Consultation outcome

Privacy notice

Updated 8 September 2023

This was published under the 2022 to 2024 Sunak Conservative government

Applies to England

Your personal information, supplied for the purposes of the consultation, will be held and processed by the Home Office. The Home Office is the controller of this information. This also includes when it is collected or processed by third parties on our behalf. The Home Office can be contacted in relation to the consultation using the address and email address below.

Firefighters Pension Team Police Workforce and professionalism Unit

Home Office

6th Floor, Fry Building

2 Marsham Street

London

SW1P 4DF

Email: Retainedfirefighterspensionsremedy@homeoffice.gov.uk.

Personal data we are collecting

We have asked respondents to the consultation to voluntarily provide the following information:

• capacity in which they are responding to this consultation exercise (for example, member of the public)
• service/organisation (if applicable)
• if they are a representative of a group, the name of the group and a summary of the people or organisations that they represent

Taken together, these data may enable a respondent to be identified. In addition, the way in which a person responds to this consultation will also impact the data we collect on them. If someone responds via email, we will have collected their email address.

If respondents provide the information we request, we will use this to understand if there are significant differences between types of respondents with regard to responses to the consultation questions. We may illustrate findings through quotes provided to the consultation. We will ensure these are anonymised and do not include any personally identifiable information, unless an organisation tells us they are content for their response to be made public.

Your opinions are also personal data. We have requested that all responses to the free text questions remove all personally identifiable information such as names, dates and locations. However, some respondents may still provide information which could identify them.

How and why the Home Office uses your information

The Home Office collects, processes and shares personal information to enable it to carry out its statutory and other functions. The Home Office is only allowed to process your data where there is a lawful basis for doing so. The Home Office may share your information with other organisations in the course of carrying out our functions, or to enable others to perform theirs.

The Home Office is undertaking a consultation on proposed amendments to the The Firefighters’ Pension Scheme (England) Order 2006 to provide further remedy to those individuals who were employed as retained firefighters between 7 April 2000 and 5 April 2006 inclusive by providing access to the modified section of Firefighters’ Pension Scheme 2006 (referred to as ‘the modified scheme’).

Questions for consultation

Question 1:

Are the categories of individuals that have been identified as being eligible to join the modified scheme as part of the 2023 Options exercise appropriate?

Question 2:

Do the categories of individuals that have been identified as being eligible to join the modified scheme as part of the 2023 Options exercise include everyone who ought to be included?

Question 3:

Do the proposed amendments to the Firefighters’ Pension Scheme (England) Order 2006 achieve the policy intention of ensuring all individuals in Cohort 1 can purchase any of their uninterrupted retained service in the modified scheme and place these members in the position they would have been had they been entitled to purchase their service at the time?

Question 4:

Do the proposed amendments to the Firefighters’ Pension Scheme (England) Order 2006 achieve the policy intention of ensuring all individuals in Cohort 2 can purchase any of their uninterrupted retained service in the modified scheme and place these members in the position they would have been had they been entitled to purchase their service at the time?

Question 5:

Do the proposed amendments to the Firefighters’ Pension Scheme (England) Order 2006 achieve the policy intention of ensuring all individuals in Cohort 3 can purchase any of their uninterrupted retained service in the modified scheme and place these members in the position they would have been had they been entitled to purchase their service at the time?

Question 6:

Are there any changes to the proposals required for those individuals who are entitled to both the Matthews remedy and McCloud/Sargeant remedy simultaneously?

Question 7:

Do the proposed changes to the special death grant and additional death grant sufficiently address the scenario where the deceased member had pre-2000 service?

Question 8:

The scheme will also provide an additional top up to the special death grant in respect of an individual’s pre-7 April 2000 service. The Special death grant will provide eligible survivors with a single lump sum payment equal to 0.1 times the deceased member’s pensionable pay for each full qualifying year of service that the deceased member had prior to 7 April 2000.  Do you agree with this policy?

Question 9:

Members who joined the modified scheme as part of the 2014 Options exercise and who have pre-July 2000 service but have subsequently died will receive an additional death grant in relation to such members’ pre-July 2000 service. The additional death grant will provide eligible survivors with a single lump sum payment equal to 0.1 times the deceased member’s pensionable pay for each full qualifying year of service that the deceased member had prior to 1 July 2000. Do you agree with this policy?

Question 10:

It is proposed that where there is an absence of pay data for pre-July 2000 membership, FRAs can assume that the retained firefighter earns 25% of the pay of a WT firefighter, and that they will be employed at the rank of a firefighter. Do you agree with this policy?

We will examine and analyse responses sent by respondents to the consultation. This will involve identifying issues and themes in responses and coding them to understand which of these are significant across the responses. We will publish high-level analysis, including breakdowns by the data we collect and the organisations who have responded (if they agree for their response to be made public and associated with the organisation), in the government response to this consultation. This will help us and those reading the government response understand how views differ across different groups.

More information about the ways in which the Home Office may use your personal information, including the purposes for which we use it, the legal basis, and who your information may be shared with can be found in the personal information charter.

What we will not do

We will not publish email addresses, or any personal information inadvertently provided in the free text responses.

Data obtained in relation to the consultation via post or email will not be shared with other organisations or sent overseas.

Your personal data will not be used for any automated decision making.

Storing your information

Personal information obtained via email will be held on a secure government IT system for the purpose for which it is being processed and in line with departmental policy. More details of this policy can be found in the personal information charter.

Any personal information that may be obtained via post will be securely stored in a government building, in line with Home Office Security and Retention Policy.

Retention of personal data

We will not keep personal data longer than is necessary for the purpose for which they are being processed. Our need to retain the data will be reviewed and maintained in accordance with Home Office data retention policies. Any deletion of data will take place in accordance with Home Office data retention policies.

Requesting access to your personal data

Under UK GDPR you have the right to request access to the personal information the Home Office holds about you, to ask to restrict our use of your personal information, and to ask us to rectify your personal information. If you want to exercise these rights, please email us at:

Retainedfirefighterspensionsremedy@homeoffice.gov.uk.

Retained Firefighters’ Consultation

Police Workforce and Professionalism Unit

Home Office

6th Floor, Fry Building
2 Marsham Street

London
SW1P 4DF

When you write to us you must provide the following:

• confirmation of your identity: a copy of your passport, full driving license or birth certificate (please do not send original documents)
• confirmation of name and address: a copy of your full driving license, a copy of a recent utility bill, bank or credit card statement, pension or child benefit book (or similar official document which shows your name and address)
• if you are writing on behalf of someone else, a signed declaration from the person you are acting for indicating that they have asked you to make an application on their behalf

If possible, you should also send

• any information that might help us in locating the information in which you are interested such as the date you submitted your response

Once we receive all the above information, the Home Office has one month within which to respond to your request. This may be extended by up to two months in complex cases.

Please note, however, posted and online consultation responses may not always be identifiable as personal data are provided only on a voluntary basis. Where a data access request for a posted or online response is received and is identifiable, this will be processed as any other request for access to personal data. Where the response is not identifiable you will receive a response stating this.

There may also be a number of legal or other official reasons why we need to continue to keep or use your data. More information on requesting access to your personal data can be found in the personal information charter.

Other rights

Because we are processing your personal data under the legal basis of legal obligation, you have the following rights:

1. to restrict the use of your personal information, or to ask to have your data corrected.
2. to contact the Home Office’s Data Protection Officer (DPO) if you have questions or concerns about how we are processing your personal data.

Reporting a concern

Email: dpo@homeoffice.gov.uk

Telephone: 020 7035 6999

Or write to:

Office of the DPO Home Office

Peel Building

2 Marsham Street

London

SW1P 4DF

When we process your information, we will comply with the law, including data protection legislation. Should you feel that your data is being processed in breach of data protection law or other legislation, you can report your concern to our Data Protection Officer using the contact details provided above, or contact the Information Commissioner’s Office at:

Wycliffe House Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Telephone: 08456 30 60 60 or 01625 54 57 45.

Fax: 01625 524510

You can also visit the Information Commissioner’s Office website.