National Attendance Management Forum

The Judicial Fallacy

iodpa NAMF, National Attendance Management Forum
The Judicial Fallacy

“All the fallacies of human reason had to be exhausted, before the light of a high truth could meet with ready acceptance.”
― Friedrich Max Müller

Here at IODPA we are seeing regular references, made by people who should know better, to the Selected Medical Practitioner (SMP) having standing  akin to a Coroner or a Judge with case management powers. Indeed some SMPs have referred to themselves as being involved in a judicial process and acting as judges  (not only have we had anecdotal feedback incorporating these common themes, we have seen the reports containing such fallacious proclamations firsthand).

Before we look at the veracity of these claims  and their origins a brief understanding of the law is required. So lets test the proposition; is the claim of an SMP being a Judicial Office Holder valid or a convenient  invention?

Origins

The doctrine of Parliamentary Sovereignty is the cornerstone of our democracy. This legal doctrine means that parliament makes the law in the form of Statutes and gives authority to the provision of secondary legislation such as the Police Injury Benefit Regulations.

The Brexit debate and recent Miller case has brought this sharply into focus. In the Simpson High Court Judgement it was ruled that the attempt by a Home Office Civil Servant to issue guidance undermined Regulations and Case law. You cannot usurp Parliamentary Sovereignty and import meaning or intention which does not exist. The Home Office withdrew its guidance and directed Chief Constables to legislation and case law as referenced in the Simpson Judgement.

NAMF

The rule of law is another fundamental concept in our legal traditions. As Police Officers we had to accept the decisions of the courts after all we were servants of the law. The Home Office had no choice but to rightly recognise their errors when they were ruled to have acted unlawfully by Mr Justice Supperstone, and (with rapped knuckles and burnt fingers) withdrew their guidance as not to prolong their humiliation.

This unlawful guidance was much, much more than just a costly mistake.  Arguably it was pursued voraciously by some forces with eyes wide open.  It made many injured former Police officers face financial ruin including homelessness as well as the emotional trauma.  The costs to the taxpayer were enormous and the only winners would appear to have been the SMP’s paid to conduct these reviews and the Barristers acting for the Police.

Lessons were learnt by some, unlawful reviews were suspended.  The country’s largest force, The Metropolitan Police, does not undertake reviews unless requested by the former officer. However, there were those who couldn’t accept the rule of law; after-all, they parochially thought, why should those who were unable to work or have their earning capacity reduced, having put themselves in harms way and lost their careers and become disabled, receive an injury award?

Well, we have yet to meet a HR minion who has walked a mile in our  shoes, or any distance for that matter. The award is deserved both morally and legally. Parliamentary intention was to recompense Police officers who could no longer serve due to their injuries, the bands reflected the loss in earning capacity. The explanatory memorandum to the Police (Injury Benefit) Regulation was prepared by the Home Office and had been laid before Parliament by Command of Her Majesty; it says without ambiguity that police injury awards:

“…[] are in effect compensation for work-related injuries”7. Policy background EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM 2006 No.932

The void created by the Home Office withdrawing from providing any central guidance was filled by the National Attendance Management Forum ( NAMF ).  Perhaps the Home Office considered that having a proxy would avoid them again facing the wrath of the High Court.

Interestingly not all 43 forces are involved in NAMF. That speaks volumes itself. NAMF is now chaired by the Head of Human Resources at Northumbria Police, Leslie-Ann Knowles, and it’s chief legal advisor is Nicholas Wirz – Solicitor of Northumbria Police. NAMF delegates  have included FMAs, SMPs, PMAB members, HR managers and Force Solicitors  as well as Mr Trevor Forbes who represents Police Forces at PMAB.

Naturally, we at IODPA are concerned about this as it would appear to breach the rule against bias. We’ll leave that issue for another blog and a High Court case submission.

