An update on the petition challenging the Salvation Army’s (SA) non-payment of pensions and other retirement benefits to its former officers.
Yesterday our six-and-a-half year campaign gained good coverage in The Guardian newspaper:
We believe the response from the SA contained within the article to be very weak and one which begs more questions than it answers.
Naturally we want to make the most of this opportunity so please share the link to the article as widely as you can and if possible the link to the petition:
Complaints with the Pension Ombudsman are still ongoing but the estimated completion date for reviewing the initial complaints (May/June 2021) has now passed. We await with interest.
There has been a change to the legal advice received and it is no longer felt necessary to await the outcome of the Ombudsman’s investigation before pursuing any necessary legal action, not least because any outcome decision from the Ombudsman may not be legally binding. Negotiations with our lawyers are therefore well under way and we soon hope to be initiating a Group Action under a Collective Conditional Fee Arrangement, a modern version of no-win-no-fee. Sadly it is only the signed up former-officer members of the “group” who will benefit from any successful outcome. Therefore it is vital that we are in touch with as many former officers as possible with their contact details. This could be the last call for such information. So if you know any former officers who may not be aware of this please ask them to contact me urgently at philip.mountain@talktalk.net. In the case of elderly or frail former officers we can communicate with a family member or trusted friend as necessary.
Thank you for supporting our challenge to this conscious cruelty which has taken place over many decades.