Civil service pensions review

nomoreboomandbust

Lyncroft wrote: »

We had a all staff meeting at our dept. The HR director said the Hutton report was out soon. She didn't know what was in it but thought it "wouldn't be what we want to hear". No surprises there really. I agree it will probably be increased contributions or maybe worked out on average wage (bit like what they're intending at the BBC). It's strange really. I joined the Civil Service in 1988. In those days jobs were hard to come by but you could still get jobs in the Civil Service and you were viewed as a little desperate to join it. However, the pension offset that.

Just out of curiosity, what part of the country were you in 1988 ? I remember it as being bonanza time as an employee (south east) with pay rises every six months in those days and plenty of jobs. Mind you that soon came to a grinding halt in 1990 when the recession started kicking in :mad:

jodie264

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

I would agree with the sentiment, except that it's not altogether true. The absolutely huge rise in public expenditure over the last 15 years has generally not made any of these vital services better.

It has gone into so-called 'community police' with no powers, leaving real policemen free to do tiresome paperwork in more peace. It has gone into significantly higher salaries, and many more bureaucrats in the Health Service.

Taking into account salary, benefits, pensions, job security, working conditions, then a public sector job is far more lucrative than an 'equivalent' private sector job these days.

Give any council £100K more money. It will recruit some new non-jobber 'Diversity Co-ordinator' (or whatever) and use the rest to 'up' the salaries of CEO and other managers. Now take £100K OFF the same council, and it will sack three bin-men. I would much rather them 'undo' what they did with the extra money.

A small example. Watch these 180 Quangos get killed/merged, and then try to notice any diminution in the quality of life for the population. There will be none.

Sure there are many on the 'list' that are quangoes but many more thatare advice, support, watchdog organisations etc that do a worthwhile job and that we will be worse off without. Trainaing and Development Agency (TDA) are one as is the CWDC ....these make sure that the people who are working with children and young people are propery trained, national standards of competence are complied with and whose work impacts daily on the lives of ALL the staff that work in schools. Due to cuts made at the start of the summer but I imagine not publicised, I have lost my main source of income, people waiting to start training courses have been told the course/s are no longer paid for, support staff will be made redundant and have a significant impact on pupils progress - see latest OFSTED report "well trained support staff contribute significantly to raising standards ....." After school playschemes employ people who are trained by CWDC - parents can go to work becuase of these staff, middle class parents quite often are able to go and eran the money they do because they use their child benefit to help with the fees so what will happen there - more job losses. Courses at college for people starting out in work with chdn and young people are being cut - my daughter was due to begin a job mentoring only to be told the week before she started that funding had been cut. Shes been volunteering and going to college bringing up a child on her own and yes, living on benefits. Gave something back with the volunteer work, coming off benefits and now back to square one.
I think we should stop condemning all and sundry and acknowledge the fact that for every winner there will be losers and not tar everyone with the same brush - more empathy would go a long way and I dont mean the soon to be famous "we're all in this together" coalition speak

real1314

Old_Slaphead wrote: »

For someone in private sector - a pension fund in excess of £200,000 (ie 40 years at £5000pa contribution) would be required to give similar benefits

Er, yes, let's use that model,

To get a £200k pot, you have to pay in 40 x £5k.

Is this the extent of your thinking on pensions? Comparing 40 years of service to 40 years of contributions at CURRENT rates to accrue an equivalent pot to convert to an annuity? Utter nonsense. Try giving contribution figures for people receiving a private sector pension of £5k / £10k / £15k right NOW for comparisson purposes.

Really, your figure is pretty poor. You've not included any investment growth, which, if you are a big fan of the private sector, must be a significant factor.

If you don't think the private sector can deliver investment growth in any way at all ( as per your 40 x £5k estimate) then you clearly feel that capitalism doesn't work; ergo socialism is the way forward: State control for all; Public Sector jobs for all.

Old_Slaphead

real1314 wrote: »

Er, yes, let's use that model,

To get a £200k pot, you have to pay in 40 x £5k.

Is this the extent of your thinking on pensions? Comparing 40 years of service to 40 years of contributions at CURRENT rates to accrue an equivalent pot to convert to an annuity? Utter nonsense. Try giving contribution figures for people receiving a private sector pension of £5k / £10k / £15k right NOW for comparisson purposes.

Really, your figure is pretty poor. You've not included any investment growth, which, if you are a big fan of the private sector, must be a significant factor.

If you don't think the private sector can deliver investment growth in any way at all ( as per your 40 x £5k estimate) then you clearly feel that capitalism doesn't work; ergo socialism is the way forward: State control for all; Public Sector jobs for all.

No, that's not the extent on my thinking - I've tried to keep things really simple as it's difficult (although quite easy on a spreadsheet) to illustrate 40 years of contributions, investment growth, inflation etc on a couple of lines of a forum posting.

You may also be aware that a £5000 contribution from 40 years ago would represent about 300% of the average salary! Investment growth over the term has been in the main cancelled by the effect of payroll inflation.

However, being slightly more sophisticated, let'sassume that someone pays 30% of their salary as a pension contrib......in year 1, 23 years ago when salaries were around £4000 contribs would be £1200 (£4000*30%) rising to say £6000 now (ie £20000 x 30%). This would give total contribs of around £83000 over 23 years. Given the low contributions at the start, even applying investment growth at 7% you wouldn't get you anywhere near £200,000. Apply that over 40 years and you might get somewhere near.

Whichever way you look at it, the PS pension which most staff benefit from requires contributions that most non-public sector worker can only dream about (ie around 30-35% of basic salary over the term - and that assumes no 'late' promotions, which, have been a feature in some public services).