NAMF has devised its own guidance , section 4.3 Case Management Powers of an SMP, there is reference to a quasi-judicial process. Some SMPs have been told they have powers similar to those of a Coroner or a Judge at NAMF training events. The SMPs have repeated this erroneous view in their assessments.  A recurring theme in some reports made by SMPs who have attended courses presented by Wirz, is that they claim the position of ‘SMP’ empowers them to be able to make any direction or demand.  No matter how unreasonable, discriminatory or contrary to primary legislation that demand actually is.

Serving and retired Police officer’s have told us about their assessments, the SMP likening themselves to a judge is a recurring theme.  So the phoenix has risen from the ashes and the Home Office Guidance has been resurrected in the form of NAMF guidance. Our members have repeatedly, and wrongly, been told by SMPs and HR staff that NAMF guidance is mandatory and must be followed.

There is a direct correlation to those forces involved in NAMF, unlawful reviews PMABS and JRs.  Mr Wirz, whose zealousness is not diminished by losing previous High Court cases, continues to spread his views which have no anchor in law.

Compare and contrast

The role of SMP is cited in the regulations. They are medically qualified doctors (or should be, we have encountered a physiotherapist). NAMF have introduced the mandatory requirement that membership of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine is required. SMPs are selected by individual  Police Forces. Coroners on the other hand are experienced lawyers or medical professionals whose appointment is approved by the Chief Coroner and the Lord Chancellor.

Coroners are Judicial Officer holders and must take the judicial oath. Judges are recruited via the Judicial Appointments Commission, their appointment must be approved by the Lord Chancellor, again they are Judicial Officer holders and must take the judicial oath.

Training is organised by the Judicial College, similarly, a formal disciplinary framework exists for the judiciary.  So when did the foundations of constitutional law that has central importance to the maintenance of judicial independence fracture and rip to such an extent to allow SMPs become quasi-Judges and Mr Wirz and NAMF the judiciaries’ training provider?  Of course, in the real world, there has been no such rupture.  The foundations of judicial appointment are still wholly intact.  Only Wirz thinks differently.  The edicts of NAMF cannot stand scrutiny.

The Simpson case should have acted as a warning. The Pensions Ombudsman case in Lightfoot v West Yorkshire Police at paragraph 33 encapsulates how innovation is occurring:

“….As has been found by my office in other cases (for example, Ayres 27979/2 and Sharp 80008/1) it is not appropriate to try and impose a meaning on the relevant Regulations which they do not hold simply because the Home Office (or the WYPA) think that logically they should. This was an error of law, albeit that WYPA was following Home Office guidance and was acting in good faith.”

The status of the SMP has been pushed by NAMF from that of a Doctor to that of a Judge.  This leap has no basis in law.  Legal chicanery as a description does a disservice because this goes far beyond that into the realms of a fantasist.

Powers conferred on police officers by primary legislation, such as those defined by Police and Criminal Evidence Act, are a statutory licence that do not empower any judicial functions onto an Inspector, say, authorising a search.  Can that Inspector forgo the need to reasonably believe the premises may contain evidence linked to the offence in question?  Of course not.  Taking the illogical thinking of Wirz to the extreme, if the Inspector thought the same as a SMP, and considered they were a judge, they could ignore PACE and sign their own warrant of entry.

The SMP is not a judicial office holder but a doctor  – a medical authority asked to answer a statutory question based on available medical evidence, in the same manner as a power of entry and search under s18 cannot be exercised without the statutory requirement of prior written authorisation of an officer of the rank of inspector or above.

A SMP can’t invent evidence.  He isn’t a judge in an inquisitorial system –  a legal system where the court or a part of the court is actively involved in investigating the facts of the case.  He is a doctor; simply asked a medical question that statute demands a referral to him or her by a police pension authority.  Statute does not gift any magical power to answer the question – only to use his medical training to make sense of the medical information presented to him.

