Matt Wrack, FBU general secretary, has written to Westminster fire minister Penny Mordaunt ahead of a scheduled meeting between the union and the minister on Friday 22 August.
In the letter Matt Wrack has laid out the expectations of the meeting reaffirming the union’s longstanding position to find a fair resolution to the pension’s dispute with the Department of Communities and Local Government.
The areas of concern the union wishes to raise in the meeting include:
- Extra protection for firefighters who have signed up, and paid into, an agreed pension scheme only to see the terms of that scheme change.
- The increasing costs of the pension scheme that is becoming more unaffordable for members.
- The establishment of a fitness and capability working group that will not address the very real issue of firefighters being dismissed for naturally declining fitness, due to age.
- The issue of DCLG officials writing to chief fire officers seeking their view on the position of former armed services personal who transferred into the 1992 Firefighters Pension Scheme.
In the letter to minister Matt Wrack writes: “As we have set out consistently, the FBU is always willing to meet to discuss a way forward.
“We have never walked away from talks or refused to meet.
“Nevertheless, talks must be conducted with a view to resolving the matters between us.”
