Firefighters' injury awards are not pensions, High Court rules

A firefighter's injury award under the Firefighters' Compensation Scheme is not an occupational pension schemeNationalarchives, so the Pensions Ombudsman has no jurisdiction over complaints about itNationalarchives. Mr Justice Kolinsky dismissed John Farrell's judicial reviewNationalarchives of the Ombudsman's decision of 25 July 2025 to discontinue investigation of his injury-award complaint against Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service.

Farrell, a former firefighter and member of the Firefighters' Pension Scheme 1992, suffered a gym-training injury on 23 March 2015, was found permanently unfit for firefighting in 2016 and retired on ill-health grounds on 30 January 2017. The authority refused an injury pension and gratuity under Part 2 Rule 1 of the Schedule to the Firefighters' Compensation Scheme (England) Order 2006 on the basis that the injury was not a qualifying injury sustained in the exercise of duties as required by Part 1 Rule 7. He challenged the refusal through the s.50 procedure, lost before the medical practitioner in December 2017 and complained to the Ombudsman on 12 May 2019. The Ombudsman discontinued it after the Court of Appeal's June 2024 decision in Clark v Chief Constable of Derbyshire.

The test is the definition in s.1 of the Pension Schemes Act 1993.Nationalarchives A scheme is a pension scheme only where the specified event — retirement, reaching a particular age, or termination of service — triggers the benefit.Nationalarchives The key word is on: benefits payable on retirement or on termination of service qualify, while it is not enough if the scheme provides for benefits in circumstances which coincide with retirement or discharge; the specified event must be the trigger giving rise to the entitlement. Cessation of service that is a necessary but not sufficient condition of entitlement is not enough. In Clark v Chief Constable of Derbyshire [2024] EWCA Civ 676 the Court of Appeal held that a police disablement gratuity whose payment required but was not triggered by leaving service was not a pension schemeNationalarchives, and Kolinsky J holds the same analysis governs Part 2 Rule 1 of the firefighters' schemeNationalarchives.

The wider-scheme argument also fails. Part 2 Rule 3(1)(b), which pays where a firefighter is permanently incapacitated at the date of discharge, does not convert the whole arrangement into a pension scheme. Discharge under that rule need not be caused by the injury — a firefighter discharged for an unrelated reason who holds a qualifying injury at that date still qualifies — so the discharge date is a snapshot, not the trigger. Viewed as a whole, the arrangement pays compensation for qualifying injuries sustained while employed, independent of any firefighters' pension. The 2006 Order, made under ss.34 and 60 of the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 after a conscious decision to separate compensation from pensions, expressly distinguishes the Compensation Scheme in its Schedule from the Pension Scheme in Schedule 2 to the Firemen's Pension Scheme Order 1992.

Firefighters who dispute qualifying-injury or award decisions keep the scheme's own routes: determination by the fire and rescue authority, appeal to a medical referee and appeal to the Crown Court under Part 6 of the scheme.Nationalarchives The Ombudsman route under Part X of the 1993 Act, which covers complaints about occupational and personal pension schemes, is closed for these awardsNationalarchives. The court expressed no view on the scheme's ongoing governance review.

The rule is s.1 and Part X of the Pension Schemes Act 1993, s.146 of which provides that the Pensions Ombudsman may investigate and determine complaints about occupational and personal pension schemes, applied to the Firefighters' Compensation Scheme (England) Order 2006, Schedule 1, following Clark v Chief Constable of Derbyshire [2024] EWCA Civ 676.