To suggest otherwise is a fallacy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nottinghamshire Injury on Duty Reassessment Program – Part 2

iodpa National Attendance Management Forum, police injury award, selected medical practitioner
Nottinghamshire Injury on Duty Reassessment Program – Part 2

“People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint.”
― Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs

Welcome to part two. If you missed part one, here’s the recap:  Dr Ralph Sampson and Stephen Mitchel of Nottinghamshire Police, in December 2015, gave a presentation to National Attendance Management Forum (NAMF) delegates about how they are attempting to save millions of pounds by ‘cunningly’ and nefariously reducing injury awards.  The nightmare scenario of an active SMP such as Dr Sampson making an unintentional error of revealing his subconscious feelings that a review allows him to perform a ‘reassessment’, mixed with the total absence of referencing any case-law to the audience, leads to emboldened NAMF delegates going back to their forces thinking IODs are ‘ducks to be lined up’.

Notts-IOD-Presentation.pdf


*click image & use arrows to view all pages

Jumping straight in to where we left off in part one, slide 6 is a rather amateur  and extremely poorly presented summary of some of the statistics generated by the Notts ‘reassessment’ program so far.  There are few people on this planet that would admit to liking staring at text more than they like staring at pictures. Text takes time to read and it is boring to look at. But perhaps worst of all, when an audience is given text, they will, out of habit, attempt to read it. As they do so, you will be talking and they won’t be listening—because they’re reading. But they won’t be able to concentrate on what they’re reading because, well, you’re talking. It’s the vicious cycle of PowerPoint un-communication.

This is expounded further when the numbers don’t add up.  And the audience aren’t going to argue otherwise as they’re all too busy trying to fathom out what the heck is going on in the jumble of words in front of them.

6.Numbers so far

  • 381 former officers in receipt of lOD pension,
  • 281 aged under 70 and included in programme
  • Concluded or currently in process = 235 (16 batches) (87%)
  • Number of paper reviews undertaken so far = 140
    • 62 ‘no further action’ (44%)
    • 78 ‘ possible substantial alteration” (56%)
  • Individuals where SMP review no longer required:- 26 (deceased; age
    exempt; band 1 non-participants; terminal diagnosis)
  • 78 SMP face to face assessments
    • 2O reduced
    • 1 increased
    • 21 remained same
    • 27 appointments scheduled
    • 9 seen and Force awaiting outcome

In about five minutes we’ve cobbled together this graph.

Notts1

It isn’t perfect but we weren’t the ones giving the presentation.  What it does show is,  out of the numbers given above, 69 out of the 381 are unaccounted for.  They haven’t been reviewed, presumably they aren’t going to be reviewed and they are not in the exempted cohort.

What’s happened to them?  These numbers represent people – disabled former officers and Notts have just erased them from their presentation.  Perhaps they are selective in the data they want to portray. Notts definitely aren’t persistent in chasing a ‘non-engaging band one’ in comparison to when they attack, with shark-like ferocity, a ‘non-compliant’ band four.

The bottom line is that any way that you look at the figures, they are wrong, and they do not stand up to scrutiny.  We have provided the proof of our assumptions at the bottom of this page for the benefit of the mathematically minded. *

This presentation is purportedly given by ‘professionals‘ to ‘professionals‘. They can’t even get their maths right.  Dr Sampson supposedly makes sophisticated calculations of a former officers degree of disablement down to 2 decimal places but he is unable to subtract from 381.

7.Numbers so far

Of 42 ‘face to face’ SIVIP assessments where advised of outcome (28 days elapsed) – 21 changed bands (50%)
PMAB appeals = 3 potential
Numbers reduced to B1 due to non-compliance : O
Number of official complaints = 1

Slide 7 is aimed at promoting the perception that  their ‘reassessment’ program is all about forcing a change to bands and spinning the lie to the NAMF delegates that there are few pitfalls.  There is no neutrality and the agenda is always to change the status-quo. Why emphasis those changed when those kept the same outnumber the former and have just as much  relevance?   There has been 1 complaint and 3 appeals.  This slide skirts over the reason for the appeals and fails to state the outcome of the complaint.

Just because there is no appeal, it doesn’t mean the decision was just or legitimate.  Perhaps the ‘fight’ has left the former officer and they can’t cope with the dehumanising nexus of appeal forms and procedure.  Despite the strength of their appeal, they make a conscious choice that appealing against the  harmful side of bureaucracy is futile.  In the Judicial Review case of Crudace, the presiding  judge stated that twenty-one appellants withdrew their appeals after receiving a letter from the force Solicitor Nicholas Wirz, that in effect threatened the disabled former officers with a £6,200 adverse costs award if they persisted with their appeal.

