the duty injury to the former officer’s earning capacity – it is a medical question not an accountancy exercise.  It is a broad judgement to be made by the clinician about the effect of the injury or condition he has examined in contrast to a much more detailed calculation based on earnings data,  and that his/her decision is final.  When has a SMP ever used PEAM?   – the bad maths is always performed subsequently by a HR functionary.  That is not lawful.

The travesty is that they know such an artificial earning matrix is unlawful but they will not stop using it until a former disabled police officer is disadvantaged, agonised and tormented by an unjust calculation to such an extent that they have no option but to challenge it in judicial review.  Why should something known to be unlawful need to have a court to reaffirm it’s unlawfulness?  Because NAMF is on a crusade to undermine the regulations.

NAMF – A coven of vipers.

NAMF – A coven of vipers.

NAMF:  The National Attendance Management Forum.

A committee of HR managers, finance managers, force medical officers made up from a large number of police authorities throughout England and Wales, that meet up to discuss how they can ‘deal’ with those entitled to and in receipt of Injury on Duty awards.  After the Home Office’s guidance was declared unlawful, the meetings provide a convenient avenue for the Home Office to drip feed advice to the forces, instigate a culture and then set the fuse for the encouraged HR managers to go off and work themselves up into a feeding frenzy.

NAMF is semi-clandestine because IOD pensioners generally remain unaware of it. The Forum does not advertise its existence, whilst not exactly attempting to keep itself secret. References to it do occasionally appear on force documents but it does not routinely publish its agenda or minutes. If you Google the Forum you will see that most references to the NAMF result from Freedom of Information Act requests.

The National Attendance Management Forum meets at premises provided by West Midlands Police at their Tally Ho! training centre. Meetings are held every three months.

The Forum comprises representatives from c. 35 forces from across the service, including Scotland and Northern Ireland. A unique feature is the mix of professional skills and background of representatives, which include Lawyers, Personnel Professionals, Doctors and Occupational Health Practitioners. Colleagues from the Home Office and NPIA also attend.

The mix of disciplines allows the Forum to debate and progress a wide variety of work from across the occupational health, legal and HR fields. The views of IOD pensioners are never sought by the Forum.

The NAMF is infamous for being used by the Home Office in its attempts to circumvent the Regulations. A steadfast regular attendee was none other than John Gilbert – the civil servant author of Annex C to Home Office circular 46/2004.

As to the ‘lawyers’ the list of delegates shows Nicholas Wirz (Northumbria), whose legal advice to his force seems to have been somewhat lacking as he was the instructing solicitor to Johnathan Holl-Allen, QC in the case of Crudace V PMAB,  decided that significant parts of the Home Office guidance were unlawful. Written evidence supplied by Wirz to the Haworth case was equally unconvincing. Wirz was the gentleman who wrote threatening letters to 45 of the 70 disabled former officers whose injury pensions had been reduced in one afternoon on 20th February 2009 by SMP Dr. Broome. The 45 pensioners had given notice of appeal, and Wirz’s letters effectively threatened them with having to pay the £6,200 costs of any appeal and also contained his opinion that any appeal would be hopeless. Northumbria is the force listed in several judicial reviews and pension ombudsman decisions.

Rather worryingly given his track record Wirz now provides guidance to selected medical practitioners who attend NAMF functions: MR+NICHOLAS+WIRZ+PRESENTATION+(1)

The paradox is that despite the guidance that NAMF churns out having no legal basis and no substance that it is in harmony with the regulations, shamefully forces now use it as a badge of honour when conducting a review – basically saying ‘Its OK we’re following NAMF guidance’.  In fact what they should be saying is ‘It’s OK – we’re following the regulations to the letter’.  NAMF guidance is now being used as the Injury on duty equivalent to the Nuremberg defence.

There seems to be little doubt that the NAMF is the source of poor and ill-thought out information which can be readily seized upon by lazy and ignorant HR and OH ‘professionals’ who can’t be bothered to read and understand the Regulations and stated cases for themselves. It is also a platform for a small number of people whose motives are suspect and who seek to manipulate opinion. As a showcase for the talents of the people who are entrusted with the administration of police injury pensions the NAMF is more of an example of a group of people with which to frighten your grandchildren than to inspire them with role models.

Why all the hullabaloo about IOD reviews?

Why all the hullabaloo about IOD reviews?

Injury on Duty Awards used to come out of central government funds but that changed in the early ‘noughties and the awards became payable out of the individual force’s budget.  But the Home Office threw a sop to the forces – now obligated to pay for their decisions they made to retire former officers.  Their redress was new Home Office Guidance – Home Office Circular (HOC) 46/2004

The problem is that although the Regulations are unchanged, many Police Authorities ( probably slightly less than half of the authorities in England and Wales) changed their policy following the issue of the guidance in HOC 46/2004 and introduced reviews triggered when the retired officer reaches the ages of 60 and 65. Although this guidance and policies based on it have been declared unlawful and withdrawn, forces are still attempting to find ways to reduce IOD bands in order to make budget savings. Existing injury pensions which may or may not have been subject to review previously were now reviewed under the new guidance which, in some forces was pursued aggressively.

