Police Injury Pension Reviews

The request was successful.

Dear West Midlands Police,

I am requesting information under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act. It concerns the review of police injury pensions as per Regulation 37-(1) of the Police (Injury Benfit) Regulations 2006.

Will you please provide me with the following data:

1) How many reviews of police injury pensions have been conducted since January 2005? I ask that you provide the data set out year by year commencing from January 2005 up to and including December 2009.

2) Of these reviews,

a) how many resulted in an increase in the pension paid?

b) How many resulted in a decrease in the pension paid?

c) How many resulted in no alteration in the pension paid?

3) If your force has a policy document, or any other form of document or documents, setting out the procedure for the administration and review of police injury pensions, please supply a copy.

4) In a letter dated 10th March 2010, the Home Office advised all forces that all reviews be suspended. Has your force recommenced reviews since that date, and if so when?

Yours faithfully,

Claudine Paquet

Claudine Paquet left an annotation ()

Anyone who has an interest in police injury pensions, and in particular the maladministration of those injury pensions can find useful documents covering various aspects of this topic on the web site www.scribd.com/wdtk

If you have any documents relating to the topic, especially any letters, reports, policy documents, from or relating to Police Force Human Resource Departments, The Home Office, Selected Medical Practitioners, Police Medical Appeal Boards, Police Authorities, etc. and wish them to be published, please send them as an email attachment to atebion2me[AT]gmail.com

I am actively interested in publishing Pension Ombudsman determinations and reports from SMPs and PMABs.

Documents should be free of copyright and not reveal personal information. They will be 'scrubbed' of personal information before publication if necessary. Most any format of document can be handled but preferred format is MS Word, PDF or text.

William Hopkins left an annotation ()

Former officers in receipt of an injury pension may wish to know that help, advice and practical assistance is available to them. A web site has been set up as a contact point for former Police Officers who have had to retire prematurely owing to injuries received in the performance of their duties and are now facing significant reductions in their injury pensions following the introduction of advice contained in Home Office Circular 46/2004.

This is unfair and is a betrayal of people injured, through no fault of their own doing a valuable and essential service. Many former officers have suffered stress, financial uncertainty and maladministration. Forces and Police Authorities have been reluctant to admit any wrongdoing and are slow to move to correct the situation.

There is no need for anyone to face and fight this injustice on their own. Go to www.pipin.org.uk - it is free, friendly and informal.

Note: PIPIN is complementary to but completely independent from NARPO and the Federation but it recognises and applauds the sterling work done by those organisations.

Dear Ms Paquet

 

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000

 

 

Thank you for your request for information, received 19/09/2011 concerning
Police Injury Pension Reviews.

                                                     

Your request is being considered and you will receive a response within
the statutory timescale of 20 working days, as defined by the Act, subject
to the application of any statutory exemptions. Where consideration is
being given to the application of any exemptions the 20 working day
timescale may be extended under the terms of the Act to a period
considered reasonable depending on the nature and circumstances of your
request. In such cases you will be notified and, where possible, a revised
time-scale will be indicated. In all cases we shall attempt to deal with
your request at the earliest opportunity.

 

There may be a fee payable for the retrieval, collation and provision of
the information requested, where the request exceeds the statutory limit.
In such cases you will be informed in writing and the 20 working day
timescale will be suspended until we receive payment from you or your
request is modified and /or reduced. If you chose not to make full payment
or modify your request then the request will remain unanswered.

 

Your request may require either full or partial transfer to another public
authority. You will be informed if your request is transferred.

 

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

 

Freedom of Information Unit

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Claudine Paquet left an annotation ()

Injury pensioners and their supporters may wish to sign a new petition that calls on the Home Office to, this time round, issue some sensible advice.

Take a look - it is very much to the point.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petition...

à cœur vaillant rien d’impossible!

Dear West Midlands Police,

Please note that you should have responded to my request for information by now.

By law, you should normally have responded promptly and no later than by the 14th October 2011.

I would appreciate, therefore, a full response without further delay.