Winston Churchill once said that the whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that when nations are strong they are not always just, and when they wish to be just they are no longer strong. And there is the clearest explanation possible of the case for justice where the former officers involved are not strong enough to do that themselves.  Banking on the weak to not appeal is a pitiful and inexcusable show of strong-arm tactics.

Stating the number of appeals is meaningless.  As far as Sampson & Mitchel are aware all twenty that were reduced could be submitting their complaints to the Pension Ombudsman.

The red highlighted bullet point shows the new invented weapon in the armoury of those SMPs trained by NAMF.   The weapon of mutual destruction (WMD) is in the form of ‘if the former officer is non-compliant then we will reduce to band one.’  Of course, such a bullying course of action is not permitted anywhere in the Regulations.  The presentation makes no reference to the actual Regulation 33 that only permits the police pension authority to make a determination on the available evidence if there is a failure to attend a medical examination.  Pressing the ‘big red button’ on this WMD will be financial catastrophe for the victim but the response would be so massive that Notts would suffer “assured destruction” at Judicial Review.

8. £ to date

Funding for programme agreed
GP notes – approx £50 each
Impact to date -18 out of 21 that have changed band = £10ok net saving per year
With average life expectancy estimated at age 83…possible £20 million saving on the cases so far.

And the spin continues with slide 8.  With a slide callously titled ‘£ to date‘ there is no doubting this is all about the money and this not about a genuine medical assessment, but rather, an opportunity for Notts to take away the injury award the former officer is entitled to.

The slide assumes the ‘savings’ are fixed.  That Notts have got what  they wanted, they can spend the £20 million they will save over the lifetime of those reduced and that’s the end of the matter. This could not be further from the truth.

This mindset is further evidence that Sampson cares not for the Regulations but only to please his bosses.  Those reduced on his evidence of an improvement to their degree of disablement are surely, under the logic of Sampson’s suitable interval and positive power to review, absolute certainties to be reviewed again and their degree of disablement invariably likely to deteriorate accordingly.

Sampson & Mitchel surely can’t  be insinuating  that Regulation 37 vanishes once Notts  have got their way, and once the goal of reduction is achieved then the former officer is gone clean out of their mind and consigned to oblivion?

The stench of hypocrisy oozes from slide 8.  Later in the presentation (slide 15 to be exact) Sampson makes his brazenly duplicitous point that former officers were ‘reluctant to engage’ and there is a ‘misunderstanding from officers who claim previous SMP advised for life’.  But in slide 8 Sampson is saying the reduction in banding is for life – with no balance check review ever again to see whether the reduction is perdurable.

9.

We have heard recently of an Australian qualified physiotherapist who is being used as an SMP. He has never practiced general medicine and although registered with the GMC is not on the GP register. How could someone like that be qualified to form an opinion on PTSD or complex trauma injuries? I wouldn’t let him lance a boil on my bum let alone make a decision about my degree of disablement.
I am sorry to say, but he is by no means untypical.
Forces are deliberately hiring the lowest level ofthe medical profession – those for whom payment was” ___is more important than professionalism

Slide 9 would be hilarious is the issue wasn’t so serious.  A bias SMP, dancing to the tune of his paymasters and forgetting his Hippocratic oath, criticising other forces from using not only an physiotherapist – but an Australian physiotherapist!  The nerve.  These antipodeans coming over here and taking money from members of the faculty of occupational health – it’s obscene!

10. IOD REVIEW – Medical Assessment – REG 37.1

No pre-conditions for Reg 37.1 review suitable intervals
Degree of disability vs degree of disablement Need to clarify
Complete GP records/OHU records
Can’t revisit causation
Reviewing LOE calculation

Slide 10 incorrectly says there is no pre-conditions for a suitable interval.  If this was the case the ‘suitable interval’  qualifier would not have been written into the Regulations.  In fact the interval between reviews has a defined pre-condition – it has to be suitable, right or appropriate for a particular person, purpose, or situation.  The pre-condition is implicit.

