We are all in this together, well not if you are in a union.

dopester

marklv wrote: »

Yes. I agree with gradually moving the retirement ages, in line with how the state pension is moving - i.e. moving it in the same years as the ones the state pension is moving to ages 66, 67 and 68.

I'm glad we at last have some common ground.

Some of us want you retiring at 65, to free up jobs for younger people.

We just want you retiring on a lot less money. The waste in the public sector surgically removed. Pay levels in the £30K - £65K tier and above slashed where possible, when doing so brings value with very able people willing to do the work for less.

Close a few public sector offices; start a few lock-outs; bring in the pay-cuts; skim all public sector pensions.'

bigheadxx

Andy_L wrote: »

I can't really see the benefit over just gradually eroding DB benefits, IMO it combines the worst aspects of unfunded DB and few of the benefits of a shift to DC.

-There.s a big obviously reduction in staff remuneration rather than the "stealth reduction" of whittling away at DB benefits which will be contentious
-There's all sort of issues over what the pseudo-fund tracks
-If the stock market booms then the unfunded liability booms
-The treasury may be pressurised to alter economic policy to preserve the value of the fund
-When somebody retires you've got to give them their pot in one hit rather than paying it off over a number of years
-Would the sudden increase in people buying annuities, via supply & demand, mean people getting less pension for the same pot?

Under Notional Defined Contribution (NDC) schemes, members and their employers pay contributions calculated on pensionable earnings, and these are put in personal accounts. This money is not exposed to financial markets, but is directed to independently-managed, ringfenced funds, separate from general public funds and budgets. These funds are then drawn on to provide benefits for current pensioners, which in the UK's case would be retired public sector workers.

With an NDC, the value of employees’ personal accounts increases over time in line with selected economic benchmarks – such as average earnings or inflation – using an independently determined rate of return. On retirement the accumulated value of the personal account is taken out of the ringfenced funds and used to buy an annuity, either from the scheme itself or on the open market. A similar system was implemented in Sweden in the mid 1990s and has proved very successful.

http://www.cbi.org.uk/ndbs/Press.nsf/0363c1f07c6ca12a8025671c00381cc7/d1c3c285facecb5a802576f6002fd3c8?OpenDocument

chewmylegoff

marklv wrote: »

The civil service and quangos like the Bank of England, FSA etc offer only average salary schemes. Of course they are still defined benefit, but less generous than the old ones.

BoE is career average, FSA is money purchase (with no staff contributions).

bigheadxx

marklv wrote: »

Why are you so obsessed with pensions? Yes, pensions are crap in the private sector but salaries are higher. What you advocate in the public sector is both pay cuts and making pensions basically worthless - hardly a surprise that there will be an exodus.

The CBI does not believe that better pensions in the public sector 'make up' for lower pay, as some have argued. The ONS shows the average public sector salary is £23,660, compared to £21,528 in the private sector – the biggest gap on record. Furthermore, the IFS has calculated that factoring in pensions would add 12% to public sector pay packages, and only 5% to private sector pay.

And although the average public sector pension is over £7,000pa, the CBI considers this a misleading figure because the very large number of people with only one or two years’ service pulls the average down
http://www.cbi.org.uk/ndbs/Press.nsf/0363c1f07c6ca12a8025671c00381cc7/d1c3c285facecb5a802576f6002fd3c8?OpenDocument

chewmylegoff

marklv wrote: »

Stamped out - says who? Who are you to make these statements? Budgets are designed to spent in full because they are calculated beforehand to be required to do a given job properly. Otherwise, the budget should have been lower to start with! So if you save on a budget and do a project really badly as a result you obviously haven't done your job properly. 99% of the time you will struggle to stay within a budget at the best of times, so actually underspending would mean not achieving the objectives. Simple as that. You just talk utter tosh!!

if the budget is what is required to do the job properly, why would you struggle to stay in budget 99% of the time?

anyway, public sector budgeting is a key problem. money is ringfenced, and can only be spent on a certain activity. if you underspend the budget, it tends to get cut the next year as you cannot justify keeping the money it duing the annual budgeting process. the result is an incentive to spend money even if it is not needed, in order to maintain the budget for next year.

Procrastinator333

dopester wrote: »

The waste in the public sector surgically removed. Pay levels in the £30K - £65K tier and above slashed where possible, when doing so brings value with very able people willing to do the work for less.

Close a few public sector offices; start a few lock-outs; bring in the pay-cuts; skim all public sector pensions.'

