Merseyside

It’s What We Do

iodpa morale
It’s What We Do

“Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

There has been numerous scandals recently of public organisations conspiring to pretend that everything was for the best, in the best of all possible public service systems — and anyone trying to tell the truth was dismissed as loons, threatened with the sack, gagged when they left or otherwise bullied by amoral apparatchiks.

In the UK public services, cover-up is a “win-win” for those in charge: top management continues unaffected while the cover-up is taking place and then retires on full pension, payment of contract and honours if the cover-up is exposed. The longer the cover-up continues, the greater each of those “wins”.

The material posted on this website is a statement of fact, so it would not amount to defamation as you cannot defame if what you disseminate is true.  Notwithstanding it is held in House of Lords’ decision in Derbyshire County Council v Times Newspapers [1993] AC 534 that a local authority had no right at common law to sue for libel to protect its governing or administrative reputation, because allowing it such a right would stifle pubic opinion and be contrary to the public interest.

Merseyside police obviously never got this memo as we at IODPA are hearing from people unconnected to us that their freedom of information requests are being refused by Merseyside because of the posts we have written.  Our researchers trawl WhatDoTheyKnow.com for relevant requests so we apologise in advance for those people whose requests have been refused because Merseyside is closing down the topic of injury awards, labelling all and sundry as ‘vexatious’.

Merseyside Police in it’s eagerness to covering-up their wrongdoing hasn’t considered the ‘The Streisand effect’.  This is the phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicising the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet.

From http://m.mentalfloss.com/article/67299/how-barbra-streisand-inspired-streisand-effect

In 2003, Barbara Streisand sued photographer Kenneth Adelman for distributing aerial pictures of her mansion in Malibu. But Adelman was no paparazzo—he operated the California Coastal Records Project, a resource providing more than 12,000 pictures of the California coast for scientists and researchers to use to study coastal erosion. At the time Streisand sued Adelman for $50 million, the picture in question had been accessed ka whopping total of six times—twice by Streisand’s lawyers. Nonetheless, her lawsuit stated that the photos explicitly showed people how to gain access to her private residence.

 Of course, news outlets around the world reported on Streisand’s outrage, and before long, the photo on Adelman’s website (below) had received well over a million views. The photo was also picked up by the Associated Press and was reprinted countless times.

KENNETH AND GABRIELLE ADELMAN VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS // CC BY-SA 3.0

As if single-handedly causing the exact thing she didn’t want to happen wasn’t bad enough, Streisand also lost the lawsuit; the judge ordered her to cover the $155,567.04 Adelman incurred in legal fees.

According to wikipedia there are 49 ways to cover up public service malpractice.

We at IODPA have put a green tick next to the behaviour that we have  already experienced from police forces and this is just the initial reaction – there are 40 other indicators!

Initial response to allegation:

1. Flat denial  tick-1
2. Convince the media to bury the story exclamation
3. Preemptively distribute false information  tick-1
4. Claim that the “problem” is minimal  exclamation
5. Claim faulty memory  exclamation
6. Claim the accusations are half-truths  tick-1
7. Claim the critic has no proof  tick-1
8. Attack the critic’s motive  tick-1
9. Attack the critic’s character  tick-1

The orange exclamation marks are next to points that by their definition relate to acknowledgement, some contrition and acceptance that a problem may perhaps exist – such a seed of honesty is sadly lacking in our experience.  There has been no evidence of contrition or acceptance and Police forces have fully yanked their dial all the way up to DEFCON-1.  The 101 text book of how to deny there’s a problem and withhold incriminatory evidence is seemingly being followed diligently.

The 2015 HM Inspector of Constabulary report into corruption  barely mentions cover-up at all but the closest it comes is interesting:

“When corruption is uncovered there is a tendency within organisations, including the police service, to suggest or imply that the problem is one that is confined to a few rogue members or what are sometimes referred as ‘bad apples’. However, the history of policing has too many examples of institutionalised corruption for this view to carry much credence. Morever [sic], the notion of ‘bad apples’ narrows the scope of attention, often directing concern away from others and implies that, barring the individual ‘bad apples’, everything in the organisation is ethically sound. The literature suggests that this is rarely the case and that maintaining such a view is damaging to the health of the police service.”

This eagerness to be seen as ethically sound, despite evidence to the contrary, is inflated by self-serving bias.  A good weather indicator of corruption is when a public body, instead of facing the truth, goes on the defensive and overtly attempts to perceive itself in an overly favourable manner.

The Police Service Of Northern Ireland realised that they had a broken IOD system on their hands and commissioned David Scoffield QC to conduct a report.  There is little probability of the same happening on the main land as the 43 police services here refuse to admit that anything untoward is happening – even though the Regulations concerning PSNI and the rest of England & Wales are identical.  Even though any given police service denies any wrongdoing there will always be a general public interest in transparency.

If there is a plausible suspicion of wrongdoing on the part of the public authority, this may create a public interest in disclosure. And even where this is not the case, there is a public interest in releasing information to provide a full picture.

Our message is resonating. In just 16 months our pages have been viewed over 60,000 times in 69 countries.

iodpa by country

But trying to get the full picture is only a small amount of what IODPA does.  Behind the scenes we are a support network.

We value the individuals, and care about what has happened to each former police officer that feels the need to get in touch and walk through our door.

We have limited time and resources, but try and help as many IODs as we can.  These are disabled former officers with no one else to turn to.  Those medically retired with an injury award often feel alone and that nobody really understands the challenges they face each day living and can lead to isolation.

When ‘reviewed’, often unlawfully and always callously, this challenge is raised exponentially.

Who else can be people turn to for advice?  Unfortunately,  NARPO (National Association of Retired Police Officers) is ill-equipped to deal with these former officers.  Advice is wrong, damaging and often out-of-date.  With a few notable exceptions the localised NARPO ‘wisdom’ often consists of ‘just accept that the force can do what it wants…’

At the moment policing bodies see IODPA as an agitator.  We are rocking their boat and they don’t like it. Public humiliation, even when it’s justified, is a bitter pill to swallow for them. That is why they put up the wall and become defensive.

Their denial is avoiding responsibility for their harmful actions to others and saying “Nuh-uh. Not me! I didn’t do it.” One department within the force learns to lie even to other departments.   Human Resources tell legal services everything they are doing is legit; legal services tells the freedom of information team not to disclose anything that contradicts the ‘lie’.

They need to keep up the pretence of being a good guy and across time they come to believe their own lie. Denial is being irresponsible at an unconscious level because the person is embarrassed to know the truth about their misbehaviour.

