The Scottish Government today announced plans to safeguard the pension rights of Scotland's firefighters.

The move follows concerns that changes in 2006 to UK-wide guidance for the Fire Pension Scheme could leave some firefighters who are assessed as disabled from operational firefighting and where no suitable alternative post is identified, being dismissed from the service with no pension or compensation.

Following representations by the Fire Brigades Union and other staff organisations, Ministers have agreed to introduce revised guidance for Scotland's eight Fire and Rescue Authorities (FRAs) to remove the uncertainty.

Fergus Ewing, the Minister for Community Safety, said:

"We view the changes made in the 2006 guidance as unfair as they could potentially result in a firefighter seriously injured in the line of duty being both denied access to an ill-health retirement pension and possibly losing his or her job.

"The people of Scotland are well aware of the debt we owe to our fire & rescue professionals and the risks they take to protect our communities.

"We owe it to them, to ensure they are treated fairly."

The issue is also being considered in England and Wales and proposals to address the situation were discussed at Westminster on January 23.

Commenting on these proposals, Mr Ewing added:

"I did not consider that the arrangements proposed in England to resolve the situation offered a fair, workable or timely way of resolving this issue.

"I have therefore instructed officials to revised current guidance in Scotland to resolve the situation for our fire and rescue staff here."

A regular firefighter is entitled to an ill-health retirement award/pension (IHR) under the Fire Pension Scheme if permanently disabled from the performance of duty.

Under the Scheme, 'disablement' is defined as 'incapacity, occasioned by infirmity of mind or body, for the performance of duty'. The definition of regular firefighter includes the requirement to 'fight fires and undertake other duties appropriate to the person's role'.

The question of entitlement to pension awards is a matter for each FRA. However, before considering this, they must obtain the opinion of an independent qualified medical practitioner on questions relating to disablement and that opinion is binding on the authority.

Under the current guidance issued to the independent assessor, disablement can only be granted if the fire-fighter is assessed as unable to perform ALL of his/her duties. Thus, it is possible that a person could be assessed by the independent assessor as being capable of undertaking some non-operational roles and therefore ineligible for IHR, but that the FRA does not have a suitable post. In such situations, the issue would be an employment (not a pension) matter.

Under the Firefighter's Compensation Scheme, retained fire-fighters have an entitlement to ill health and injury awards when retired for reasons of permanent disablement, if the infirmity was duty related. However, in order to access this benefit they too have to be assessed as permanently disabled from the performance of duty.

The RFU welcomes the development in Scotland to address the current situation regarding injury pensions. For number of months we have been applying pressure through lobbying CLG and the Scottish Executive including meeting Fergus Ewing MSP and in writing.

0n 19th November RFU General Secretary John Barton wrote to Fergus Ewing

“I do believe that if society has an expectation that community-focused men and woman will volunteer to step forward to protect their friends and neighbours as firefighters, then society through the taxpayer should not see it as unreasonable for these brave men and woman to be compensated if something goes wrong. The Fireman’s Pension Scheme (FPS) up until it was superseded by the National Pension Scheme (NPS) in April 2006 recognised this and in its original form offered this protection. However amendments made to it have removed the protection for retained personnel within the FPS and the NPS is currently structured solely as a pension scheme without any form of compensation.

The RFU is not an organisation which seeks to publicly condemn government departments in these situations, we much prefer to appeal to those who can influence the decision making process in the hope that amendments can be made which provide fair and equitable outcomes.

The fire and rescue service across the UK relies heavily upon personnel working the retained duty system and in our view has to recognise their unique contribution to public protection. Injuries on duty are not uncommon. Notwithstanding the influence of health and safety measures, injury and deaths will regrettably continue to occur. The tragic events in Warwickshire recently are a stark reminder of this.

With an already existing shortfall in RDS staff, together with the loss of injury pensions for those in service at present, this shortfall will continue and might even accelerate once retained staff becomes fully aware of these changes.

Any intervention by yourself on this issue on behalf of retained firefighters would be very much appreciated.”

Source: scotland.gov.uk