Report of the Deputy Chief Fire Officer

The Authority received the report of the Deputy Chief Fire Officer (DCFO) informing Members of the pensions issues identified within the Firefighter Pension Schemes and to set out the action being taken or proposed to resolve them. 

Members were grateful to receive the report but felt that the potential financial risk presented by the issues could have been clearer.  The ADR/T explained the financial implications, as known, were set out at section 3 of the report, but would go into more detail if required, adding that it was likely these issues would present a cost to the pension fund and not to the Authority directly.

The ADR/T provided the Authority a recap on the findings of the Norman v. Cheshire case.  There had been no national guidance to deal with the judgement of this case, therefore a local exercise had been undertaken.  The early assessment indicated that there was potentially up to £44,000 of unpaid employees’ contributions, if these amounts could not be recovered through repayment plans or other means then the current view was that the impact would be on the Pension Account.  The Pension Advisor was working to put in place payment plans where possible.

Members appreciated that this report demonstrated that there was a large amount of work to be done in the area of Pensions and wanted reassurance that there was enough capacity to undertake it.  The ADR/T agreed that this was an intensive process, the Pensions Advisor had been appointed to perform a ‘healthcheck’ in order to identify any issues.  This work had uncovered issues resulting from the actions of both ESFRS as the Scheme Manager and by ORBIS as the Scheme Administrator.  The reason that the Service was changing Firefighter Pension Administrator from ORBIS to the West Yorkshire Pension Fund (WYPF) was because Firefighter Pensions were becoming increasingly complex and County Councils were less able to meet the Service’s requirements.  The WYPF would be able to provide ESFRS with both greater resilience and expertise, they were already supporting and administering Firefighter Pension Schemes on behalf of fourteen Fire & Rescue Services.

There was some suggestion that ESFRS should seek some recompense from ORBIS.  The ADR/T explained that the key focus was on ORBIS providing immediate resources in order to rectify the issues and not on seeking a rebate.  The CFO added that this was not a local issue and that there had been difficulties encountered by Pension Administrators across the Fire sector.  Some of these issues were historic but some were annual issues dealt with by all services.  There had been a separate regulatory assessment which established that none of the issues presented were reportable breaches.  Audits had been conducted on the Firefighter Pension Scheme by ESFRS’ internal auditors and Members would be kept informed of the findings.

RESOLVED – That the Authority:

       i.          noted the current pension issues and activities identified in Appendix 1;

      ii.          confirmed that they were content with the action proposed to resolve the issues; and

     iii.          requested that a further report be presented to the Fire Authority once the Pension Board have discussed and considered the issues and the actions.