What we are really doing is helping those most in need.  Until they realise that we are a symptom of the problem that they caused then the atmosphere between ‘them and us’ will always be strained.  IODPA hopes one day that policing bodies can put their antagonism behind them and work with us to improve the lives of the officers they medically retire and have up until now abused.

Publicising  wrongdoing is such a small part of what IODPA is about.  It’s an important part as it is a beacon that is utilising the power of the Internet to show those affected that it hasn’t just happened to them – it has happened to hundreds of people like them.  IODPA has saved lives  – prevented suicides that would otherwise be blood stains on the hands of those that unlawfully reviewed the individual.

This is the world we inhabit and those who dismiss us as ‘self-styled’ are ignorant to the reality.

What those in power, those corrupting the administration of injury awards,  don’t see is that we pick up the pieces of the destruction that they cause by their wrongdoing.

If people join together, they are more powerful than if they work by themselves.  We will continue to do this  long after it dawns on the police service that they are implicit in yet another cover-up.

 

 

 

 

 

Missing Morality of Merseyside’s “MRO”

iodpa caselaw, morale
Missing Morality of Merseyside’s “MRO”

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”
― Desmond Tutu

And the elephant will thank you for being on its side.

Justice is rooted in morality. All laws are based on that which decent folk think is right. Injustice raises it ugly head when decent folk are gagged and afraid to speak out, or when people in power act not according to a moral sense, but for other, perverse, reasons.

Morality comes from us – we make it. It starts with a few biological sources, such as the basic survival instinct, and behaviours of social species. After that, human philosophy, theology, and assessment of harm versus benefit, establish the remaining nuances of morality.

The recent RSS newsfeed search of the BAILII database has revealed that Merseyside Police has historically had a disproportionately high number of judicial reviews compared to other forces and evidently has or had a moral compass that is badly out of kilter.

The Metropolitan Police (understandable given its size) and Northumbria Police (not surprising given the ubiquitous and nasty Nicholas Wirz is the force solicitor) are also widely referred to as either defendants or appellants at appeal.

There are apparent institutional deficiencies at the heart of the correlation between Merseyside and the frequency this force appears in England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions cases concerning police injury pension decisions.

If you read the Judicial review transcripts it is easy to conclude that Merseyside had a culture where serving officers perceived they were being bullied, victimised or not supported. This led to a spiral down into sporadic and then long-term absence from work, as well as stress, depression, and no doubt the unseen dependence on alcohol or drugs; even manifestations of the physical symptoms that accompany such mental conditions.  Complaints about  management failures must have repeated themselves in occupational health  referral meetings and HR offices but it is apparent that Merseyside forgot the principles of what was right and proper, and the cycle repeated.

Organizational culture, power, hierarchies and poor leadership capacity clearly contribute to a culture of failures.  Quite likely Merseyside has glossy leaflets or fancily worded policies and procedures describing their approach to dealing with bullying, victimisation and other management failures.  Often serving officers in difficulties will rely on the support of the occupational health unit but if the culture of an organisation is corrupt then the morals of the occupational health unit will prevent careers being saved and, as sure as night follows day, peoples’ health will deteriorate.

The courts have declared that the mere provision of an occupational health unit does not excuse a failure of a employer to provide decent working conditions.  Intel Corporation (UK) Limited v Daw (2007) made it clear that there is a duty on employers to be proactive in reducing stress. There is a clear pattern that the occupational health unit at Merseyside seems to have been at best ineffective – at worse deliberately negligent.

It seems that morality within Merseyside’s occupational health unit, in it’s capacity to prevent the situations stated in the Judicial reviews, was found wanting.  Where did the institutional culture to not help those in need come from? From the cold, impersonal commandments of senior managers?

Or from Mr Peter Owens?

Peter Owens is a retired Chief Inspector who served in Merseyside Police as the Head of Merseyside Police’s Occupational Health Unit, and now is employed as the self-styled Medical Retirement Officer (MRO) of the same force.

So, what motivates Mr Owens?

To quote from Freshexpressions.org, Mr Owens used his church connections to create a religious cell  that included at least 4 high ranking officers.

Early in 2006, Peter Owens, Chief Inspector of the Occupational Health Unit at Merseyside police and a leading member of the Merseyside Christian Police Association, planted a church at work, known as Riverforce.

From the initial suggestion made by his vicar, it took a year to set up the first cell, which consists of four high ranking police officers.

It is disconcerting and unfortunate that freshexpressions.org also quotes Mr Owens stating in the same press release that “Christians were filling key roles in the force”.  According to Merseyside’s 2015 equality publication 98% of serving officers are white and 43% have a religious affiliation, so it is no surprise that active Christians are well represented in senior management – what is of concern is the insinuation that a sect such as Riverforce, as an Evangelical Christian Support Group,  is actively recruiting members within a civil authority.

The phrase “separation of church and state” is generally traced to a January 1, 1802 letter by Thomas Jefferson, addressed to the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut, and published in a Massachusetts newspaper. Jefferson wrote,

“ I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”[1]

Peter Owens has managed to knock the wall down and truly embed the law with his church.

Belonging to a clique can only result in unconscious people preferences (biases) playing a significant part in the way Riverforce ‘cell’ members engage with others and the decisions others make about them. Perhaps it was connections such as this that led to Peter Owens being re-employed as the MRO directly after his retirement.  A shoo-in, so to speak.  The job application of the MRO was written in a way to certainly only be favourable to a preferred candidate given its narrow suitability to a small number of people with a specialised knowledge and interest – such as a former Head of Occupational Health with connections.

Whether nepotism did or did not actually exist, the mere perception of nepotism will poison the newly created MRO post that Mr Owens moulded for himself.  What is corrupted is the ‘special trust’ and neutrality that now can never be invested in the position and makes the exploitation or misuse of authority a natural progression for the compromised post-holder.  Baggage from previous decisions will haunt and prevent the correct administration of the Police Injury Benefit Regulations and the Chief Constable as the true Police Pension Authority, thinking he has a ‘safe pair of hands’ doing all his work for him, will be kept blind to the real travesty happening in his name.

