Local government pensions and the Tories

jem16

seagull112 wrote: »

What an odd question!

Not really.

The only time the "gold-plated pension" arguments come up is when we are in the midst of a recession when the private sector is suffering job losses and wage cuts. Nobody ever seems to mention it when the private sector is doing well and wages are high ( usually much higher than public sector).

Touch of jealousy perhaps?;)

seagull112

Touch of jealousy perhaps?;)[/QUOTE]

Not jealously .... realism.

I believe that everyone should have a decent pension to see them through retirement, but that the system should treat everyone equally.

Don't forget that the 'private sector' isn't all city bankers & CEO's of multinational companies! Where I live, it's fishermen, farmers, plumbers, joiners, waiters / waitresses, people who run small businesses or work on the till at Morrisons!

The current system is creating a a society with two classes of citizen - one with a generous, early pension to look forward to, the other funding this through taxes while working longer and with a more uncertain retirement for themselves.

Three years ago, research from The Institute of Economic Affairs showed that the cost of inflation-linked schemes for public sector employees had reached more than £22.3billion each year.

At that time each one of the 25m households in this country was paying £900 to meet this bill.

It's been calculated that private sector workers would have to contribute around 30% of their salary to their pensions to match the benefits offered by public sector pensions!

As I said ... those figures were calculated 3 years ago ... goodness know what the figure is now.

I can't really comprehend why you think it's fair that I'm required to pay more into other people's pensions than I can afford to pay into my own or, indeed, why any family scraping to cover the mortgage and struggling to build their own personal pension should be lumbered with the cost of covering public sector workers, who retire years earlier on risk-free pensions.

jem16

seagull112 wrote: »

I can't really comprehend why you think it's fair that I'm required to pay more into other people's pensions than I can afford to pay into my own or, indeed, why any family scraping to cover the mortgage and struggling to build their own personal pension should be lumbered with the cost of covering public sector workers, who retire years earlier on risk-free pensions.

Apply for a job in the public sector then.

seagull112

jem16 wrote: »

Apply for a job in the public sector then.

ha ... I think you're going around in circles!

That wouldn't make the system fairer .... it would only enable me to say
"Well I'm alright so to hell with the rest of you!"

Andy_L

seagull112 wrote: »

Three years ago, research from The Institute of Economic Affairs showed that the cost of inflation-linked schemes for public sector employees had reached more than £22.3billion each year.

At that time each one of the 25m households in this country was paying £900 to meet this bill.

It's been calculated that private sector workers would have to contribute around 30% of their salary to their pensions to match the benefits offered by public sector pensions!

Except that those figures are based on pay & promotion rates that require every teacher to become a headteacher, every nurse a matron, every junior manager in the civil service to become Sir Humphry. A career p[ath that is unachievable for almost all Public Sector workers.

Old_Slaphead

Andy_L wrote: »

Except that those figures are based on pay & promotion rates that require every teacher to become a headteacher, every nurse a matron, every junior manager in the civil service to become Sir Humphry. A career p[ath that is unachievable for almost all Public Sector workers.

That's simply not the case.

Using LGPS as an example, currently approx 24% of employee salaries are paid into the scheme and it's still massively underfunded (check the pension fund accounts on your local LG website to show the extent of the shortfall).

Next year's 3 year actuarial review show a further substantial deterioration as the effects of the 2008 stockmarket collapse will become apparent.

tomstickland

DiggerUK wrote: »

Freeing commerce, industry and banking from regulation, has been a vote winner for 30 years. On the promise that this would lead to greater wealth creation, and be followed by a "trickle down" of this wealth to benefit us all.
Instead there seems to be a Tsunami of poverty heading one way.

Now it is proposed that the bill for the blunders, by the masters of the universe, is the responsibility of those with public sector pensions.

If it is a vote winner, then there will be blood on the streets.

Another idea for those looking for a vote winner would be to argue that all those in private pension schemes should have a special tax on their pensions introduced. I'm sure Fred Goodwin would vote for that.

Less regulation is a good thing in most instances since it allows enterprise to get on with things rather than sinking them in administration costs.

The public sector pension problem has built over many years because no politician wants to tackle it.

Many of those in private schemes have paid a lot of money over their working lives. They are not like Goodwin. They've already paid a lot of taxes, including money that goes straight into the unfunded public pension schemes.

seagull112

Andy_L wrote: »

Except that those figures are based on pay & promotion rates that require every teacher to become a headteacher, every nurse a matron, every junior manager in the civil service to become Sir Humphry. A career p[ath that is unachievable for almost all Public Sector workers.

As far as I'm aware, the report was based on the debt accumulated in relation to pension promises already made, and did not take into account those due to retire in the future (or the grades they would be on). These additional future committments are estimated to add around £40 billion per year to the total.

If you wish, you may find a synopsis or download the full report on the IOE website.

Alternatively, for the sake of argument, you could use the government's own figures (normally at the low end of the range of estimates) that there's about £700 billion of future liabilities rather than the Institute for Economic Affairs figure of £1 trillion.

Whatever way you look at it, that's a lot of '0's!

Before all public sector employees reading this become untra defensive, could I point out that I'm not knocking these people, or the work they do.

This isn't a debate about whether public sector staff deserve these pensions or not.

The simple truth is that we can't afford them.

Andy_L

Sorry, bad quoting of Seagull's post on my part. It's the%age value of pension (30% in his post, goes up to ~45% for female coppers/millitary IIRC) that's based on unrealistic career progression in Neil Record's report for the IEA.

DiggerUK

tomstickland wrote: »

Less regulation is a good thing in most instances since it allows enterprise to get on with things rather than sinking them in administration costs.

The author of the thread asks us to speculate about what the tories will do with Public Sector Pensions.

It has been government policy for 30 years that "trickle down" would provide for the costs incurred.

Deregulated financial markets were to be the powerhouse for this. "Big Bang" here in the late 80's, the scrapping of the "Glass Steagal Laws" in US in late 90's.
Financial markets ain't being sunk with "administration costs", they are being sunk with toxic debts and lower GDP.

The government's plans to finance Public Sector Pensions have been scuppered by their own policies, not public sector workers actions.

It won't matter which party takes up the reigns of government, Public Sector Pensions are in their sights. The only reason that they are standing their ground is because it is a predominantly unionised sector, unlike private business. Private pensions are further threatened by the state of the economy.

The author of the thread is very wise to take a job in the public sector, even if it is not a move they are happy to make.