Dear Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service,

a) How many Principal Officers, above GM (Group Manager), retired between the dates of 1st July 2021 and 31st December 2021 and have received their full FPS 1992 pension entitlement under the terms of the MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) agreed between the FBU (Fire Brigades Union) and the LGA (Local Government Association)?

b) How many Principal Officers, above GM (Group Manager), retired between the dates of 1st January 2022 and 30th June 2022 and have received their full FPS 1992 pension entitlement under the terms of the MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) agreed between the FBU (Fire Brigades Union) and the LGA (Local Government Association)?

Yours faithfully,

Robert Moss

Dear Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service's handling of my FOI request 'How many Principal Officers have received their full FPS 1992 pension entitlement under the terms of the MOU agreed between the FBU and the LGA'.

I am not satisfied with your response and I do not accept that my earlier request to the office of the PFCC was substantially similar. I have materially changed the dates and broken the question into two distinct parts. The reason I have rephrased the question and put it directly to SFRS is that a previous response from yourselves indicates there were two principal officers in this time period, one in each respective time period, who 'retired' from SFRS. The response which indicates two principal managers retired during the specified time periods can be found at the following link>(https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/8...)

As both individuals were likely to be FPS 1992 members, and between the ages of 50-51 at retirement, then it would be reasonable to assume both persons had retired to take FPS 1992 pension benefits, under the terms of the MOU, which the FBU negotiated. The answer received from the PFCC's office, albeit featuring different dates, did not return the expected answer of two, therefore, it seemed reasonable for me to rephrase the question and put it directly to SFRS. The response from the office of the PFCC which indicates only one principal officer benefitted from the terms of the MOU, as negotiated by the FBU can be found at the following link >(https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/8...)

If the answer to my question, with modified dates, remains at one then this poses the question as to whether two principal officers did actually retire during the stated time periods. This is a matter of public interest because SFRS has previously identified, to me, that two principal officers had retired during this time period, if both did not benefit from the terms of the MOU, negotiated by the FBU, then it calls into question the veracity as to whether both individuals had actually retired. This is a matter of public interest as SFRS has previously stated that both of these individuals had retired but at the moment the evidence does not stack up. I also think the public and FBU members need to know if two principal officers, 50% of that senior management team, did benefit from the terms of the MOU, negotiated by the FBU, as this was only implemented by SFRS for a very brief period of time (October 2021 - May 2022) and it has since been withheld, at the request of the PFCC, from retiring firefighters since May 2022. It seems a bit rich that two principal managers benefitted from the MOU, negotiated by the FBU, and it has subsequently been denied all retiring firefighters since May 2022.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/h...

Yours faithfully,

Robert Moss