Peter Owens has also been regularly attending NAMF (National Attendance Management Forum) meetings at least as early as 2004 as Merseyside’s ‘attendance coordinator’ – and we all know the thin moral fibre of NAMF is so weak and elastic that it stretches with them to commit whatever outrages they can get away with.

namf 2004 attendance cropped

The tenure of Mr Owens overlapped all the Judicial reviews that Merseyside zealously pursued, and so there is high probability that the God fearing, faith moralistic Mr Owens was acutely aware, possibly even a leading protagonist, of the following legal proceedings:

Williams, R (On the Application Of) v Merseyside Police Authority [2011]

Merseyside Police Authority v Police Medical Appeal Board & Ors [2009]

Merseyside Police Authority, R (on the application of) v Gidlow & Anor [2004]

The 2004 case of Gidlow concerned medically retired Police Sergeant Mr Reilly-Cooper who was given an injury award on appeal after the original SMP rejected the application. Dr Gidlow, the appeal  SMP (this was before the days of PMABs),  decided to uphold the appeal as in his view the Sergeant’s diagnosed adjustment disorder and mixed anxiety/depression being found as “an injury received in the execution of his duty as a police constable”.  Merseyside disagreed and took the decision of the SMP to Judicial review where  the decision of Dr Gidlow was quashed and the judgement made that Mr Reilly-Cooper will have to see another SMP.

The sorry episode chronicled from 1997 to 2001 shows that Mr Reilly-Cooper developed a  psychiatric condition resulting from resentment and poor handling by the force of the grievance procedure over an allegation made against Mr Reilly-Cooper and his perception that he had not been supported by senior officers.

Simply put, Merseyside Police made him ill. Mr Reilly-Cooper’s complaint was that he felt that he was being punished for an allegation against him being upheld suggestively, though not directly expressed, even though he was found not to be guilty.

The occupational health unit, headed by Chief Inspector Owens, seemingly failed in their duty of care. Where is the moral compass here? Who made the moral judgement that it was acceptable to visit mental distress on an already ill individual, presumably to attempt to win a point about how the Regulations applied?

The 2009 case  involved two former police officers who served with Merseyside, a Mr McGinty and Mr Hudson.  PMAB panels found that each were permanently disabled from performing the ordinary duties of a member of the police force.  Merseyside Police Authority disagreed and challenged the Board’s determination that the respective disablement of each was received in the execution of duty.  Merseyside Police seemed eager to go the extra-mile to attempt to stop people getting injury awards.

In this case the Judicial review found in favour of the PMAB and rejected Merseyside’s appeal.  The noteworthy aspect of the transcript is the theme that there were concerns of the fairness or propriety of the procedures that the Merseyside force took against Mr McGinty and Mr Hudson.  Again Merseyside seemingly failed in its duty of care to its serving officers.

The 2011 Judicial review concerned a Mr Williams, whose claim involved the issue as to whether or not the former police officer, compulsorily retired due to permanent disablement as a result of psychiatric illness, could establish an entitlement to a police injury pension on the basis of – yes, you guessed it – that the psychiatric illness was received … in the execution of his duty.  In this instance the appeal was upheld.  Merseyside is nothing but consistent in reasons to force its former officers to the high courts after it neglected the same officer whilst in service.  Not a good advert for the head of the occupational health department.

  1. It is clear that this account includes reference to requests for training which were rejected and to Mr Williams’ perception that his employers were not listening to his concerns. It also refers to Mr Williams “struggling to cope” with his new duties. This is also consistent with a report produced by a Mr Ganley, a clinical psychologist, dated 22 April 2004, who in the course of recounting the history given by Mr Williams at the appointment, wrote:

    “Due to imposed changes in 2001 Mr Williams was then transferred to get back to active service. From this period Mr Williams reports increasing stresses due to being overwhelmed with new aspects of the role. Mr Williams reported his concerns but he feels he was not given the extra support and training. Subsequently Mr Williams’ anxiety developed to such an extent that he developed significant symptoms of anxiety and depression and was unable to remain in his post.”

The Judicial review quashed the PMAB decision on points of law and ordered that Mr Williams shall be seen by another PMAB panel.

Who won or lost at the above court actions isn’t the point of this blog post.  It is the fact that the Judicial reviews needlessly happened when it is clear by reading the transcripts in each and every case that if senior officers, personnel department and the occupation health unit had the moral compass to have treated the officers with fairness and compassion from the beginning it is arguable that the court actions would never had materialised in the first place.

The concern is how Merseyside Police mistreated these four former police officers and drove each to an illness so severe that they had to be medically retired.  Once retired the officers came up against the full force of Merseyside who continued the trauma by pursuing them through the courts.

We question the values of an organisation which is apparently content to allow someone in a position of authority when this all happened to continue in a similar role in the present day.

In 2015 history repeated itself.  How many retired Merseyside officers were similarly mistreated when they served and driven to medical retirement by the same senior management team that supposedly were there to lead, manage and support them?

Did Mr Owens ignore that the injury pension of victims such as Mr McGinty and Mr Hudson (Mr Reilly-Cooper and Mr Williams if they were eventually successful) are unique to that person’s individual circumstances of disablement and continued to review them anyway despite such a review only being allowable to occur at a suitable interval relevant to that individual’s circumstances.  Or or did he take the cynical judgement to conveniently forget about a review of those who had the temerity to challenge Merseyside’s failures at the Administrative courts – if challenging them provides protection from future abuses then its a sure sign that it is never advantageous to acquiesce to bullies.

In any case, Regulation 37 does not empower a police force to neglect its duty of care. Where mental health issues are identified in an employee and the occupational health unit blithely ignores or participates in management failures to influence and strengthen the hold of the illness, to the extent that the person becomes so ill that they are medically retired then later, once that person is trying to move on with their lives, blindly reviewing them along with 501 others just reduce the financial burden of the force is inexcusable.

If that person suffers a repeated attack each and every time they are reviewed, just because they are a band three or four it is quite plausible, given Intel v Daw, for retired officers to consider bringing retrospective claims for personal injury.

When Chief Financial Officers foolishly cook up ideas to corrupt and misuse a Regulatory power to exert heavy pressure by mass reviewing everyone in order to extract money they should stop to think whether reopening any individual’s history will start a process that will generate many unpleasant and complicated problems, that they or their predecessors caused, over which they will have very little control.

The Chief Constable of Merseyside can not be neutral over this. He is the boss of both the mouse and the elephant. At present he is giving the nod to the elephant. We say this to the Chief Constable: elephant dung makes a whole lot more mess compared to mouse droppings.

 

Merseyside Police do not review Band 1 Injury Awards

iodpa police injury award, Regulation 37, Review, selected medical practitioner
Merseyside Police do not review Band 1 Injury Awards

“The people heard it, and approved the doctrine, and immediately practiced the contrary.”
― Benjamin Franklin, The Way to Wealth

The most glaring source of scepticism towards Merseyside Police’s affection for the Police Injury Benefit Regulations can be summed up in  five words: ‘they never review band ones’.

Merseyside Police recently set about conducting a mass review of the degree of disablement of former officers retired due to injury on duty, and who exist on an injury pension paid as compensation for those injuries. Merseyside conducted 502 such reviews last year.