The presentation is also confused about their remit as they need to clarify whether a review concerns the Degree of disability vs degree of disablement.  Surely it is rather too late to be asking such a question?  The revisiting causation is a contradiction as that is exactly what they do in slide 14 but we will come to that later.

LOE is their acronym for level of earnings.  Again this is contrary to the Laws judgement.  We think that the 3 appeals now have the evidence they need to overturn Dr Sampson’s decisions.

11. IOD REVIEW – Medical Assessment – REG 37.1
Degree of Disablement – The degree to which their earning capacity is reduced by the injury condition, and expressed as a % of the appropriate comparator salary

(UEC-AECVCOMP SALARY
UEC – Uninjured earning capacity – same as Comp salary if no non-injury conditions affecting earnings
AEC – Actual Earning Capacity – takes into account injury and any non-injury conditions if present

Slide 11 defines degree of disablement.  Sampson & Mitchel are totally incorrect to say it is expressed as a percentage of comparator salary.  In fact it is minimum income guarantee expressed as % of the final average pensionable pay.

12.

Change in assessed LOE
Change in assessed LOE
Medical condition – improve/worsen
Non injury medical conditions affecting work capability/earnings
New Training/Qual Skills
New job/career opportunities – may be evidenced by salary

Slide 12 shows this ‘reassessment’ program is really an unlawful work capability test.

13. Outcomes so far
Paper Screen – 157
Assessments – 55
No change – 22
Change in perm disabling condition – 2
Non injury conditions – 14
Salary – 6
Change to comparator salary – 3

Slide 13 is another example of Sampson & Mitchel’s figures not standing up to scrutiny.

Remember slide 6 and the bullet point informing everyone that 140 had been papered reviewed?  By slide 13 of the same presentation this number has increased to 157.  In other words, whilst Sampson & Mitchel were talking to the NAMF delegates, at the same time and without a pause of breath, they magically managed to paper review another seventeen people.

Of the  former officers who had a change of banding, only two had a change in their disabling condition – the prerequisite for substanstial change as dictated by the Laws judgement.  But again the numbers do not add up.  Earlier in the presentation it was stated there was twenty-one former officers who evidenced substantial alteration and had their bands changed.  On this slide the count is twenty-five.

2 + 14 + 6 + 3 =  25

Fourteen former officers had their award reapportioned.  Six reported a salary of whatever amount and had their awards changed.  It is evident that Sampson has not been following the Laws determination at all.

14. Diagnoses l Causation
LBP – playing table tennis at lunchtime
No of sports injuries
Neck Pain – 80% – then commercial pilot for 12 years
Collapsing chairs
“Psychological defects of Low Self esteem and Low Confidence” Band 1

Slide 14 revisits causation.  An avenue barred to any SMP upon a review and explicitly referred to as verboten in slide 10.   This slide is one of those faux ‘humorous’  ones – put in so that everyone in the audience can have a good giggle.  The commercial pilot anecdote is intended to spark outrage from the delegates.  What it takes out of context is the pilot could have been earning £160K a year if his neck injury didn’t restrict his flying hours.  Instead he is only earning, say £80K.  This analogy is pure supposition, but technically this fictional example has lost 100% of his potential capacity to earn.  Rather than point out a similar possibility, Sampson & Mitchel use a sensational tabloid headline, absent of any context, to get the delegates ‘clucking’.

Mentioning sports injuries is another example of sensationalism.  The last final decision is a given and it is not up the the SMP to revisit the medical judgement of the previous doctor.

The ‘loss of confidence’ is a repulsive bullet point.  If the index injury is, or leads to, an impact to self-esteem of the former officer by psychological detriment to the capacity to earn then the award is designed to reflect this.  Such a detriment often means that there is no prospect of maintaining any employment.

