West Midlands chief fire officer Phil Loach has written to members of parliament in the West Midlands urging a negotiated settlement be found to the ongoing firefighters’ pension dispute.
In his letter to the West Midland MPs CFO Loach states that the pension dispute can only be resolved by the Westminster government and cites the continued negotiations in Scotland and Wales which have resulted in no further strike action being called, and in Northern Ireland where the trade dispute has been settled.
Firefighters in England walked out for four consecutive days earlier this month as the minister laid the controversial regulations for the 2015 Firefighters’ Pension Scheme in parliament.
The CFO also describes that, despite the Westminster government’s repeated assurances that “robust resilience plans are in place”, during strike action fire services are only “one serious incident away from a situation where we would not have the resources to manage” having only 10 – 20 fire appliances available, rather than the regular 60.
West Midlands Fire Service have 519 employees who are currently members of the 1992 scheme and will be required to transfer to the 2015 scheme next April. In order to achieve the same pension at retirement that they originally signed up to they would now have to work an additional 10 years.
Matt Wrack, FBU general secretary, said: “The West Midlands CFO is completely right when he says that the dispute can only be resolved by the Westminster government.
“We have provided them with an evidence based case about why the pension regulations are unfair, unaffordable and unworkable.
“They need to start listening to what firefighters and now CFOs have to say.”