We in IODPA have good reason to believe that these reviews were motivated by an intention to try to save money, and not by any concern to ensure that the pension Regulations were being properly applied. Merseyside was not looking to see if anyone was being paid their injury pension at too low band or too high a band, which would be appropriate if there had been some substantial alteration in their medical condition. No, they set out to see if they could reduce pension payments.

They accordingly started their review programme with those pensioners who are on the highest band of degree of disablement. The highest band pays the highest level of pension attainable, and, can’t be increased, but, Merseyside reasoned, might be reduced.

We revealed in an earlier blog how ‘only’ 25 individuals had their injury pension payments reduced. We don’t know by how much. We pointed out that it was beyond belief that not a single disabled former officer was found to be in a worse condition and given an increase in injury pension payment. Statistically, this lack of any increased pension payments is not possible.

The overall impression is that despite the fact that the Regulations impose on Merseyside’s Chief Constable (as the Police Pension Authority) a duty to ensure that police injury awards are administered fairly and lawfully, the Medical Retirement Officer (MRO) is happy to ignore the law when it suits him. It was the MRO who instigated and managed the reviews, and he has placed his Chief Constable in a very difficult position.

There are 880 individuals retired from Merseyside who receive an injury pension, 502 have been reviewed.  The remaining 378  are all on band one pensions – the lowest payments – and this force has a policy not to review people who have no possibility of having their awards reduced.

Merseyside has ensured our cynical view of its motives by admitting they don’t review band ones. This admission is the clearest possible illustration that it is Merseyside’s view that if there are no pips to squeeze, why get the juicer out of the cupboard?

Here is the admission, obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request.

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST DJ 092/14 – RESPONSE merseyside
REQUEST RESPONSE
The Medical Retirement Office of Merseyside Police recently sent out a number of letters, together with a questionnaire, to former officers who are retired and in receipt of an injury award pension.

The letters requested that the recipient complete the enclosed questionnaire with a view to considering whether his/her injury pension should be reviewed.

The questionnaire is entitled, ‘Review Of Injury Award Questionnaire’

I am requesting the following information in relation to these letters and questionnaires:

1) How many have been sent out?

2) How many is it intended to send out within the next two months?

3) What criteria were used to select the recipients? When answering please pay particular attention to whether recipients were selected by reason of their age, or by reason of them being at or around what would have been normal compulsory retirement age for the force, or for reason of the degree of disablement of the recipient.

 1) The process commenced in 2014 and a total of 35 questionnaires have been sent out to date.

2) Within the next two months it is anticipated that a further thirty questionnaires will be sent out.

3) The criteria for selection of injury award review were based on Band 4, then Band 3, then Band 2. Band 1 will not be reviewed unless requested by the former officer and in that case they would be seen as a priority.

As the self-proclaimed architect of  Merseyside Police’s retirement policy, it seems that the MRO enjoys the privilege of making up the rules to suit himself, and ignoring the Regulations whenever the fancy takes him. We understand that he, as a matter of common practice, acts completely outside the restrictions of the Regulations and makes decisions that he is not empowered to make.

We hear that he decides who will get an injury award and who will be refused. He does this without benefit of medical qualifications, or any meaningful input from the force’s tame SMP or FMA. We believe that the 502 reviews of degree of disablement were done similarly, with little to no consideration of medical matters, and were decided on the basis of a person’s income.

Some police forces have been quick to declare they have a duty to review degree of disablement, citing a positive power to do so, often quoting that a SMP has ‘recommended’ when an individual might be reviewed.  However, these forces do not exhibit moral consistency when they ignore where a SMP may have advised, on a decades old retirement certificate, not to ever review the individual concerned. How many of the 502 who Merseyside reviewed had ‘no reviews’ or ‘no further reviews’ on their certificates? Where was the individual consideration whether a review was indeed appropriate?

The stench of of hypocrisy hangs heavily over Merseyside, but proves nothing about the topic – in reality there is no legal authority for Merseyside to say they won’t review band ones, en masse, just like there there is no legal requirement for a SMP to recommend when a review might take place, or to exempt someone from reviews.

Merseyside completely misses the point, which is that the PPA is required – legally required – to exercise discretion in each individual case. If the PPA (in reality the MRO with one eye on a bit of brown-nosing and career enhancement) decides to review all injury pensions, except for band ones, then there clearly has been not even an imperceptible nod in acknowledgement of the need to decide whether a review would be appropriate in each individual instance.

Below is the result of a recent Freedom of Information request which provides damning evidence that Merseyside will not rest until all injury awards have been reduced to the bare minimum.

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST Ref. SM4011/16

REQUEST RESPONSE ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
In FOI request SM322/15 you state that the review was restricted to band 2 and above. Please provide me with the reasons that band 1’s were not reviewed. We can confirm that historically Merseyside Police have not reviewed Band 1 Injury Awards unless the review has been requested by the ex officer themselves The rationale for this approach is that the Force Medical Advisor, acting in the role of Selected Medical Practitioner, records on their certificate “No further review”. The pensioner is provided with a copy of this certificate confirming that this is the case. Therefore they have been formally advised that there will not be a review of their award.

The proposition that an administrative authority must act within the powers conferred upon it by the legislature may well be considered the foundation of Administrative Law. In Latin, ‘Ultra’ means beyond and ‘Vires’ means powers. Thus, the expression ultra vires means an act beyond the powers.

A Selected Medical Practitioner who writes ‘never to be reviewed’ on a former officers H1 certificate is acting beyond their statutory duty. They might have decided the person being assessed for an injury award will never work again, or their condition may likely never improve, but the Regulations do not bestow any authority to allow the SMP to declare that someone should never have their degree of disablement reviewed. Merseyside has seized on these ‘recommendations’ as reason to abandon the over-riding duty of the PPA to ensure that the correct level of injury pension continues to be paid.

What a SMP thought, some years ago, can never be more than a guess. Maybe an informed guess, but as nobody can predict the future, it is plain wrong to claim that a guess, made outside the Regulations, as a sort of extra-regulatory add-on to a certificate, should bind a PPA as to its future actions. If the PPA is claiming that these recommendations are binding, then the PPA is wrong. If the PPA fails to consider, from time to time, for each and every individual who is in receipt of an injury pension, whether their degree of disablement has altered, then the PPA is fettering the power of discretion which the Regulations require he exercise.

