The Fire Brigades Union has accused some senior bosses across 13 UK fire and rescue services of having used controversial arrangements to access their pension early.
The practice usually involves senior fire officers retiring and then being re-appointed into the same or a similar post. This allows them to save tax and draw down from their pensions early.
The fire officers are able to access a quarter of their pension pot as a tax-free lump sum and then return to post and cease paying employee pension contributions. Their employer also ceases to make pension contributions.
The government has formally discouraged the practice in England.
That bosses have been able to play the system to make themselves even richer when ordinary workers are struggling to make ends meet is truly abhorrent
Matt Wrack, Fire Brigades Union
The FBU said it unearthed the practice after having submitted a series of freedom of information requests.
FBU general secretary Matt Wrack said: “It’s deeply unfair and unjust, that bosses on six-figure salaries are making cosy agreements that the firefighters they preside over could never hope for.
“FBU members have suffered pay restraint for over a decade, with chief officers standing idly by and doing nothing to demand better for their employees. That bosses have been able to play the system to make themselves even richer when ordinary workers are struggling to make ends meet is truly abhorrent.”
Government discouraged practice
In London, which has the biggest wholetime fire service in the UK, five high-level ranking officers, including the commissioner, have retired then been re-engaged in the service.
A London Fire Brigade spokesperson said: “The re-engagement of a retired officer only happens in exceptional circumstances and where specialist expertise is required. For example, to provide continuity for significant matters such as the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, or where national skills shortages leave us with little alternative, such as fire safety.
“Where senior officers are re-employed, we will always follow due process, which ensures that we comply with the Home Office national framework.”
The government, in the 2018 fire and rescue national framework for England following a consultation, formally discouraged this practice and affirmed that it should be utilised only in “exceptional circumstances when such a decision is necessary in the interests of public safety”.
Some occurrences of retire and rehire took or may have taken place before the government’s formal discouragement.
The Royal Berkshire Fire Authority and Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service told Pensions Expert: “The decision to re-employ the chief fire officer was taken by the Royal Berkshire Fire Authority on 15 February 2012, predating the introduction of the fire and rescue national framework for England in 2018.”
It added that the decision was based on “considerations of the stability of the corporate management team in the short to medium term, in light of the challenging times the Fire Authority expected to face as a result of restrictions on public finance, resulting in an unprecedented period of organisational change and potential industrial relations difficulties”.
A spokesperson for East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service, which also featured on the FBU’s list, told Pensions Expert: “No current principal officers have been re-appointed or re-engaged to a principal officer post after retirement.”
It added that the last time this practice was used was in 2009, under the provisions of an interim Fire Authority policy “that was available to all staff in the Firefighters’ Pension Scheme who met a certain eligibility criteria”.
This policy had a life of two years and is no longer in place.
‘Maintaining a high level of service’
A Humberside Fire Authority spokesperson told Pensions Expert that its “pensions abatement” is a formal policy “open to all members of staff on the Firefighters’ Pension Scheme, from firefighters through to the chief fire officer”.
It added that the policy “provides a benefit to the organisation in retaining knowledge and skills at all levels, ensuring we maintain a high level of service to our communities”, and “protects the public purse from paying both pension and salary to the same individual”.
Abatement applies where an employee retires with a pension from one of the Firefighters’ Schemes and is subsequently re-employed. The re-employed salary and the pension in payment, plus inflation, cannot be more than the salary on retirement.
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Northamptonshire Fire Service pointed Pensions Expert to a statement from September 2020 that announced police, fire and crime commissioner Stephen Mold had asked chief fire officer Darren Dovey to return to his role following his planned retirement in October 2020, to continue to lead Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service’s performance improvement plan.
Mold said at that time: “I understand that Darren needs to retire — both because he has made a very lengthy contribution to the fire service and because the pension he has contributed to throughout his career is based on the fact that he does so.
“But I believe that the county’s fire service needs him to keep continuity and ensure that the NFRS is able to continue to improve on the fantastic contribution it has made throughout the uncertainty of the pandemic and beyond.”
