Notes taken at the meeting held by representatives of the Home Office and Avon and Somerset police about the police ill health benefits and pensions cost
Published 20 August 2014
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Note of the meeting by the Home Office official who attended
Mark Simmonds (PCC Chief Finance Officer) and a colleague from the force finance team. This was in response to a letter (attached) to DG from the PCC about the cost of police ill-health retirement benefits (IB). The letter outlines concerns about the costs to the force of retired officers on ill health benefits / pensions and asks for legislative action to reduce the cost. This appears to stem from the fact that in previous years the force was quite ‘liberal’ with IB awards. They now have in the region of 500 retired officers claiming awards totaling £5.5m annually. As the HO lead on this I outlined what we are already doing in this area:
a) Written to CC Cunningham National Lead on Workforce Management who in turn commissioned the College to work on IB.
b) New Police IB Regulations (due out this year) which add clarity and address some underlying problems with the system.
c) Advised them that they are empowered to review some existing awards to see if circumstances have changed. Forces do not seem to be aware of this and it is something that will be reiterated shortly.
They went on to highlight that they believe the force is at a financial disadvantage compared to others. This related to the effects of dampening and the police funding formula. They also said how it was more challenging to find savings as they had already done some of the more obvious things (e.g. collaboration through Southwest One). They were keen to discuss more flexibility in relation to raising the precept.”