We also must question the reason behind any SMP recording on a certificate or in a report his opinion that an individual need not be reviewed. It is not beyond the realms of possibility, given the rampant corruption that we know is the norm in some forces, for the SMP to make that recommendation with the deliberate intent of ensuring that someone who should properly have been placed in a higher band of disablement is never seen by any future, more honest, SMP who would conduct a review and see that the original decision was flawed.

We pause here to speak directly to all the Merseyside pensioners who are on band one. We say, if you have reason to think that you should have been placed in a higher banding when granted your injury pension, or if you feel that your degree of disablement has substantially worsened since you retired, then you should seek professional advice – via IODPA – as any earlier decision on degree of disablement can be challenged by means of regulation 32-(2). That regulations allows the reconsideration of any earlier decision, without limit of time. So, even if you have been retired for many years, you can request that the PPA arrange for any earlier decision to be looked at again.

We recommend that you think carefully about the benefits of using regulation 32-(2) over simply asking the PPA to conduct a review. A review may increase your banding, but any increase in pension payment will commence from the date of the review. If you ask for and get a successful regulation 32-(2) reconsideration of an earlier decision, where the SMP decides you should have been placed on a higher band all those years ago, then you stand to be paid all monies lost by underpayment for all those years, with interest added.

When we look at what Merseyside are saying in the above FOIA response, we have to point out that  it is scurrilous to claim that pensioners were advised they were never to be reviewed. Merseyside could not make that ‘promise’ (or was it a threat?) without breaking into pieces a fundamental part of the Regulations, which is the provision for the PPA to exercise discretion over whether or when to hold a review. Merseyside could not bind any future office-holder’s power of discretion, nor could Merseyside effectively say that the individuals concerned would never experience any alteration in their degree of disablement.

The point is that the Regulations definitely do not allow a band one to be treated any differently from a band four. Merseyside has deliberately set out to deny all the people who are on band one injury pensions any chance of having their pension increased. The recent mass review unfairly discriminated against all former officers who are on band one.

Some HR managers may ask, ‘Why can’t a former officer be labelled as ‘exempt from review’?  The answer is that the Regulations do not confer the power of exemption upon the decision  maker. The decision maker under the Police Injury Benefit Regulations is the Selected Medical Practitioner (SMP) but the decision itself belongs to the PPA.

The way that decisions are to be made has been clarified by cases which went to Judicial Review, but it is still surprisingly common for HR managers to still not understand the profound subtlety of what His Honour Judge Behrens declared in paragraphs 66 and 68 of Crudace, R (on the application of) v Northumbria Police Authority [2012] .  HR managers seem to think that the decision is only for the PPA to make.  It isn’t – the decision is owned by the PPA but it is delegated to the SMP.

  1. He accepts, of course, that the actual decision is made, in the first instance, by the SMP or on appeal by the PMAB. He also accepts that both the SMP and the PMAB are independent. However he submits that the decision is still a decision of the Police Authority albeit a decision that has been delegated to the SMP/ PMAB by regulation 30(2) or 30(3). He referred me to paragraph 18 of the judgment of Laws LJ in Laws where he referred to the decision as being of the Police Authority (via the SMP/board). …

…68.It seems to me that the wording of regulation 37 makes it clear that the decision to revise the pension is the decision of the police authority. It follows, in my view that the decision of the SMP and/or the PMAB on appeal can only be as the delegate of the Police Authority. This is so even though they are independent and the Police Authority is bound to accept their decision as final (subject to reconsideration under regulation 32(2) and/or judicial review).

If the SMP records that it is his opinion that a person should not be reviewed for medical reasons then that is well within his medical judgement to say so and this shall carry weight in any future considerations but the SMP as the promise maker, nor the promise recipient, has any power to enforce it.

That being said there will have to be exceedingly strong and compelling evidence to allow a review if the previous SMP had declared that such a review would be harmful to the former officer’s health.  Just being a band one is not a medical reason and is as opposite to compelling as can possibly be.

The decision maker can declare that a review should be avoided if at all possible:  A SMP might well want to write,“In my medical opinion this former officer should never be reviewed as it will be to the detriment of his health” but such sentiment, or opinion, is worlds away from writing, “I have made a promise to this former officer that he shall never be reviewed”.  Some people reading this will have documents stating exactly that this –  that the last SMP they saw made such a promise to them – but unfortunately a substantive promise cannot be upheld if it is ultra vires.

A declaration made on a medical certificate recording “No further review” giving formal advice that there will not be a review of an individual’s degree of disbalement just because they are a band one is a travesty of not only the Regulations but also the foundations of administrative law.

The statute is clear that there are only two agents involved in the decision making process, the PPA and SMP – so how little weight shall be put on the decision of a civilian medical retirement officer who is telling the force medical officer to write on a certificate to never review someone purely because they can’t be reduced further?

Until Merseyside performs the necessary checks to make sure all the band ones retired from that force are receiving the correct award entitlement, that none of them have suffered  deterioration in their degree of disablement in relation to their earning capacity, and as a result of  these checks a relative proportion of the band ones are increased up a band, then scepticism of their true illegal intentions will forever remain.

Merseyside’s claim that band ones can self-refer themselves if they ever want to be reviewed is ridiculous, given many will not realise the option is open to them, and those that do know will not want to flagellate themselves by dealing with corrupt elements of an organisation which are determined to abuse the scope and purpose of the Regulations. Not a convincing argument by Merseyside Police to encourage a band one to volunteer to put themselves forward.

Remember, pensioners, and take note Chief Constable, that in 2015, in all the reviews of bands two, three and fours, not a single award was increased. Something is rotten in Merseyside, and the smell will only get worse unless someone takes a broom and a shovel and does some stable cleaning.

Merseyside’s Hatchet Man

iodpa Chief Constable, police injury award, Regulation 37, Review, selected medical practitioner
Merseyside’s Hatchet Man

Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it; and this I know, my lords, that where laws end, tyranny begins.

William Pitt – Case of Wilkes. Speech (January 9, 1770)

A hatchet man is a person employed to carry out controversial or disagreeable tasks, such as the dismissal of a number of people from employment. Merseyside Police employ a hatchet man with the grand title of Medical Retirement Officer (MRO) whose role is more sinister and which adversely affects vulnerable disabled officers and former officers.

His task is to prioritise maximum savings to the force budget, ‘through the robust investigation of injury award applications, appeals and reviews‘.

We quote above from his job description. This is what the man is hired to do.  Not placed there to help injured and distressed people obtain their lawful rights, but to ‘investigate’ them with the objective of reducing the amount of money which would otherwise be paid them by way of recompense for injuries incurred in the line of duty.