A previously high-functioning individual who attained all the tests to become a police officer and is now unable to leave their home due to psychological affect of low self-esteem and poor confidence is, by definition, suffering from a personality disorder.  People with avoidant personality disorder often consider themselves to be socially inept or personally unappealing and avoid social interaction for fear of being ridiculed, humiliated, rejected, or disliked. As the name suggests, the main coping mechanism of those with avoidant personality disorder is avoidance of feared stimuli.

Let’s emphasis again that these people used to be police officers – an occupation where avoiding stimuli is the antithesis of the necessary qualities required – and their index injury has forced them along the road to suffer from such a disability.  To proclaim in such circumstances that it is an automatic band one fails on all measures to take the position of the individual into account.

15. Lessons Learnt / issues

lnitial letter despatched Christmas time – Fed / NARPO availability
Locate relevant IOD information
OHU and IOD files mixed
Addresses ~-~- stage 3 / those that live abroad
Former officers reluctant to engage in process
Misunderstanding from officers who claim previous SMP advised ‘for life’
Some former officers want reassurance medical records and questionnaire are not seen by non-clinical staff
Draft report – 28 days
Overpayment recovery
Traveling – Skype?

The ‘lessons learnt’ mention that a batch of review letters were sent just before Christmas time.  Notts police is such a heartless and uncaring organisation that it never struck them at the time that this was a bad idea.  They aren’t seemingly concerned of the impact to the individual by dumping such grief over the festive period – they just think its a lesson learnt because local Fed & NARPO couldn’t answer the worries of those affected as they were off enjoying their own Christmas break.

NAMF allowed Sampson & Mitchel to present their talk as so-called ‘experts’, to help delegates to fill in their gaps, to add to their shallow knowledge concerning reviews. Supposedly they had the hands on experience.  Instead they’ve perpetuated all that is wrong with mass review programs.

These ‘experts’ are stuck in their own prejudicial thinking and are inflicting significant harm onto disabled former police officers. When SMPs such as Dr Sampson perform reviews just as a cost-saving mechanism they are renouncing  the ethics, morals, culture, empathy, philosophy and understanding of their role as the medical authority required by the Regulations into much simpler factors based on numbers and calculations. They are manifestations of the phenomenon of  doctors who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

They are anachronisms who deny the changes, the evolution that’s happening since the case-law has defined how reviews should be carried out post HOC 46/2004.  Their so-called experience is jaded (and diminished) by the ‘way they’ve always done it wrong’.  They should not be allowed sustain the errors by briefing others.

So that’s it.  There are bound to be glaring misdemeanours that you have found and we’ve missed.  Feel free to post such findings in the comments.

 

*The proof:

Out of 381, 100 are age exempted – excluded because they are over 70 (why can’t those over 70 go up a band?). Of the remaining 281, 46 are yet to be contacted at all. This leaves 235. 62 are No-Further-Action. We are down to 173. 78 include those where they think there is evidence of substantial alteration.
Of the 78, 20 have been reduced. 21 Not altered. 1 Increased. 27 Future Appointment.9 Awaiting an outcome

20 + 21 + 1 + 27 + 9 = 78

Let us take the 78 from the 173:

173 - 78 = 95

Ninety-five remain. the 26 who are deceased, terminally ill or are band ones who have not ‘engaged’. 

95- 26 = 69

Sixty-nine are left over. The 69 forgotten few.  All the colours match so you can check this for yourself. A missing sample of nearly 25% of the eligible 281 makes a mockery of the denominator used in their percentages throughout the presentation.

Nottinghamshire Injury On Duty Reassessment Program – Part 1

iodpa NAMF, National Attendance Management Forum, police injury award, Regulation 37, Review, selected medical practitioner
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 time, therefore 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

iodpa NAMF, National Attendance Management Forum, police injury award, selected medical practitioner, smp
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

iodpa NAMF, National Attendance Management Forum, police injury award
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?

iodpa NAMF, National Attendance Management Forum
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

iodpa NAMF, National Attendance Management Forum, PEAM
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.

iodpa caselaw, HR, NAMF, National Attendance Management Forum
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.

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...