Public Sector Pensions Reform - About friggin time..

[Mammoth]

The blame culture is infuriating.

Personally I am happier with bankers paying top rate tax on bonuses, rather than it going as divis or staying in the business and attracting a much lower return for the treasury.

The last govt may have buggered the economy, but it is this govt making the spending plans. It is certainly within their power to change where spending goes, reduce it or increase it so each time they blame the last lot, THIS JUST DOESN'T WASH ANYMORE. Man up and take responsibility for difficult decisions- you may find the electorate will respect you more.

 

[adrian29uk]

Firstly, I don't remember my public sector pension being non contributory. It's only the top bods who get theirs for free.

Secondly, there are also loads of failed pension schemes from the private sector bailed out by public funds. Do you think this should stop too, and those poor ripped off pensioners should go and live in the real world aswell?

Finally, when the private sector moved from defined benefits to money purchase schemes, they did not retrospectively change the t+c's for existing members without agreement- this would have been unlawful.

Without the teachers, nurses, coppers, soldiers and others employed by the state, your life would quickly become pretty shitty. Yesterday I was having a drink with a para who had suffered a permanent disability via head wound in Iraq. Perhaps you would like to explain to him he needs to live in the real world.

Thank you,common sense at last.

 

[Seagull over Canaryland]

A few observations:

The country can no longer afford final salary schemes. Some of the more extravagant ones have already been closed to new entrants for several years.

There appear to be aspects of the new proposals that will help those less well provided for at present and hope this proves to be the case.

A lot of the blame for this current position rests with successive governments for deliberately avoiding the issue, knowing this would store up problems for later.

Secondly there have been several opportunities to make final salary pension schemes in the public sector properly funded through investing contributions from employees as these were received but again these were missed, mainly because governments were content to allow local authorities and other public sector employers use this income to fund day to day business. Of course governments also plundered othyer pension funds too so were at it themselves. Naughty naughty! We would not have such a huge mess if they got a grip on this years ago. It is a bit rich for the opposition to score political points when they fudged it too.

It is a shame that this is provoking such bitter remarks ie worker versus worker - not everyone had a choice whether to join such schemes as they were mandatory and demanded huge contributions from both the employer and employee.

I would suggest that some of this is the politics of envy - listening to samples of opinions on radio phone ins over the last couple of days it is remarkable how many punters state they are not worried about a pension, its not a priority and do not bother to save. So there are those that could - but choose not to make adequate provision whether in the form of a pension or savings. Who are they expecting will bail them out in later life? We have enjoyed several years of relative prosperity and lower interest rates but wonder how many choose to live for today rather than put something away for later. Not easy but you pay your money and take your choice...

Finally what I do find unplatable is that whilst this debate is going on the Banks are turning in huge profits, while turning various stunts to avoid paying tax and Bankers are still gaining obscene bonuses (wasn't the CEO of Barclays the latest?) - how about them being made to offset the pensions of the ordinary man and woman in the street?

Good luck to all NSCers.

 

[Buzzer]

There are different public sector schemes with different contribution rates. I believe the local government one is around 6 or 7% whereas the Principal Civil Service scheme is both non-contributory and also non-funded. The contributions members make go towards life assurance and other benefits. It's also completely underwritten by the Government and as such there is no pot of pension money. The government guarantees and underwrites the final salary schemes. There are in existence Within the civil service, personal pension schemes with defined contributions but these are quite understandably unpopular.

Unfortunately, the Civil Service employees will have to start contributing a lot more to their pensions or risk having it closed to new members. It's a very generous scheme. Probably the best in the country.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Part of the problem with some public sector pensions is YEARS of underfunding by the employers. In local government, the entitlement to pension benefits is standardised across the nation. However, payments to pensioners are made from separate locally managed pension funds. The East Sussex Pension Fund is one such separate fund.

As a local government worker, I had to pay 6 per cent of my salary into the fund. What did my employer put in? The answer to that, for many years in the eighties and nineties, was ... NOTHING. They took the view that the income from employee contributions and the fund's investment portfolio was enough to cover all of the liabilities. Avoiding paying any employer's contributions helped keep council tax down.

This was plainly irresponsible. The fund is proving itself to be unsustainable. It's not the fault of the workforce that public sector pensions have been managed like this.

When Robert Maxwell fiddled the Mirror Group pension fund, he was rightly identified to be a crook. The local government employers who decided not to make their contribution to the future pensions of their workers are equally culpable, in my opinion.

 

[Mammoth]

After a year of contributing 60 a quid a month into the Financial Services Authorities money purchase scheme, due to the old PIA legacy scheme black hole and 9/11 my money pot was valueless!!!!!