There is only one way to read the intention behind the role of MRO. It is a perversion of what the Regulations governing injury on duty pensions were intended to achieve. We fully accept that no public money should be awarded without due diligence. All well and good if ‘robust’ was taken to mean that great care should be taken to comply with the Regulations, but we see that in Merseyside they believe that ‘robust’ means doing whatever they think they can get away with to deny injured officers and former officers their rights.

What Merseyside’s MRO is doing is unlawful. And it is shameful.

We in IODPA are not naïve.  We understand all too well that there has to be some form of administrative procedure regarding Injury Awards which requires management by a functionary of some sort.  That being said, the functionary needs to be neutral with no set agenda other than the lawful application of the statutory duties imposed upon the organisation by the Regulations.

We are, frankly, appalled to see that the job description of the Medical Retirement Officer ignores this principle and imposes an agenda upon the position which prioritises the needs of the organisation over the rights of the recipient. The job description includes sentences such as:

[. . . ] ensure that any changes to pension payments are implemented and financial savings made where appropriate.

There should be no thought given by the Medical Retirement Officer as to the financial consequences on the force of helping to ensure the Regulations are applied lawfully. His role is an abuse of the scope and purpose of the Regulations.

When we see that the Medical Retirement Officer’s main objective is to save money for the Chief Constable it becomes clear that he can not possibly be acting lawfully.

We know, for example, that he takes it upon himself to decide whether any applicant for an injury award application is seen by the selected medical practitioner (SMP) or not.

On behalf of the Police Pension Authority, who is in farcical fact, not an impartial body, but is none other than the Chief Constable wearing a different hat, the MRO blithely breaches the Data Protection Act by forensic examination of the confidential medical records and reports of individuals.

No wonder the Chief Constable of Merseyside finds it hard to arrange for the Regulations to be administered lawfully. He is under pressure to reduce spending, and police injury pensions consume a significant part of his budget. But, that is a pill he just has to swallow. He is under a legal obligation to administer the Regulations properly. He is not entitled to look upon them as an expense which can be trimmed.

I refer the Chief Constable to the case of The Police Federation of England and Wales v. The Secretary for the Home Department (Neutral Citation Number: [2009] EWHC 488 (Admin) Case No: CO/7612/2008). This case concerned the date when new commutation factors for police pensions were brought into law.

Justice Cox stated:

‘The Home Secretary’s undoubted interest in the expenditure of police authorities does not in my view enable her to alter those rights and liabilities which arise under the Regulations.’

And:

‘Affordability and public expenditure implications are therefore, in my judgment, irrelevant.’

It is not within the remit of any Chief Constable to direct an employee to save money by means of unlawful manipulation the Regulations. It is an abuse of his authority to specify in a job description that the MRO must approach his task with the objective of making financial savings. The over-riding intention of the Regulations is that people should be paid at the level which is appropriate to the individual circumstances. There is ample mechanism within the Regulations to ensure that this is achieved. Nobody should receive more that their due, and nobody should receive less than their due.

Merseyside has deliberately set out to ensure that the latter situation is the norm.

The MRO decides regulation 37 reviews without the benefit of any input from the SMP. He decides who has experienced a substantial alteration in degree of disablement, and who has not – and does this, not on the basis of medical evidence, but on whether the individual has increased earnings or not. He operates a rule of thumb, whereby if someone has seen an increase of over 10% in their earnings then, ipso facto, they must have had a substantial alteration in degree of disablement.

This is what he instructs former officers who are on an injury pension:

‘. . .  if you commence work or if you are currently working and your gross salary increases by over 10% you are required to inform this department as soon as practicable.’

We have to comment that the MRO has no authority whatever to ‘require’ any private citizen to inform him of a salary increase. Moreover, we feel like shouting at the MRO that a pay increase does not in any way signify that there will have been a substantial alteration in degree of disablement.

What the MRO is doing is creating an iron link between wages and disablement, when, under the Regulations, no such link exists. Disabled former officers are free to earn whatever they can, and their employers are entitled to give them a pay rise if they wish. A pay rise can have no possible link with the level of an individual’s degree of disablement. The MRO is using this as a means of reviewing degree of disablement, as an excuse for holding a review with no good reason, and as justification for reducing the level of pension paid.

Merseyside have corrupted the purpose of the Regulations and turned its provisions on their head for the sole purpose of ensuring that disabled former officers are robbed of their correct level of injury pension payment. The medical basis of assessment of degree of disablement has been abandoned in favour of an actuarial exercise where the cost exposure to the force is the bottom line.

While any question under the Police Injury Benefit Regulations is medical by nature and always requires the opinion of a SMP, in Merseyside the SMP seemingly does not make the decisions. The SMP acts only as a rubber stamp for the pre-made determination of the Medical Retirement Officer.  The Medical Retirement Officer is like an injury award hitman-by-proxy, getting paid to maximise cost savings for the Chief Constable, with no fear of any comeback.

Disabled former officers and serving officers seeking an injury award are kept in the dark. It seems very successfully, for few of them have the knowledge required to realise that they are being ripped off. Many of them are in no fit state to raise a query, and thus accept the decisions conveyed to them with no realisation that the decisions have been unlawfully arrived at. Put simply, they trust their force to do the right thing by them when injured on duty to the extent that they can no longer perform the ordinary duties of a police officer.

Clearly, that trust is sadly misplaced. There are some 880 former officers from Merseyside Police who are paid an injury pension. They need to wake up to the fact that they have, in all probability, been denied their proper pension rights.

Of course, a few individuals do raise queries with the MRO. They question his decisions. Some even manage to take matters to appeal via a Police Medical Appeal Board. Merseyside plays the numbers game. A deliberate calculation has been made, which concludes that those few individuals who do request an appeal to a Police Medical Appeal Board are far outnumbered by the majority who have no idea that they are being denied their rights.

The Medical Retirement Officer makes the decisions but never has to face the consequences. He never has to account for or justify his actions, as he is not the one who would have to be listed as the respondent at a PMAB, or at a judicial review.

The French have a term for such a position: éminence grise (French: “grey eminence”), a powerful advisor or decision-maker who operates secretly or otherwise unofficially.  An apt English phrase is ‘the power behind the throne’, someone who does not have the ultimate official position in a government or organization but who secretly controls it.

The Medical Retirement Officer is not a qualified medical authority – but is deciding what are essentially medical matters. He is making decisions for the Police Pension Authority, and we question whether he has the delegated power to do so. The Chief Constable has already delegated the day-to-day operation of his role as PPA to the head or director of Human Resources. Delegata potestas non potest delegari is Latin for a constitutional and administrative law, translated as, ‘no delegated powers can be further delegated’ and may well apply here.

