Winsor and Hutton

Have Your Say

I would like to thank all the members that have written to us over the last couple of days demonstrating how disappointed and angry they feel with the release of the Winsor report and its damaging recommendations, to them personally and the Police Service.

These issues will no doubt be exacerbated with the review on pensions in the shape of the Hutton report which is out this morning and is damaging across the whole public sector not least of all our own members.  The Hutton report can be viewed on line on www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/pensionscommission

Both these heavy tomes consisting of over 500 pages in total will take some time to read and digest but I can assure you that your local and national federation representatives are working their way through the text, and sub-text,  in order to address the issues contained within.

Media interviews have and will continue to be given and we have already arranged for GMP Federation Executives to visit the Houses of Parliament in order to engage with our elected representatives in Parliament next week.

I would like to seek your support in helping us to drive the message back to the government and ultimately the Home Secretary via your elected Member of Parliament.

It is not my intention to give you a generic template or pro forma letter to complete and forward to your respective MP.  I see more value in officers, their families and friends sending a letter from their own perspectives explaining what the proposed cuts would mean to them as individuals, what it means to their families and what it means to the fabric of society to have an undervalued, under resourced  Police Service.

Whether you visit your MP at their surgeries or write to them please copy us into the emails/ letters and any responses you receive at  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it You can find out who your MP is by going on thewww.theyworkforyou.com website

To keep up to date with our responses please visit our website at www.gmpfederation.com and that of the Police Federation of England and Wales at www.polfed.org

Please remember the Winsor report has made recommendations for consideration by the Home Secretary, which still have to go through the formal negotiation processes and the government still have to adopt or ‘cherry pick’ the recommendations put forward by Lord Hutton.  Although we can’t negotiate on the pensions aspect as we can with the Winsor proposals it doesn’t stop you having your say as part of the general electorate, so don’t delay have your say.

regards

Sully

M. Sultan

Vice Chair GMP JBB

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Dear Colleagues

Today Lord Hutton published his final report on public service pension provision. Please see below a link to the report:

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/indreview_johnhutton_pensions.htm

This is a detailed report of over 200 pages containing 27 recommendations that will impact on all public sector pension schemes including the Police Pension Schemes. Lord Hutton's recommendations are part of a series of changes being proposed for public service pensions.

In the Emergency Budget in June 2010 the Government proposed a move from RPI to CPI for revaluing pension benefits. In addition, in its Comprehensive Spending Review last October, the Government proposed an average 3 % increase in member contributions to be phased in from April 2012.

Any changes to the Police Pension Schemes must be consulted on within the Police Negotiating Board (PNB), the first relevant meeting of which took place on Thursday 10th March 2011. At that meeting, representatives of the Home Office informed us that Lord Hutton's final report was now with the Government for a decision to be made on how the individual recommendations within the report should be progressed in respect of all the public sector pension schemes. We, therefore await direction from the Home Secretary to the Official Side of the PNB on how the recommendations should be addressed in respect of the police pension schemes. We would expect to be informed in time for the next meeting of the PNB Staff Side on 13 April 2011, to enable further discussion at the PNB Full Board on 14 April 2011.

In light of this information about the process regarding the Hutton Report, it would be inappropriate to speculate on how individual recommendations contained within the Hutton Report may impact upon the current police pension schemes until we know exactly what changes are being proposed.

Discussion also took place on the proposed increase to pension contribution rates. We were informed that formal consultation will commence in June 2011 for the Government's phased introduction of any increase from April 2012.

Please be assured that we will do everything within our means to ensure that the value of police officers' pensions continues to reflect the difficult and demanding role that police officers perform on behalf of the public. Work is currently ongoing to ensure that we are prepared for that challenge.

I will continue to keep you updated as further information becomes available.

Regards

Ian Rennie

General Secretary

Police Federation of E&W