HOC 46/2004 was unlawful and challenged – not directly at first – there was a blow-back and the new aggressive stance by Police Pension Authorities was used on other former officers, of all ages, in receipt of IOD awards.  Turner V PMAB and Laws V PMAB were case-law decided as a direct result of 46/2004 even though neither of the appellants were 65 years old.  This circular corrupted the administration of ALL IOD awards and the whole thing came down to ways the police pension authority can save money.  Lets not forget who had to challenge the unlawful guidance – incapacitated and disabled former police officers.

Turner and Laws were successful on points of law.  After that the guidance itself contained within HOC 46/2004 was challenged both by  judicial review (Crudace, Simpson etc)  and by the pension ombudsman (Ayers, Sharp etc) and the guidance was declared unlawful in 2013 in the consent order Slater V PMAB and officially withdrawn.

But the Rubicon had been crossed and the police pension authorities had tasted blood.  In the days of austerity how better for a high-flying Chief Finance Officer (CFO) to mark their career by making instant savings into their budget. If they can save ££££ then their CV and LinkedIn would be flowered up and then a new role with  an inflated 6 figure salary plus bonus will be within their grasp.  Like a plague of locusts, using the budget reduction as evidence, the CFOs think they can move onto a new force to decimate and corrupt the administration of IOD awards there as well.

Did the Home Office and police pension authorities accept they were wrong?  No.  The guidance was withdrawn and the Home Office and those forces that pursued 46/2004 maliciously had their fingers burnt.  Out of the ashes the National Attendance Management Forum (NAMF) was born.  A coven of HR and finance managers who meetup at Tally Ho! Conference Centre Birmingham. The cynically minded might view this organisation as an attempt to further undermine the regulations with an attempt to keep  keeping the sphere of influence separate so the Home Office doesn’t get the blame.

There will be further posts all about NAMF.

This group of police force HR managers, occupational health personnel and the odd force solicitor is supposedly concerned in its quarterly meetings with keeping the police workforce fit and well. The clue is in the name - it is supposed to concentrate on people who work. However, it spends time also considering matters relating to disabled former officers. Quite what legitimates this group's interest in disabled private citizens who are in receipt of a police injury pension is a mystery.

The mystery deepens when it is revealed that the Home Office and representatives of the commercial company which has the contract to run Police Medical Appeal Boards, HML, also regularly appear on the list of delegates. The mystery morphs into something smelling of conspiracy when the delegate list is entirely absent of any representative of any of the people whose lives the NAMF seeks to affect. There is nobody from the Police Federation, nor from NARPO, nor anyone from any disablement charity, mental health association, etc. etc. In other words, the NAMF is a one-sided talking shop. Even at that level it is not properly representative of all police forces, for we note that there are rarely, if ever, delegates present from every area.

Those of us with long memories, recollect that the Home Office claimed that it had conducted what it called a 'survey' of all forces, way back in 2004, prior to finalising its unlawful guidance issued as Annex C to HO circular 46/2004. The HO claimed that their survey showed that it was common practice for forces to review the degree of disablement of injury-on-duty pensioners once they reached what would have been normal force retirement age. This is what the guidance said:

'This Guidance is being issued to help ensure a fairer, more cohesive approach to the payment of injury benefits to ill-health retired officers who have reached the compulsory retirement age with their Force. A recent survey found that practice in this area was diverse. Some forces automatically reduced degree of disablement benefits to the lowest banding when this age had been reached - others continued to pay benefits at the same rate until the death of the Officer concerned.'

The plain truth, revealed through Freedom of Information Act requests, was that there never was any survey. The HO later tried to claim that the bold, unmistakable claim made in its guidance resulted from 'round the table discussions' at meetings of the NAMF. Yet nothing even hinting at such discussions appeared in the minutes and the HO could not produce a single scrap of data nor any record or any other evidence to show quite how it had come to the conclusion that some forces automatically reduced benefits to the lowest band at what would have been normal force retirement age.

Shockingly, further research revealed that absolutely no forces, not a single one out of the 43 in England and Wales, had ever reduced benefits to the lowest band at what would have been normal force retirement age, automatically or otherwise. The Home Office was caught out in a blatant lie. It was a lie intended for one purpose only - its actually intent was to give an air of normalcy to the huge change in practice which the HO wished to bring about.

This astounding act by a Government department tells us what the NAMF was then, and remains now. It's objective in so far as police injury on duty pensions is concerned, is to subvert the law of the land. The law cannot be changed retrospectively, so the inner circle work to find ways to unlawfully manipulate it through influencing gullible HR managers, and by training carefully selected corruptible SMPs how to refuse grant of an injury award and how to conduct reviews which reduce the degree of disablement of retired officers.

And so the machinations of the NAMF continue...