Yours sincerely,

Claudine Paquet

1 Attachment

Dear Ms Paquet
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000
Thank you for your email where you were querying progress regarding your request for information concerning Police pension reviews.
Your request was sent at 6:57 pm on 16 September 2011. As this time is outside working hours, the date of receipt with respect to processing within the FOI Act is the next working day which is the following Monday (19 September 2011). Therefore the due date under the Act is 17 October 2011 (i.e. today).
Regrettably, while I am able to provide the majority of the information at this stage, we are still waiting for the Department to provide any information regarding question 3 of your request. I have therefore attached a partial response to your request (5100_ans_01.pdf).
I apologise for the late delivery of the remaining information and I assure you that we are at the moment searching for this information as a matter of urgency. I aim to be able to provide you with a complete response shortly and in any case no later than 14 November 2011.
Your attention is drawn to your right to request a re-examination of your case under West Midlands Police review procedure, which can be found at:
http://www.west-midlands.police.uk/pdf/F...
Please note that such an appeal must be received within six months of the date of this correspondence.
If you require any further information, then please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely,

Carl Bird
Freedom of Information Unit

West Midlands Police in complying with their statutory duty under sections 1 and 11 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to release the enclosed information will not breach the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. However, the rights of the copyright owner of the enclosed information will continue to be protected by law. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of the attached information should be addressed to The Force Solicitor, West Midlands Police Headquarters, Lloyd House, Colmore Circus Queensway, Birmingham, B4 6NQ.

________________________________________
From: Claudine Paquet [[FOI #86154 email]]
Sent: 15 October 2011 11:10
To: b foi
Subject: Re: Freedom of Information - 5100_11

Dear West Midlands Police,

Please note that you should have responded to my request for
information by now.

By law, you should normally have responded promptly and no later
than by the 14th October 2011.

I would appreciate, therefore, a full response without further
delay.

Yours sincerely,

Claudine Paquet

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Dear Carl,

Thank you so much for your very prompt reply, and for the very full information explaining why I shall have to wait a little longer for the final piece of information.

I do apoligise for sending a 'where is it?' query - the reminder was auto-generated by the whatdotheyknow web site and I failed to check that 20 working days had in fact not yet passed. My fault entirely and I hope that I did not seem brusque.

I am grateful for your pleasant and helpful reply and look forward to your further response in due course.

Best Regards,

Claudine Paquet

Dear Carl,

Have you by any chance now obtained the information you were waiting for?

You advised that you would be able to provide a completed response to my request no later than the 14th October.

Many thanks.

Yours faithfully,

Claudine Paquet

Claudine

Apologies for not replying sooner. Our HR Department have told me that they do not have a current written policy in this area. All they have is an out-of-date training package on ill-health, deferred and injury pensions, but is certainly not current, even with respect to Home Office guidelines. If you want this out-of-date document then please let me know.

Thank you

Carl

________________________________________
From: Claudine Paquet [[FOI #86154 email]]
Sent: 15 November 2011 11:40
To: b foi
Subject: Re: Freedom of Information request - Police Injury Pension Reviews

Dear Carl,

Have you by any chance now obtained the information you were
waiting for?

You advised that you would be able to provide a completed response
to my request no later than the 14th October.

Many thanks.

Yours faithfully,

Claudine Paquet

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Dear Carl,

Thank you for getting back to me so promptly, and for the information about the old training document.

Although I am sure it is interesting, I won't need to ask you to supply it as it lies outside the parameters of my current research.

So, many thanks for your assistance. We can now consider this request completed.

Yours sincerely,

Claudine Paquet

John Jarman left an annotation ()

Anyone who has an interest in, or a concern with, the maladministration of injury pensions by some forces and police authorities can find further information via these links:

PIPIN – a web site for disabled former officers
http://www.pipin.org.uk/

SCRIBD – a collection of documents relating to police injury pensions, including results of research conducted via Freedom of Information Act requests
http://www.scribd.com/wdtk

Pension.pen.io – a web site containing practical advice for former officers on injury pensions
http://www.injurypension.pen.io/

An article on Home Office Circular 46/2004 can be seen on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Office...