Time to start a thread on public sector pensions

whatyadoinsucka

the sky news article has picked a real smart council worker

quote 'they (the government) are not in touch with the real world, they're are not in touch with the average worker'

The government are trying to stop financial meltdown.. its clear to anyone that final salary pensions should have been stopped years ago..
the bare minimum the labour government should have done at the last review was to stop all future employment being taken on a final salary, like the private sector years ago.
now we have even more staff on this pyramidal stack of cards

Percy1983

Interesting times ahead, I am just about to get me first year in a public sector pension, depending how this goes I might just withdraw and add it to my house fund.

Eitherway I am going to get stung I guess.

whatyadoinsucka

Percy1983 wrote: »

Interesting times ahead, I am just about to get me first year in a public sector pension, depending how this goes I might just withdraw and add it to my house fund.

Eitherway I am going to get stung I guess.

remember you'll get taxed on this

cogito

worldtraveller wrote: »

About bloody time too! I just wish the Government would just get on with it and implement, at the very least, these recommendations, and not cave in to the unions in the way that Blair & Brown did in 2005. I'm pretty sure though that, if and when they are implemented, they won't go anything like far enough. It's ridiculous that the taxpayer continues to subsidise these current totally unsustainable and inequitable pensions and retirement ages.

Too right. Personally I resent having to pay for my own personal pension and for public servants' pensions too. Why should I have to pay someone else's final salary pension when I can't afford one for myself?

Needless to say, public sector unions will be demanding that the general public continue to fund their retirements. And please spare us any nonsense about having to make contributions out of your salaries. We know you do. The point is that you pay nowhere near the cost of your pensions.

Generali

cogito wrote: »

Too right. Personally I resent having to pay for my own personal pension and for public servants' pensions too. Why should I have to pay someone else's final salary pension when I can't afford one for myself?

Needless to say, public sector unions will be demanding that the general public continue to fund their retirements. And please spare us any nonsense about having to make contributions out of your salaries. We know you do. The point is that you pay nowhere near the cost of your pensions.

The thing is, the pension that a public or private sector employee gets is a part of their pay. You pay a public sector employee (hopefully) for providing a service or good that either can't be provided privately or can be better provided publicly.

The problem is that successive Governments in your name have decided to pay part of their employees pay out of current taxation and part out of future taxation and nobody appears to have worked out how that future liability is going to be financed.

tomterm8

Pensions are a mess.

Not just in the public sector either, more generally.

These changes won't actually fix that: the problem is people are working too little. We are in education for longer than the last generation, and in retirement longer too... causing a squeeze to the middle.

It is, however, absurd to think people can be squaddies when they are 65... or firefighters... or carers.

People have a physical peak... we need to develop a society that acknowledges that. Medical care is prolonging life faster than it is prolonging physical fitness.

Andy_L

lemonjelly wrote: »

The other thing he said was that his proposals aren't designed to be implimented retrospectively, therefore current public sector workers shouldn't be affected, but new recruits will.

I was very suprised when he said that!

That's becasue he didn't say that :-) he said accrued rights wouldn't be changed but future service would be under the new terms

abaxas

Andy_L wrote: »

That's becasue he didn't say that :-) he said accrued rights wouldn't be changed but future service would be under the new terms

No one has the 'right' to a pension. It may be a current contractual obligation but that is not a right.

Sir_Humphrey

abaxas wrote: »

No one has the 'right' to a pension. It may be a current contractual obligation but that is not a right.

With respect, if someone signs a contract that gives me property, I do have rights over that property. That is why Hutton is not grabbing already accrued rights.

I doubt this will save any money in reality. Removing final salary schemes either means that salaries will increase to compensate (due to market forces). The alternative would be comparable private sector salaries will fall to match. Or that a lack of quality competition makes it easier for me to gain and maintain promotion.

I scratch my head when free marketeers argue that you can just cut salaries without there being consequences.

bendix

Whatever happened to marklv?

He would have been all over this debate like a rash. Did he get fired, do you think?