According to Merseyside, a Medical Retirement Officer as well as having the skills to save the force money should also have:

‘A good knowledge of investigative procedures [. . . ].  Knowledge and understanding of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act with regards to surveillance and investigation of officers and pensioners believed to be falsely claiming compensation.’

Not only shall the Medical Retirement Officer have the principle duty to reduce financial costs to the expense of those injured on duty, but he is also let loose with RIPA.

Judicial approval should be the norm, not the exception, for placing members of the public under surveillance and public authorities should be compelled to report how and why they are spying on disabled persons by abusing powers that were introduced to protect us from terrorism and serious crime.

There is no room for RIPA in the administration and lawful application of the Police Injury Benefit Regulations.  Medical evidence is paramount. If the PPA has any cause to think that any individual is working the system, the regulation 37 allows for a formal review of the degree of disablement. The individual can be medically assessed by a duly qualified medical practitioner, selected by the PPA.

The SMP alone should make an assessment, and a decision, and once made that decision is final. Should there be any attempt to exaggerate one’s medical disability a qualified clinician should have little difficulty in spotting it.  If  fraud is suspected then this would be a matter for a serious criminal investigation and prosecution.  It is not open to a Medical Retirement Officer to use RIPA as a means to maximise the financial savings to benefit the force budget.

An injury award is not a benefit that has to be reapplied for – it is an entitlement for life and is final once the high bar of the initial grant has been attained.

Is all the above too hard to believe? Can you bring yourself to realise that a police force, whose job it is to prevent crime, could allow disabled former officers to be put at the mercy of a MRO whose objective is to unlawfully reduce their pensions, and to do whatever it takes to prevent injured serving officers being granted an injury award?

Here is the job description of Merseyside Police’s Medical Retirement Officer  as obtained in a recent Freedom of Information act request.

This job description shows all that is wrong with the way Merseyside, and some other forces, are administering injury awards.  The glib references to following Home Office guidance is a poor attempt of virtue signalling – making a statement that blithely mentions the requirement to ‘follow guidance’ because it thinks it sounds right and it will garner approval, rather than because anyone will actually believe it.  This job description was created in February 2015.  The Home Office partially withdrew their central guidance for injury reviews in March 2012 and then completely in February 2014.  There is no Home Office guidance to follow.

Instead, the Home Office now prefers to keep away from the misdeeds of Chief Constables and their hatchet men. The Home Office now says,

‘We would advise, in the event that such reviews are being conducted or considered, that police authorities should satisfy themselves that they are acting in accordance with the regulations and the relevant case law in the light of the decision in Simpson.’

IODPA suggest that the Chief Constable of Merseyside take a long hard look at what has been done, and continues to be done in his name by the Medical Retirement Officer. If the Chief Constable fails to act then our suspicion, that every breach of the Regulations committed by the MRO is done with his approval and encouragement, will be justified.

There are 880 individuals retired from Merseyside who receive an injury pension. There needs to be conducted and independent and scrupulously fair and impartial appraisal of how each and every one of their injury pensions have been administered.

 

Snakes, no Ladders

iodpa Degree of Disablement, morale, police injury award, Regulation 37, Review
Snakes, no Ladders

The only way is up down, baby
For you and me now
The only way is up down, baby
For you and me
Read more: Yazz – The Only Way Is Up Lyrics | MetroLyrics

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is a short story written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and first published in Colliers Magazine on May 27, 1922.  The film version stared Brad Pitt but wasn’t as good.

Fitzgerald wrote a comic farce, which the film turned into a forlorn elegy. The film’s approach makes Benjamin the size of a baby at birth. Fitzgerald sardonically but consistently goes the other way: The child is born as an old man, and grows smaller and shorter until he is finally a bottle-fed baby.  He starts as infirm and dilapidated and becomes more healthier and youthful as he ‘ages’.

And? … you say, whether Benjamin started as a baby-sized old man or old man sized newborn is moot as both versions of Benjamin Button’s story is a fantasy – and what’s your point anyway? I hear you ask.  

A tragic story in the style of the great Fitzgerald could be written in the modern day as the telling of the story of the disabled former officer, injured on duty through no fault of his or her own, who as they age, they can only get better. In other words their degree of disablement can never, ever deteriorate by means of a substantial alteration and their degree of disablement never spirals upwards.

Is this still fiction?  No.  It’s happening in Merseyside.

No single person on a band one in Merseyside was reviewed in 2015.  Of the 502 reviewed they were all band two or higher, of these 25 were reduced and 477 unaltered.  But this force has 880 IODs, so what happened to the remainder?  The stark answer is that the 378 that were left alone and not reviewed were all band ones – just like Fitzgerald’s Benjamin Button, Merseyside has taken the view that they can only become healthier as time progresses.

Hang on though.  Is there more devious and nefarious  plotting going on here.  Could it actually be that Merseyside hasn’t reviewed band ones because this opens them up to the possibility of increasing the awards of those they review?  Enough of the grimly mocking  tone.  This is real and is exactly what has happened.

The Merseyside review process has deliberately ignored the tranche of IODs that can only have two responses if ever reviewed – increased, or kept the same.  This is not down to chance – this is overt maladministration in its dirty and unambiguous obloquy .  The blue in the below chart shows the band ones that were not reviewed against those higher bands that were.

MerseysideReviewedByBand

As mentioned before on these pages, we have data from most other forces concerning recent reviews and, overall, nearly 7% resulted in an increased injury pension payment – so, of the 502 reviewed, we should have seen approximately 35 people increased in 2015.   Not only are Merseyside deliberately failing to review those band ones whose degree of the pensioner’s disablement can alter only by virtue of his or hers earning capacity deteriorating, of those that they did review not one person was increased.  The probability of no person out of 502 being increased when 35 should be expected to be increased is 0.0000000049 (chi-square test). In context, the probability of winning the National Lottery is  0.0000000222.

In other words there is no fluke here,  no bizarre influence of chance that saw not a single increase in banding – it was deliberate.  As deliberate as ignoring all those who are band one.  Merseyside has acted totally contrary to the purpose of the Regulations and are unlawfully using reviews as a cost saving device.

If mass reviews could ever be fair then there is a prerequisite that it is more likely for someone to be increased as there is for someone to be reduced.  After all, time is by it’s nature degenerative – only Benjamin Button enjoys the opposite. It is a travesty that band ones are likely to remain trapped in the lower realms of percentages, unable to become upwardly mobile because they are deliberately ignored purely as a review of them will increase the forces injury award commitment and, in the absence of any knowledge that they can ask to be reviewed, likely to continue to struggle with an award too low in relation to their lost capacity to earn.