Agree in the most part, but not that high salaries should in themselves be slashed solely because they are high. Imo, the public setor actually doesn't pay anything like enough for some areas. Whoever runs something like the NHS should be on £500k and £10m+ of performance related pay.

chewmylegoff

marklv wrote: »

The ones with high skills can always find employment elsewhere, believe me. Not so the others, but when the recovery is truly underway then they too will leave.

it is clear that the threat of pay squeeze has not resulted in you looking to move back into the private sector. this makes sense, as you have said a few times on this thread that you didn't like working in the private sector. it seems unlikely that you would be incentivised to return just because your pay isn't being increased as much as you want it to be, and you say that you are one of the "ones with high skills". similarly professionals who moved into the public sector, trading off shorter hours and less stress for a pay cut are unlikely to up sticks and leave because of a small relative terms pay cut.

interested to know what your pay award was last year when RPI was negative.

dopester

Procrastinator333 wrote: »

Agree in the most part, but not that high salaries should in themselves be slashed solely because they are high. Imo, the public setor actually doesn't pay anything like enough for some areas. Whoever runs something like the NHS should be on £500k and £10m+ of performance related pay.

I know what angle you're coming in from on this one, but I have my doubts about the pay and pay-structure you are suggesting. Obviously for the genuinely best people who can get the results desired, then I agree they should be adequately rewarded to a generous level which compares with best salaries in the private sector for a comparable role.

Due to the weight of responsibility, taking actions, skillsets and ability to see the strategic bigger picture or finding ways to work within tightening budgets and getting the results required.

It's just you can't pay £500K + £10m+ performance related pay to someone you think is super-smart and super-able to be the new head of the NHS, whilst there are layers and layer and layers of workers on £100K+ where they'll have to accept pay cuts.

I accept the former Children's Services Chief (Haringey Council Area) is a role of responsibility. A lot of people believe such roles in the public sector are worthy of £100K + performance bonuses. (Although I suspect the structure of benefit conditions in the UK brings about ever more children to be born to parents in environments/relationships where risk of ill treatment is higher.) She was on £100K basic, oversaw a staff of over 1000, and had an annual budget of £100 million to account for (or try to spend nearly every penny according to marklv's view on these things.

Your head of NHS couldn't really justify that £500K + £10m performance whilst slashing at costs elsewhere, including those on £40K-£150K+ salary and bonus packages.

During Winter, in passing a Chief Exec of a major concern (£350K basic before bonuses) gave me a smart-alec remark; a jibe about security, and ordinarily his observation would have been correct. Without going into the story, I had two set of keys, and took pleasure in saying so as he passed, waving the spares at him. I'm not disputing his overall ability for his job, or his intelligence. He's very able but I don't think he's the perfect mastermind. In very gentle times they've gone on an acquisition expansion. I'm not sure if they are now overstretched. They look it to me. Time will tell.

I do like the performance element of your proposals, but performance pay for dangerously over-reaching during the good times isn't always sensible though. Such commanding, superior, all-knowing knowledge and ability - was part of the case for Fred Goodwin justifying his big pay package during the boom years. Didn't he, and others, regularly brag/threaten they could go to USA for even bigger pay if they weren't recompensed generously enough over here? They turned out to be freaking idiots who only knew boom boom boom and thought house prices trebled every 10 years as a rule.

What I'm getting at is, I believe there are plenty of people who would be qualified for some fantasy head-of-NHS / Teacher position, who are able and smart enough to bring through what is required with cuts and efficiencies.. without requiring £500K + £10m performance bonus. More so when many other people are getting pay cuts in both private and public sectors. I'm grossed out with the idea of such bonuses in the public sector, even if you can be certain you've appointed some sort of super genius for the job of boss of the NHS.

Procrastinator333

As u point out, the only way such a person could drive budget cuts would b job cuts and pay freezes. Voters would never accept such a fat cat at the best of times, let alone alongside cuts, even if it ultimately was for their benefit. So it is a bit of a mute point anyway!

There big pitfalls and i don't see it as a magic panacea. The targets would need to be set very carefully. Maybe it is impossible to get right. I don't know I'm really just thinking this up as I go!

No time to post now, but interesting! Till tomorrow...

marklv

dopester wrote: »

Some of us want you retiring at 65, to free up jobs for younger people.

We just want you retiring on a lot less money. The waste in the public sector surgically removed. Pay levels in the £30K - £65K tier and above slashed where possible, when doing so brings value with very able people willing to do the work for less.

Close a few public sector offices; start a few lock-outs; bring in the pay-cuts; skim all public sector pensions.'

People like you just want conflict - you are not open to reasoned argument, so my answer to you, and those like you, to F OFF! :mad: