Dear Brother/Sister,
We have today written to the CLG Fire Minister with a formal response to his ministerial statement and the document which is titled "Final Agreement".
We expressed our disappointment with the timing of the document and that we felt it was unhelpful, unnecessary and potentially inflammatory.
As in the case of the Heads of Agreement, this document details all the main parameters of the proposed scheme and as before we have responded by stating that the major problems are still the contribution increases and the normal pension age.
We reiterated that there are other issues of concern such as accrual rates, revaluation rates and commutation factors and that we feel that the logical position is to pursue a workable NPA as a priority. Other issues are largely dependent on a scheme being affordable and having a workable and realistic NPA.
Whilst recognising the government's commitment to their agenda for the future of the Firefighters' Pension Scheme, we stressed that in contrast we remain fundamentally opposed to the proposed employee contribution increase and the proposal for a normal pension age of 60 for firefighters.
We outlined that the two reviews could be the mechanism for addressing these concerns but that by presenting a document at this juncture, which proposes the final position before the reviews have reported, raises further concern around their value and status and asked for a real demonstration of their commitment to this process.
I must emphasise that this mis-named Final Agreement remains unacceptable as it still proposes a scheme with unaffordable/unfair contribution rates and an unworkable and unrealistic normal pension age. This can only mean one thing; an unsustainable scheme for the fire service which is a position that we cannot accept.
We await the content of any response we receive to our letter from the Fire Minister.
Yours fraternally,
Andy Dark
Assistant General Secretary
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