Needless to say, I withdrew and invested my premium refund in Fullers, down the Kings Head lol

 

[brunswick]

so its ok for bank bosses to get millions in bonuses, and the normal worker has to suffer?

so its ok to spend 26Bn on trident update, and the normal worker has to suffer?

so its ok to give millions to the EU, and the normal worker has to suffer?

so its ok for the government to give most of the tax to the central banks it owes interest to, and the normal worker has to suffer?


wake up from the mainstream right wing media please.

 

[Lincoln Imp]

Part of the problem with some public sector pensions is YEARS of underfunding by the employers. In local government, the entitlement to pension benefits is standardised across the nation. However, payments to pensioners are made from separate locally managed pension funds. The East Sussex Pension Fund is one such separate fund.

As a local government worker, I had to pay 6 per cent of my salary into the fund. What did my employer put in? The answer to that, for many years in the eighties and nineties, was ... NOTHING. They took the view that the income from employee contributions and the fund's investment portfolio was enough to cover all of the liabilities. Avoiding paying any employer's contributions helped keep council tax down.

This was plainly irresponsible. The fund is proving itself to be unsustainable. It's not the fault of the workforce that public sector pensions have been managed like this.

When Robert Maxwell fiddled the Mirror Group pension fund, he was rightly identified to be a crook. The local government employers who decided not to make their contribution to the future pensions of their workers are equally culpable, in my opinion.

There is a difference. Maxwell was raiding the pension fund. The local government employers were deciding not to stuff more taxpayers' money into their staff's luxurious pension schemes. This may well have been short-sighted and they may well have wasted the money other things but as one of the poor bloody infantry with a six-figure pension pot that will just about cover my weekly food bill, with the certain knowledge that retiring at 65 is a dream and with the firm evidence that I have not had a rise in my pay rate for eight years, may I be allowed the tiniest sliver of schadenfreude?

 

[Buzzer]

That's not quite true Lord B. The pension schemes would have been valued by GAD, the Government Actuaries Office who presumably were advising the pension trustees on funding levels. Most final salary schemes were in surplus until Gordon Brown's pension raid in 1997 took 20% off dividend income receipts at a stroke. This had a fatal effect on almost every final salary scheme in the country.

I'd say it was that point at which the local government scheme trustees and unions both buried their heads in the sand.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

That's not quite true Lord B. The pension schemes would have been valued by GAD, the Government Actuaries Office who presumably were advising the pension trustees on funding levels. Most final salary schemes were in surplus until Gordon Brown's pension raid in 1997 took 20% off dividend income receipts at a stroke. This had a fatal effect on almost every final salary scheme in the country.

I'd say it was that point at which the local government scheme trustees and unions both buried their heads in the sand.

You're right about the advice from government being the driving factor. That's, of course, the same government that was hell-bent on cutting council tax, whatever the consequences. The demographic 'timebomb' was becoming obvious, even in those days.

But you're wrong about the unions burying their heads in the stand. I was a branch officer of the East Sussex branch of NALGO at the time. After a great deal of trouble, we managed to persuade the employer (ESCC) to permit the union to send one observer to the otherwise confidential meetings of the East Sussex Pension Fund's trustees. Our representative was constantly banging on about the underfunding issue. We were saying this locally. NALGO (now Unison) was saying the same thing nationally. Both ESCC and national government were ignoring these warnings.

The collapse of stock market values has, of course, just made things worse for all of these locally managed funds.

 

[Mileoakman]

Before any more of you have another pop at Public Sector pensions you ought to be more aware of the facts! The average Public Sector pension works out at less than £4000. My wife for example retired from a local authority two years ago and gets a magnificent £1200 pa. Do you think thats too much? Don't forget if the average is about £4k then there are a hell of a lot getting less than that. I had a neighbour once who used to laugh at me and my wife because we paid tax and 6% of our salary towards our pensions when he, in the private sector of course, earnt considerably more but paid diddly squat because he was able to 'fiddle'. No doubt he is at the fore front now of those demanding a cut in pensions for the Public Servants.

Although it might have recently changed a bit, for a good proportion of my 45 years in Local Govenment I was paid considerably less than those workers in the private sector doing a similar job but the saving grace was that I would have a reasonable pension to make up for it. Now all those who paid little or nothing towards their pension but decided to spash their cash in other areas can't wait to have a pop when they realise they should have been saving a bit more themselves.

And yes I could have gone and worked in the Private Sector but I didn't fancy lining the pockets of shareholders and Chief Executives!

 

[BigGully]

Inevitably at times of economic austerity we look at our 'public sectors' and look how cosy and secure their lot looks, but very rarely do we look at their lot when everyone is on a financial gravy train and accessing decent profits, free wheeling lending and being paid handsomely, to boot, at those times we are 'entrepreneurs' 'wealth builders' and 'skilled workers'.

