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Oversight needed to ensure injury pension system is not open to abuse

Proper oversight needed to monitor police injury on duty pension awards. Picture by Cliff Donaldson.
Proper oversight needed to monitor police injury on duty pension awards. Picture by Cliff Donaldson. Proper oversight needed to monitor police injury on duty pension awards. Picture by Cliff Donaldson.

Policing is a dangerous profession, policing in North during the Troubles was at times a deadly profession.

The Patten policing reforms may have cost £500 but were considered an essential part of the peace process.

The the 92 per cent Protestant RUC, tainted with allegations of collusion and sectarian cover-up, would never have been acceptable in any post peace society.

The pay outs to retired officers were unprecedented, with some leaving the RUC with a substantial golden handshake, only to return to work a few weeks later in a civilian capacity.

Some officers received horrific injuries, others witnesses terrible atrocities. In that respect they were no different from the ambulance staff, fire and rescue workers and even from journalists who were often among the first people on the scene of a blast or a shooting.

That compensation should be awarded to front line workers as a result of injuries sustained while carrying out their duties should not be questioned.

However, £153m over a seven year period, for Injury on Duty (IOD) pensions is an astronomical amount of public money to be coming out of an already squeezed policing budget.

A whistleblower has now questioned how assessments are carried out and the methodology used, which differs from that favoured by other forces in England, Scotland and Wales.

The insider claims industry standards have been cast aside for a process bespoke to Northern Ireland which is costing the tax payer millions of pounds a year.

At the very least the process involved needs an urgent review that insures those whose future work potential has been irreparably impacted by an injury on duty are compensated fairly but that the system is also shielded against abuse.

When dealing with numbers of this magnitude it is not unreasonable to ask that proper oversight both in the tender of contracts and the awarding of compensation, additional to previous payments already received by retired officers.