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3RD MEETING: ILL HEALTH MONITORING
GROUP
CONFERENCE ROOM G/S
ELAND HOUSE
NOTE OF MEETING
Attendees Apologies
for Absence
Stakeholders Stakeholders
Terry
Edwards – LGE Paula
Haines – Environment Agency
Naomi
Cooke – GMB Mark
Cook – Bedfordshire Police
Seanne
Giddy – PPMA
Janet
Caiazzo – Officers’ Group
Dave
Wilkinson – Technical Group
Glyn
Jenkins – Unison
Medical Adviser
Ian
Torrance – ALAMA
CLG
Lynda
Jones (Chair)
Nicola
Rochester (Secretary)
Bob
Holloway
1. Welcome and
introductions
1.1 CLG
welcomed everyone to the Group’s third meeting where introductions were made.
2. Minutes
of last meeting
2.1 CLG
invited members to agree the minutes of the last meeting subject to any final
comments. There were no comments and the
minutes were agreed by the Group. CLG
confirmed that arrangements would be made to post the minutes on the Ill Health
Monitoring Group page of the LG Pensions website (www.xoq83.dial.pipex.com) shortly.
ACTION: CLG
3. LGPS
consultation on draft Statutory Ill Health Guidance – update
3.1 CLG
confirmed that the LGPS draft Statutory Ill Health Guidance went out to
consultation with a comments period from 2 July to 12 August. CLG reported that it had not yet received any
substantial comments.
4. FAQs
– latest position
4.1 CLG
circulated a draft FAQ paper to group members at the meeting and explained that
many of the questions in the paper focussed mainly on the third tier ill health
retirement. CLG also explained that many
of the questions were drawn from the third tier consultation responses as well
as from concerns raised by IHMG members at previous monitoring group meetings. CLG hoped that all relevant comments had been
picked up and that the paper would be easy to follow.
4.2 CLG
then invited members to go through the paper and advise of any immediate
issues. These were recorded as follows:-
- Q6: why do we need to ask members about
pay? Expand on the answer;
- Q8: this should be covered in the Statutory
Guidance. Also state clearly that any
recovery of overpayment money should be returned to the administering
authority;
- Q9: dislike the words ‘…while the member
looks for work.’ in the answer. Consider
re-wording;
- Q21: refers to a ‘related condition’. This needs to be made clear;
- Q23: refers to an ‘unrelated
condition’. Again, this needs to be made
clear. Consider re-drafting the question. Delete the last sentence in the answer;
- Q25: is an ageist question. Consider re-wording;
- clear lines of responsibility are needed
for both the employing and administering authorities. This needs to be covered somewhere either in
FAQs or in the Statutory Guidance;
- there should be a FAQ section on
transitional protection measures;
- are renewable 6-month contracts seen as
‘gainful employment’? Need to be clear
about this;
- consider including worked examples for the
questions posed;
- outline at what point members can
appeal. In connection with this, make
clear that the employment must have been terminated;
- how does an employer decide at review
whether a tier 3 member has found ‘gainful employment’, particularly where that
member has been known to be employed on six monthly renewable contracts?; and
- the final FAQ version could go on the
Department’s wiki or another sort of on-line forum.
4.3 At
the end of the discussion it was agreed that both CLG and stakeholders would
give further consideration to the paper.
CLG would send an electronic copy of the paper to members and asked
stakeholders to forward their further comments to Lynda Jones by 31 July so that a finalised version could be distributed to
all LGPS Pension Managers as soon as possible.
ACTION: CLG AND STAKEHOLDERS
5. Presentation
by Ian Torrance – ALAMA
5.1 CLG
introduced Ian Torrance to the meeting.
He gave a PowerPoint presentation on the current issues affecting ALAMA
(the Association of Local Authority Medical Advisers). The presentation centred around the following
areas:-
- the role of the independent doctor, with
reference to the Faculty of Occupational Medicine (FOM), in ill health
retirement cases;
- the appeal process;
- clinical assessment processes;
- the medical practitioners’ view of what was
expected of both ‘manager’ and ‘employer’ prior to sending a member for medical
assessment;
- the need to develop training for registered
medical practitioners, perhaps through an accredited course that would count
towards their professional ‘CPD’, which would, in turn, raise standards;
- the possibility of developing
‘brain-storming’ sessions for medical colleagues and/or running ‘peer group
discussion days’. In the case of the latter,
LGPS ill health medical reports would be selected at random as a starting point
for in-depth discussion and analysis with a view to increasing the quality of
assessments undertaken; and
- the need to give ALAMA financial support,
perhaps from Government in order to develop the above points.
5.2 At
the end of the presentation, Ian Torrance agreed to forward his e-slides to CLG
for onward circulation to the Group.
There then followed a brief discussion where comparisons were made
between the teachers’ ill health retirement arrangements and the NHS. The discussion also touched on the
possibility of adopting Centres of Excellence for deciding ill health
retirement cases in future as well as a need to clearly set out the
expectations of the manager in managing ill health cases.
5.3 At
the end of the discussion, it was decided that a paper would be helpful
proposing steps to take many of these issues forward. CLG agreed to take responsibility for this
and a draft paper would be ready in time for the next meeting on 1 September.
ACTION: CLG
6. Data Collection
6.1 CLG
circulated a revised version of paper IHMG (01) 08 to group members at the
meeting which highlighted all the data cells where information would be easily
retrievable from administering authorities via the AXISe system and all the
cells where employers would be required to provide an input to data collection.
6.2 CLG
then invited group members to consider the revised paper.
6.3 Members
commented that marrying up all the data would prove difficult particularly if
it came from several different sources ie employers, administering authorities
etc. Members advised that the best way
of trapping data would be by modifying the ill health certificate, it was
recommended that the form included a data collection ‘tick-box’ section. It was agreed that the inclusion of a
narrative medical report would prove helpful as well as tick boxes.
6.4 Members
also suggested that some data cell titles would need to be amended for accuracy
ie change ‘Length of service’ to ‘Length of membership’; change
‘Salary/pensionable pay’ to ‘Actual earnings and WTE’. Additionally, delete all the options under
‘Employment Status’ with the exception of ‘Other: reduction in hours due to
condition – Y/N’.
6.5 Finally,
members agreed that the exercise would also need to collect data on those
members who did not get ill health retirement following assessment. Possible
subsets to this could include: dismissal medical/dismissal other.
6.6 It
was agreed that the LGE would adapt the ill health certificate to incorporate
the ill health data sets in time for the next meeting of the Ill Health
Monitoring Group (IHMG) on 1 September.
ACTION: LGE
7. Date
of next meeting:
7.1 It
was confirmed that the next meeting of the Ill Health Monitoring Group (IHMG)
would take place on Monday, 1 September at
8. Decide
on dates for October/November meetings
8.1 CLG
decided it would discuss dates for the October and November IHMG meetings with
members at the next meeting.
9. Any
Other Business
9.1 None.
COMMUNITIES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT
WPPD3
JULY 2008