Currently we blame those dastardly bankers and not our flawed business models that were never likely to survive the next downturn anyhow, so lets turn on the teachers, nurses and anyone else that happen to have a job and qualifications to deliver what is an absolute necessity to the structure of our communities.

Yeah so look at their pensions if you wish, and use it as a stick to beat them, but lets just hope such scrutiny is not given to the folly of your own employment.

 

[simmo]

so its ok for bank bosses to get millions in bonuses, and the normal worker has to suffer?

so its ok to spend 26Bn on trident update, and the normal worker has to suffer?

so its ok to give millions to the EU, and the normal worker has to suffer?

so its ok for the government to give most of the tax to the central banks it owes interest to, and the normal worker has to suffer?


wake up from the mainstream right wing media please.

So it is ok for me to have to provide all my funds for my own pension pot?

So it is ok for me to have to work to 66?

So it is ok for me to have to suffer redundancies/job losses etc. since Autumn 2008?

I am a normal (private sector) worker and I have suffered this.

What is the situation for Public sector workers?

It has got nothing to do with right wing media, I don't need any newspaper to tell me what my (and my friends) situation is and I am sure an awful lot of other people that work in the private sector are in exactly the same boat as I am that have never worked for a bank.

Wake up from your university lecture and join the working world.

 

[BigGully]

So it is ok for me to have to provide all my funds for my own pension pot?

So it is ok for me to have to work to 66?

So it is ok for me to have to suffer redundancies/job losses etc. since Autumn 2008?

I am a normal (private sector) worker and I have suffered this.

What is the situation for Public sector workers?

It has got nothing to do with right wing media, I don't need any newspaper to tell me what my (and my friends) situation is and I am sure an awful lot of other people that work in the private sector are in exactly the same boat as I am that have never worked for a bank.

Wake up from your university lecture and join the working world.

Maybe just maybe your not critical for the health of our families or education of our children.

Maybe your not providing a service that is required at present, its what us in the private sector need to understand too.

 

[beorhthelm]

As a local government worker, I had to pay 6 per cent of my salary into the fund. What did my employer put in? The answer to that, for many years in the eighties and nineties, was ... NOTHING.

i think another part of the problem is not all public sector pensions are equal, making it difficult to see through the debate clearly as people compare apples with bananas. others do not pay contibutions (even pay reduced NI) while the employer pays double digit % contributions. i recall that the army pays 30% contributions (to fund a very well deserved pension). Is some of this to catch up to previous non-paying? i dont know, but here we are, we need to work forward from what we have.

 

[Buzzer]

Lord B - I meant by the unions burying their heads in the sand about how to fund the schemes. The 20% shortfall caused by the raid on pensions has been impossible to replace through alternative income streams and the difference has to come from increasing premiums and/or reduced benefits.

I understand that unions are there to protect these things but they can't just demand the local government magic up some money to fund it.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Does anyone know the name of the developer of the Dukes Lane shopping street in central Brighton?

Probably not. It was the Greater Manchester Council Pension Fund.

I often wonder whether they've made any money out of it.

 

[beorhthelm]

so its ok for bank bosses to get millions in bonuses, and the normal worker has to suffer?

so its ok to spend 26Bn on trident update, and the normal worker has to suffer?

so its ok to give millions to the EU, and the normal worker has to suffer?

so its ok for the government to give most of the tax to the central banks it owes interest to, and the normal worker has to suffer?

i thought you had stepped out side mainstream society, so this doesnt effect you. none of those points have anything to do with pensions.

 

[BigGully]

Does anyone know the name of the developer of the Dukes Lane shopping street in central Brighton?

Probably not. It was the Greater Manchester Council Pension Fund.

I often wonder whether they've made any money out of it.

Yep I knew that, I think they sold it, or certainly tried to some years ago.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

i think another part of the problem is not all public sector pensions are equal, making it difficult to see through the debate clearly as people compare apples with bananas. others do not pay contibutions (even pay reduced NI) while the employer pays double digit % contributions. i recall that the army pays 30% contributions (to fund a very well deserved pension). Is some of this to catch up to previous non-paying? i dont know, but here we are, we need to work forward from what we have.

There's a big difference in public sector contributions: I believe the armed forces pensions are non-contributory, some areas pay 6-7%, the police pay 11%. Not sure about firefighters.

And it's not strictly true that public sector workers are all sat up, safe in their jobs while everyone else in the private sector gets made redundant, is it? Plenty of police staff in Sussex have been got rid of this year already, and that continues, hence they're talking about closing police stations. Lots of people in local government jobs have been made redundant too. I can see the arguments for both sides, but it's unfair to talk in terms of the public sector living it up at everyone else's expense. Nobody is living anything up at the moment.