Council Tax

Guy_Montag

Old_Slaphead wrote: »

Ok, sparkly £80,000 gives pension around £3,200 for total contribs of around £42,000

Public sector gets £13,000 for total contribs of £21,000.

No objection to public sector getting a decent deal (tho' I think it's now just a bit too generous for the economic circumstances) what I do object to, most vehemently, is that GB is screwing the rest of us an that's blatently not fair.

That I agree on entirely!

JayScottGreenspan

According to my calculations a 2/3 final salary scheme is approximately equivalent to a defined contribution scheme of 34% of salary.

In the private sector a 10% defined contribution is considered generous (and is by no means universal).

My assumptions:
annual wage growth: 5% (RPI plus promotions)
defined contribution investment return: 6%
annuity rate: 4% (for index-linked payments)

Old_Slaphead

JayScottGreenspan wrote: »

According to my calculations a 2/3 final salary scheme is approximately equivalent to a defined contribution scheme of 34% of salary.

In the private sector a 10% defined contribution is considered generous (and is by no means universal).

My assumptions:
annual wage growth: 5% (RPI plus promotions)
defined contribution investment return: 6%
annuity rate: 4% (for index-linked payments)

Not a million miles from my guesstimate - thanks - in fact I'd been slightly more optimistic at 30%

twirlypinky

i work in public sector partly because of the pension, it's the only benefit as i see it. I'm underpaid for my experience, I'm overworked, our department is understaffed, we're under immense pressure everyday, nothing like friends I've got in the private sector. There are people who regularly start in this department having come in from "the outside" and they're shocked by what we put up with in terms of targets, cost savings, pressure and treatment from the public.

I couldn't give a tinker's cuss what you think of the pensions, for the people on the ground they're well deserved.

mewbie_2

This morning to my obvious pleasure they were talking about Fred Goodwin's "diamond-encrusted" pension. So I spent a few minutes drifting through "platinum-plated", "lithium-enriched", "ruby-studded" - well you get the idea with that.

JayScottGreenspan

twirlypinky wrote: »

i work in public sector partly because of the pension, it's the only benefit as i see it. I'm underpaid for my experience, I'm overworked, our department is understaffed, we're under immense pressure everyday, nothing like friends I've got in the private sector. There are people who regularly start in this department having come in from "the outside" and they're shocked by what we put up with in terms of targets, cost savings, pressure and treatment from the public.

I couldn't give a tinker's cuss what you think of the pensions, for the people on the ground they're well deserved.

In my opinion the public sector should have the same benefits and job conditions as the private sector.

In your case it sounds like they'd need to pay a higher basic salary in order to keep the positions filled. Surely that would be preferable to special 'under-the-table' benefits like gold-plated pensions which only serve to:
1) make the job market more opaque;
2) hide the true cost of employment (letting future taxpayers pick up the tab for pension liabilities).

skoda38

i was just wondering if people know that if you work part time for
the council your final pensionable pay is calculated as if you had worked full time.

chris_spackman

If lots of people are finding it hard to survive the last thing they will want to see are increases in their tax and council workers getting a nice little nest egg to sit on.

When councils are cutting services why are they putting the tax up? Would be nice to see them a little bit more in touch with what is going on.

Why the hell when hard working people are having their pensions wiped out should councils use OUR hard money to live off. We pay the rip off tax for services we need not for anything else.

Poole council have said that the reason for their increae is due to a downturn in planning applications and return on investments.

There are areas where extra savings can be found,” said Cllr Mike Brooke, leader of the Lib Dem group.
“There doesn’t appear to be a freeze in their allowances. They ought to be part of the budget and setting an example.”

Andy_L

skoda38 wrote: »

i was just wondering if people know that if you work part time for
the council your final pensionable pay is calculated as if you had worked full time.

but each year only counts as part of a years service so, eg, if they spend 40 years doing 1/2 time they get 20 years service and thus 1/2 the pension of someone on the same salary who works full time. Seems fair enough to me.

MPD

skoda38 wrote: »

i was just wondering if people know that if you work part time for
the council your final pensionable pay is calculated as if you had worked full time.

Not quite

A part time (50% fte) worker accrues 0.5 years reckonable service per year worked, so over say 10 years would have 5/60ths of their full time salary.

So they accrue their pension based on time worked. Part time workers do not get the same pension as full time workers.

Andy L beat me to it!