NHS pension -what is the worst the govt can do?

cyclonebri1

I'm retired, (nice and early now). but when you talk about benefits for members of the old system try this out. ( I actually thought I would be made redundant before I retitired)


Our old redundany system awarded;

1/2 weeks pay per years service from the age 16 to 21

1 week from age 22 to 35

1 1/2 weeks from 36 to 45

and 2 weeks from 46 to 65

Some bright spark complained that this was against the age discimination act, so the company in panic rewrote the scheme, averaged it out amongst all employees and gave a fixed rate per years service, regardless of age.

Had I actually been made redundant that would have cost me over £20k :mad::mad:

LongTermLurker

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

Some bright spark complained that this was against the age discimination act, so the company in panic rewrote the scheme, averaged it out amongst all employees and gave a fixed rate per years service, regardless of age.

Had I actually been made redundant that would have cost me over £20k :mad::mad:

That's nothing to do with the company and they would have had no liability for discrimination.

HMRC operate an official tiered system - the fact that your ex-employer offered enhanced pay in the upper ages is irrelevent.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/EIM13760.htm

Statutory redundancy pay is calculated as the total of:

• for each complete year of service where age during year less than 22, ½ a week’s pay
• for each complete year of service where age during year is between 22 and 40, 1 week’s pay
• for each complete year of service where age during year is 41+, 1 ½ week’s pay

moonrakerz

Just to add a related point to this discussion.

The Civil Service recently came under a lot of ill-informed criticism in the press for still handing out "bonuses" to all and sundry. Whilst admitting that some of these bonuses for higher graded staff were "OTT", it is worth mentioning that in some areas of the Civil Service over the past few years, money that would have been paid to staff as an annual pay rise was paid as a bonus - thus making these "pay rises" non-pensionable. A lot of lower graded people were already having their future pensions reduced and were being (somewhat unfairly) blamed for walking away with large unearned bonuses.

butterfly72

getmore4less wrote: »

It's total package that matters, lower pay better benifits, nurses in general have been underpaid but have had fairly good pension scheme if they did the years, many don't since it is female dominated industry.

By cutting the benifits for new entrants to the industry it puts pressure on the base salaries upwards which actualy benifits those with years of the older benifits, WIN WIN.

It costs the government 30K to train a nurse. It cost them much more to train me as I was a sponsored student and indeed am now being sponsored to do a full time PG Dip course to increase my skills.

If the NHS remove the benefits eg pension, annual leave hours which make the NHS attractive we might find that nurses will defect or choose when they qualify to work in the many private enterprises now emerging. As empty NHS nurse posts aren't being refilled and we are working to the brink with unsafe staffing levels, the private sector is becoming more attractive.

What will happen then? We'll get the influx of overseas nurses brought in fill the gaps and the use of expensive agency staff. (happening in my team right now - we've got two agency on duty tomorrow because we've got one staff member off with stress and another has reduced her hours because she couldn't physically or mentally keep up the pace expected of us!). It might be cheaper in the long run to keep the benefits.

But besides, I don't understand where this 'gold plated' pension idea comes from. I look what I'll be getting for the work I put in and it doesn't seem a great deal to me. (and thats without time out for kids!) It will be intersting to see what happens. I would certainly consider private sector work if the benefits/workload outweighed NHS work. Now what a waste to the NHS that would be.

cyclonebri1

LongTermLurker wrote: »

That's nothing to do with the company and they would have had no liability for discrimination.

HMRC operate an official tiered system - the fact that your ex-employer offered enhanced pay in the upper ages is irrelevent.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/EIM13760.htm
[/LIST]

Unfortunately no one at our company had the balls to contest that, and self important HR director was on a mission ;);)


Our redundancy scheme was enhanced above the hmrc rates as you see from the differences.

Obviously there was a substantial saving somewhere for the company to change what had been in operation for many years, but staff were changing so quickly, it only affected a few of us "lifers"

Andy_L

butterfly72 wrote: »

But besides, I don't understand where this 'gold plated' pension idea comes from. I look what I'll be getting for the work I put in and it doesn't seem a great deal to me.

2 reasons:
1 - its guaranteed by the governemt/tax payer rather than subject to the vagaries of the stock market - although that guarantee is starting to look a bit tarnished

2 - its far better than the typical pension offered by private sector employers

LongTermLurker

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

Unfortunately no one at our company had the balls to contest that, and self important HR director was on a mission ;);)

Unfortunately, HR staff don't live in the real world. They read theories and reports that say how things should happen, but don't necessarily have the background or nowse to put them into practice.

A bit like marketing.

geeka

im 3 years into my nhs career and with everything thats going on does it look like ill be kicked out of that and have to do another pension, what do we think migh happen?

Dr_Wu

geeka wrote: »

im 3 years into my nhs career and with everything thats going on does it look like ill be kicked out of that and have to do another pension, what do we think migh happen?

Sadly, I think it's now inevitable that the current scheme will close to existing members probably within a year or two. Existing accrued benefits will be preserved but yes, you will be transferred into a new scheme, probably career average rather than final salary and there will be an increase in pension contributions (probably quite soon). There may also be a move towards the pension holder being exposed to some risk much in the same way as private pensions are now, possibly with that risk being shared between the pension holder and the Govt. Retirement age will also gradually increase from the current NHS norm of 60 to at least 65.
Because you are so early in your NHS career it does look like most of the changes will affect you. I've currently got 32 years pensionable service and 7 years to go 'till retirement so I'm hoping that the impact on my own pension will be less severe.

On the positive side at least we've got jobs and pensions!!

geeka

i dont mind too much as long as i get something relatively decent. houses arent a good investment, pensions, wonder what is worth investing in. Euromillions!
it will be interesting to see what happens in the next few months. think we're all going to be working into our 70's!