PSNI

Stats do not lie – PSNI

IODPA Admin Uncategorized 8 Comments
Stats do not lie – PSNI

Our guest blogger is from Northern Ireland and this is the first in a series of blogs highlighting the problems being faced by RUC/PSNI officers/pensioners.

We know that something is wrong, seriously wrong the application of injury pension to officers of the RUC/PSNI, but what do the stats tell us?

A number of Freedom of Information requests were made to PSNI and all the police forces in England/Scotland/Wales.

The request to the Northern Ireland Policing Board (NIPB) can be seen here –

Ill Health Retirement Statistics 2017 to 2023 – a Freedom of Information request to Northern Ireland Policing Board

Please could you provide me with the following: 1 From jan 2017 until dec 2023 the total number of officers who have retired via the ill health retirement process 2 the “Bandings” of the Officers who were granted Ill health retirement in point 1 and were then subsequently awarded an Injury on Duty Award.

The PSNI provided stats for the period April 2019 to December 2023. The board refused to release the previous two years stats due to cost. We will return to this refusal in a future blog and believe that their reasons for this will become apparent.

Here are the results for PSNI –

PSNI STATISTICS COVERING PERIOD JANUARY 2019 – DECEMBER 2023

(PSNI unwilling to provide stats for years 2017 and 2018)
FORCE NO RETIRED
DUE TO ILL HEALTH		 INJURY ON DUTY AWARDS NO OF OFFICERS AWARDED IOD
Band 1 Band 2 Band 3 Band 4
TOTALS 398 271 73 123 75 0
AVERAGE BANDINGS AWARDED BY NIPB 27% 45% 28% 0%

What is striking is that over a four year period not one officer met the criteria for an injury award at Band 4. Perhaps we should qualify that statement, we believe that many officers would have met the criteria for a band 4 award, but none were granted.

The regulations define Band 4 as having “very severe disablement”. Anyone who understands how difficult policing was during the troubles will know that it left many officers with severe physical and mental health issues, many of who have never worked again.

Of course it can be said that stats can be misleading or interpreted in different ways, but they can also be an important way of presenting or understanding  information.

During the career of an RUC/PSNI officer they will have been presented with many statistics; for crime, sickness or performance reasons such as action plans. Also for operational reasons, such as highlighting crime trends. They are even used by the Policing board to compliment or chastise the Chief Constable and their team.

These simple statistics should be viewed in the same manner and we’re sure that you can come up with one observation everyone can agree upon which is “Why were there no band 4’s given during this time period?”

It has been suggested that Band 4’s were granted prior to 2019, but we have no evidence of that. If any of our readers know of any, perhaps they could let us know?

It appears that more recently, the NIPB have started granting band 4’s again. Was this due to a change of staff in the NIPB, or the fact that pensioners started protesting, who knows? We’ll return to this in another blog.

So if you are reading these statistics and have already ignored them or think its just an anomaly, then your attention should be drawn to the table below –

FOI FROM 93% OF REMAINING  UK FORCES
JANUARY 2017 – DECEMBER 2023
FORCE NO RETIRED
DUE TO ILL HEALTH		 INJURY ON DUTY AWARDS NO OF OFFICERS AWARDED IOD
Band 1 Band 2 Band 3 Band 4
TOTALS 3083 1053 201 272 261 269
AVERAGE BANDINGS AWARDED ACROSS 42 UK CONSTABULARIES 20% 27% 26% 26%

No one is suggesting that there aren’t problems in the rest of the UK administering injury pensions, as regular readers of our site will know only too well, but there is a marked difference in the award of bands with each of the bands having an equal spread across the four bands. Forces larger and smaller than the PSNI maintain this average. It believed that IODPA holding forces to account has assisted this more even spread, but there is certainly some thing very different going on in Northern Ireland, and this we know is not down to any minor differences in the various sets of regulations.

This is not a contest of who is more traumatised, and we don’t need to compare policing in the various areas of the UK. One incident could change your entire life no matter where you work.

These statistics shouldn’t be news to the PSNI and the local politicians. Our question is, what is being done about it?

We need to make RUC/PSNI officers aware of the way in which their injury pensions are being administered and those officers who are in possession of an injury pension or who are still in the process should come together. If this is happening to injured officers what support will serving officers receive?

Here at IODPA, we are here to support and advise you through the process. We have to help ourselves because no one else is going to.

PSNI/RUC Injury Awards and Appeals

IODPA Admin PSNI, RUC
PSNI/RUC Injury Awards and Appeals

IODPA is a UK based charity that supports injured officers in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Until recently PSNI and RUC officers have been well supported by other methods. As that support has now dissipated we have attended Belfast to hold a number of exploratory meetings. I think it’s fair to say, that we’re shocked at what we found.

First, it may be worth explaining that whilst England and Wales have The (Police Injury) Benefit Regulations 2006, Scotland have The Police (Injury Benefit) (Scotland) Regulations 2007 and Northern Ireland have the POLICE SERVICE OF NORTHERN IRELAND AND POLICE SERVICE OF NORTHERN IRELAND RESERVE (INJURY BENEFIT) REGULATIONS 2006, they have their differences.

The Regulations for England/Wales and Scotland are virtually identical, the NI Regulations differ in their appeal process. The process for England/Wales/Scotland is an appeal to a Police Medical Appeal Board (PMAB) which is a panel of doctors, one of whom is usually a medial specialist in the appropriate field for the applicant.

Appeals in NI are made through the Department of Justice (DOJ) to an Independent Medical Referee (IMR). A further appeal can be made to a ‘tribunal’. The Secretary of State, on receiving such notice of appeal, shall appoint an appeal tribunal .. consisting of three persons, including a barrister or solicitor of not less than seven years’ standing and a retired police officer or retired member of a police force in Great Britain who, before he retired, held a rank not lower than that of superintendent.

The other main difference is that the awards are administered by the Northern Ireland Policing Board (NIPB) rather than a Police Pension Authority (PPA).

On first analysis the main problems that we perceive are as follows –

  • Some appeals have been pending for 2, 3, 4, 5 years or more!!! This is disgraceful.
  • Interference by the NIPB in the judicial process as demonstrated by the case of JUSTIN CHADWICK AND ANDREW HARVISON FOR JUDICIAL REVIEW AND IN THE MATTER OF DECISIONS OF THE NORTHERN IRELAND POLICING BOARD.
  • We hear that the two SMPs also act as the IMRs but are supposed to be independent to each other. It appears that they work from the same office effectively marking each others homework.
  • No choice of solicitors for members. We believe members deserve a choice and to be able to choose solicitors and know they will be pro-active in their cases.
  • In 2014, the NIPB commissioned a report from David Scoffield QC into the injury regulations and their processes at the time, some of which they still cling onto today. One such recommendation is that SMPs should not make any sort of financial comparison in order to determine loss of earning capacity. Whilst this advice and methodology is not outside of the regulations, it means that the SMP makes a determination regarding banding without any documented rationale, which means that it cannot be scrutinised or challenged.
  • England/Scotland/Wales have an equal spread of the four injury bands (1-4) whilst a band 4 is rarely awarded in NI.
  • The NIPB have recently put SMP guidance on a statutory footing. The guidance is 8 years old and contains case law which is equally out of date. It is not known what the update process is for these guidelines, or what safeguards there are for pensioners. Even though we don’t agree with them, it is ironic that they don’t adhere to their own guidelines.

We are currently considering a number of legal challenges to the processes and will update our members shortly with how you can assist with funding.

If there are Northern Ireland officers/pensioners that are in the process that haven’t yet made contact with us or attended our meeting please use the ‘contact’ form on our website.

We will be publishing a series of blogs over the coming weeks with more information.

 

PSNI consultation on changing the injury regulations

IODPA Admin newsflash, PSNI
PSNI

PSNIIt has been brought to our attention that the Police Service of Northern Ireland (‘PSNI’) have released a consultation paper on changing the long established “POLICE SERVICE OF NORTHERN IRELAND AND POLICE SERVICE OF NORTHERN IRELAND RESERVE (INJURY BENEFIT) REGULATIONS 2006″. We say long established because the regulations have been in their current form one way or another for 50 years.

It appear as though the consultation is driven by a paper released by the Northern Ireland Audit Office (‘NIAO’) entitled “Injury on duty schemes for officers in the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Prison Service” dated 10th March 2020.

The driving force behind this review is unequivocally money and complains that the scheme is not sustainable in its current form. The NIAO paper complains about the costs of back-dating awards without exploring the reasons why injured officers are not being paid the correct level of pension to start with.

It goes onto to complain (on three occasions) that an officer with an injury award may have a pension that is larger than an officer that has completed their service uninjured, oblivious to the fact that the pension is designed in this way as it has to take into account the future loss of earning capacity, whilst the uninjured officer can seek unfettered future employment.

The consultation ends on the 17th June 2024, and IODPA has drafted a response on behalf of our members in PSNI. We’d be pleased to hear your comments on the nine questions posed. Please put your thoughts in the comments.

 

Read the consultation here –

 

 

Read the NIAO paper here –

 

Possible Pension Miscalculations in PSNI – Update

IODPA Admin newsflash, PSNI
PSNI

PSNI

On 2nd October 2019, we published a news item regarding concerns over substantial underpayments of ill-health pensions by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (‘PSNI’).

You can read the original article here – https://iodpa.org/2019/10/02/possible-pension-miscalculations-in-psni/

In summary, a number of officers who had joined under the Police Pension Scheme 1988 (‘PPS 1988’), and retired under the Police Pension Scheme 2015 (‘PPS 2015’) thought that their pensions appeared on the low side.

After making contact with us, we recalculated their pensions, which PSNI subsequently confirmed were closer to their true value. We understand that two officers alone had back payments in the region of £80,000 between them.

Disappointingly, last week, we were contacted by another former officer over the same issue. We calculated that they too had been under paid and were due a back payment of approximately £20,000. PSNI confirmed our findings and agreed to put matters right in their May 2020 pension payment.

These are not small sums of money and as this matter was first brought to the attention of the PSNI over five months ago, we are truly shocked that they don’t appear to have either identified those pensioners that may have been affected or written to those former officers to inform them that they may have had their pensions miscalculated.

We have written to the Finance and Support Services Department of the PSNI asking them to expedite this matter.

 

 

 

Possible Pension Miscalculations in PSNI

IODPA Admin newsflash, PSNI
PSNI

PSNIWe were recently contacted by a retired officer from the Police Service of Northern Ireland (‘PSNI’) regarding an ill-health pension calculation from two years ago. The officer had joined the service under the Police Pension Scheme 1988 (‘PPS 1988’), and retired under the Police Pension Scheme 2015 (‘PPS 2015’).

A calculation had been given to the officer in question who immediately thought the sums given appeared on the low side. They had already contacted the force once and were informed that the figures were correct.

The officer had been given figures for a combined pension under the two aforementioned schemes of just a little under £12,000 p.a. We provided them with our calculations, which revealed that the true figure should have been £18,000 p.a. This was a staggering difference of some £6,000 p.a. since they started receiving their pension.

Of course this figure not only affected their annual pension, but would also make a significant difference to any commutation taken.

Now armed with what we believed to be the correct calculation, the former officer contacted the force again, and we are pleased to say that the force now conceded that they had miscalculated this officer’s pension. The officer is to receive back payment of the missing amount.

This begs the question, has every pension calculation since the introduction of the PPS 2015 been wrong? And it may not just be under this scheme alone, ordinary and deferred pensions may have been miscalculated as well?

If anyone else would like to do a calculation for them, can you please complete the form found here – https://iodpa.org/contact/

Here is a list of standard questions that we’d need answers to in order to work out your figures –

  1. What type of pension i.e. ordinary, deferred or ill-health
  2. Date of joining
  3. Date of leaving
  4. Date of birth
  5. Whether you brought any pensionable service from a previous occupation
  6. Which police pension you joined under (PPS 1987, NPPS 2006)
  7. Which police pension scheme you retired under (PPS 1987, NPPS 2006, PPS 2015)
  8. If now a member of the PPS 2015, what date you transferred to this scheme (the default date is 01/04/2015)
  9. If now a member of the PPS 2015 the value of your pension pot in the 2015 scheme (if not known, I’ll estimate it)
  10. If retiring under the NPPS 2006 or the PPS 2015, whether you were granted upper or lower tier ill health retirement
  11. Annual salary upon retiring
  12. Whether you took a commutation, and if so what percentage (1-25)
  13. If awarded an injury pension, what band were you given

We have already had a number of enquiries over this matter, so please allow us time to respond.

UPDATE: We have confirmed a second case of maladministration, where the pensioner has now recovered tens of thousands of pounds.

 

 

The Scoffield Report

iodpa caselaw, PSNI, Scoffield
The Scoffield Report

The Police Service of Northern Ireland has the same worded Injury Benefit Regulations as England and Wales.  The statute has a different name ( POLICE SERVICE OF NORTHERN IRELAND AND POLICE SERVICE OF NORTHERN IRELAND RESERVE (INJURY BENEFIT) REGULATIONS 2006)  but the content is identical to the mainland’s PIBR 2006.  Given the fact that serving PSNI police officers face a high number of incidents of public disorder along with the unique policing challenges of Northern Ireland it is not surprising that the province has a high proportion of Injury on duty awards.  The system of injury duty applications and reviews however were in chaos.  Largely due to the Police Board’s insistence on invoking Home Officer Circular 46/2004 but also with the number of applications compounded by the frequency those retired were called back for reviews.  The whole system was broken and the consequences of recent case-law (Simpson et al)  finding that the guidance it has imposed on it’s former officers was unlawful, was the proverbial straw .  Something had to be done.  David Scoffield QC was asked to write an independent report on the  administrative process concerning IOD awards:

https://www.nipolicingboard.org.uk/scoffield-review-injury-duty-award-scheme

Following a number of concerns raised by former officers and various representative groups a decision was taken by the Board in March 2013 to suspend the review of IOD awards. A working group chaired by the Board’s Chief Executive and comprising of various stakeholders was also established.

In July 2013 the Board agreed to engage Senior Counsel to review the Board’s existing administrative process within the current statutory and policy framework. Mr David Scoffield QC was appointed to carry out the review. Terms of reference for the review were provided to Mr Scoffield QC.

The broken processes in PSNI are no different to what is happening in England and Wales other than the same issue has reached critical mass sooner given the higher number of IOD awards.  The Senior Council review has the same relevance on both sides of the Irish sea.

There was some attempt by the establishment to not publicly disclose the fully published report.  Pressure from interested parties managed to  overturn this and here it is:

redacted_version_of_scoffield_report

Over the next few weeks we will be discussing the points raised by the Scoffield report in more detail.