Too many snakes and no ladders.  For every snake, there should be a ladder; for every ladder, a snake.  But not in Merseyside – here there is one snake: the HR department.  And this creature is greased with slime.  Once down, there is no way back up.   This is not the purpose of the Regulations.  Merseyside are blatantly abusing their position as the administrator of the injury award system and should be held to account.

Merseyside, Mr Kern and the Salary Fallacy

iodpa Degree of Disablement, Finance, police injury award
Merseyside, Mr Kern and the Salary Fallacy

bad dog 2

Here is a puzzle for your dog to solve. We say try it on your dog, for no human would be so stupid as not to get the solution in an instant.

If a blind person gets a pay rise of 10% does he see any better?

Using the same sort of logic, we conclude that the Medical Retirement Officer for Merseyside Police, Mr Peter Owens must be a particularly dumb pooch. He wants pensioners to tell him if their earnings increase by more than10%. In fact he requires them to tell him. Bad boy! Get in your basket. You don’t give the orders around here.

This is what Mr Peter Owens writes to disabled police officers who have just had their degree of disablement ‘reviewed’.

‘. . . if you commence work or if you are currently working and your gross salary increases by over 10% you are required to inform this department as soon as practicable.’

My Aunt Agatha’s ancient poodle got it in an instant, thus proving that some dogs are more intelligent than some humans. Or that all dogs are brighter than Mr Owens. There is no connection between what a person earns and their degree of disablement.

If there were, your GP would slip you a crisp tenner instead of a prescription for happy pills.

‘Off work with the old depression again, Mr Braithwaite? Here’s twenty pounds, that’ll cure it.’

‘I’m sorry to have to tell you Mrs Gringeworth, but you have malignant cancer. Take this bundle of used tenners. You’ll soon be growing daisies not pushing them up.’

Enough of the satire – we don’t want to be thought of as being cruel to dumb animals – let’s hand over to the legal experts, such as David Lock, QC.

‘Mr Lock submits that the test under Regulation 7(5) is based on the loss of a former officer’s earning capacity, not his actual loss of earnings.’

This quote is from one of the most important cases concerning police injury pensions –

THE QUEEN on the application of SIMPSON- and -(1) POLICE MEDICAL APPEAL BOARD (2) SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE  HOME DEPARTMENT (3) NORTHUMBRIAN POLICE AUTHORITY (2012)

To save our constant readers the bother, IODPA has searched both the Regulations and the relevant case law and we can say with some authority and complete confidence that any salary is not, in itself, evidence of substantial alteration in degree of disablement.

The case of Simpson includes this:

…the reference to a former officer “no longer being expected to be earning a salary in the employment market” is, in reality, a suggestion either that a person who is not working has no earning capacity which is flawed as a matter of logic

We have pondered why, out of the 502 disabled former officers who were reviewed by Merseyside Police in 2015, a total of only 25 had their injury pensions reduced and not one was increased. The results from Merseyside’s reviews proclaim that, with none of the 502 people they reviewed, there wasn’t a single scenario in which the degree of the pensioner’s disablement had altered by virtue of his earning capacity deteriorating.

This does not sit right with us.  It’s one thing staying neutral on the reasons why 25 could be reduced but it’s going beyond all realms of possibility that no single person has gotten worse.

We have data from most other forces concerning recent reviews and, overall, nearly 7% resulted in an increased injury pension payment. On the basis of that statistic, Merseyside’s reviews should have produced about 35 increased injury pensions.

But the truth is starting to come to the surface.  Merseyside disregarded the memo from the Home Office which advised that all police pensions authorities should satisfy themselves that they are acting in accordance with the Regulations

Here is the full version of Mr Owens’ letter, which he sent to a former officer with an injury pension.

merseyide review letter

Mr Owens has invented a ‘Section 37’  – perhaps he means Regulation 37 of the Police (Injury Benefit) Regulations 2006.  But reading his letter further, an invention of a new section of a new Act of Parliament seems quite apt as he does not refer to any known power in the body of police pension law.

Mr Owens says he has reviewed the award himself and has found no alteration.  Mr Owens does not seem to be a qualified medical authority, his title of Medical Retirement Officer and the missing Dr title, actually suggests he is a member of the HR department.  Finally Mr Owens postulates that the former officer is required to inform him of any greater than 10% increase in any gross salary.

Note the important absence of Mr Owen saying that he should be notified ‘as soon as practicable’ about any decrease in salary.

Let’s look at another important recent case, the Laws Appeal 2010.

‘. . . if there is now some job available which the defendant would be able to take by virtue either of some improvement in his condition or in the sudden onset of availability of such a job then that would be a relevant factor . . ‘

An improvement to a medical condition which leads the former officer to be able to perform work that was previously barred to him could amount to alteration.  Not a 10% rise in salary.  Earnings are irrelevant to the Regulations.

What happens if the former officer was medically retired and had been underpaid for his capacity to work for a decade but then received a salary increase as his company was taken over by a competitor, would he have to report to Mr Owens?  Mr Owen’s letter is a travesty of the Regulations.

Mr Owens has got it so wrong it is barely worth wasting time with demolishing his nonsensical letter.

But it shows clearly why Merseyside reduced 25 and not increased anyone.  They only reduced those who declared a salary –  irrelevant whether this salary was in relation to their capacity to earn as stated in the previous final decision.  And the rest were left alone but told officiously and with no power or jurisdiction to do so, to report any greater than 10% increase in gross salary.

This perversion of the Regulations wasn’t missed by the Chief Finance Officer of Avon & Somerset, Mr Julian Kern, when he visited Merseyside (descended ghoul like, a shadow drawn to the smell of blood) on the 17th November 2015 to see how that force ploughed through 502 reviews when he has only managed 9, at a cost to the ratepayer of at least £63,000.  Does he smell a way to dispense with the blundering, indecisive, expensive Doc Johnson? Is he hoping to rescue his plans for mass reviews by having a clerk shuffle the papers and make the decisions?

FOI 099 Email 1

merseyide review email

It seems clear enough that Mr Owens has told Mr Kern in person that:

  1. Merseyside has conducted reviews based on salary alone and uses this as substantial alteration, ignoring the medical condition
  2. Merseyside reviews without using a selected medical practitioner

Given this revelation, all of the 25 reduced by Merseyside now have grounds to appeal.  Merseyside has made a massive error in law and should now be held accountable.

Merseyside NARPO and Federation offices need to discover the 25 people reduced and fight their cause.

We say this. If any IOD pensioner is asked what they earn, the answer is, ‘Bad boy! It’s none of your business.’

If you were affected then please contact IODPA admin@iodpa.org