Time to start a thread on public sector pensions

treliac

FrankieBoyle wrote: »

A head teacher is going on strike because his/her pension is going from £75k to £45k pa. What planet do these people live on? I can only dream of such a pension. I would need a pension pot of £1.25m to get a pension of £75K (currently £100k buys an annuity of £6k) or £750k pot to get a pension of £45k.

While it's difficult to feel sorry for the head teacher in question, is it possible, yet, to calculate the implications to this degree? It will depend on their age, too, as benefits accrued to the point that changes are implemented won't be affected.

treliac

ILW wrote: »

I just wondered as a friend of mine is doing a degree as a mature student. It all seems to based on course work and anything that isn't up to standard is just returned to put right. Seems a bit strange to me.

Which all contributes to doubts about the quality of some degrees / ability of graduates.

Loughton_Monkey

treliac wrote: »

Which all contributes to doubts about the quality of some degrees / ability of graduates.

Indeed. I had three years of examinations - if I recall correctly, counting something like 20%, 40%, 40%. That was Nottingham.

There has been a debate about the exams (A levels) getting easier over the years. I was staggered to learn that for some subjects (like Maths where it is rather more difficult to 'dumb down' the questions without it being noticed) that you only need to get 26% for a Grade A.

[No, my typing is correct. 26% to get a Grade A].

Then did you read an article about two years ago now. Again in Mathematics. In China, they work on an Entrance examination to get into university. Someone grabbed one of these papers and circulated it to a handful of British University Mathematics lecturers and professors. It turned out that they would have all failed, and indeed there was one particular question that defeated the entire lot of them, until some months later one of them finally came up with the answer!

[And no, the questions were not in Mandarin].

treliac

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Then did you read an article about two years ago now. Again in Mathematics. In China, they work on an Entrance examination to get into university. Someone grabbed one of these papers and circulated it to a handful of British University Mathematics lecturers and professors. It turned out that they would have all failed, and indeed there was one particular question that defeated the entire lot of them, until some months later one of them finally came up with the answer!

Extraordinary! And yet British universities are supposed to offer some of the best courses in the world aren't they?

My dd is the only British student on her masters degree course. Her fellow students apparently believe that obtaining their masters over here will give them higher status than if they had studied in their own countries.

Loughton_Monkey

To be fair, I think the best ones are reasonably good. I think, though, that in some other countries (certainly in Asia) the students are far more serious and there to learn and not just for the booze and rumpy pumpy. The number of parent suicides in Korea the day after university places have been allocated is extremely disturbing. And all because young Mok only got into the 15th best when his parents had earmarked him for top 10.

And which country in Europe would take education so seriously that the entire commercial world in Cities commences an hour late on examination days - so as to leave all the roads entirely clear to get all the students to exams on time?

Generali

blueboy43 wrote: »

I think its fairly clear in the short term; accrued rights stay, but future accrual is based on career average or something else.

The government and propenents of change should focus on the real big winners of the current system. Judges pay about 2.5% of salary. They can retire on a full pension at 65 after serving just 5 years.

£150 million per year - just on judges pensions.

People need to focus on the fact that the big losers will be the pretty wealthy. The judges, higher paid civil servants, doctors, head teachers etc etc.

It's a nice idea but it doesn't work IMO.

The reason being that most Western Countries can't carry on accruing liabilities at the rate at which they are. That means that the promises are either going to have to stop being made or funded at the time they are made (effectively the same thing as the promises are too expensive to fund now or later)!

The problem you then have is you're saying to a generation of people that they have to pay their own, their parent's and their grandparents' pensions. I don't see that being a vote winner myself, especially when you consider that Gen X are now larger in number than Baby Boomers so can outvote them. Gen Y are going to be in an even worse position because on top of the pension bill they're having to pay for their own education too!

FrankieBoyle

treliac wrote: »

While it's difficult to feel sorry for the head teacher in question, is it possible, yet, to calculate the implications to this degree? It will depend on their age, too, as benefits accrued to the point that changes are implemented won't be affected.

These were the figures given by the BBC. The £75k is a final salary (the old scheme), the £45k a career average salary (the new scheme). These figures make me want to cry - I can't imagine how much I'll have to put away to generate a pension of £45k pa and to think these public sector workers are moaning and going on strike!!!

Frankly it makes me sick. Public sector workers need to wake up and smell the coffee:(

setmefree2

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

There has been a debate about the exams (A levels) getting easier over the years. I was staggered to learn that for some subjects (like Maths where it is rather more difficult to 'dumb down' the questions without it being noticed) that you only need to get 26% for a Grade A.

[No, my typing is correct. 26% to get a Grade A].

My son is currently doing A levels (AS) and trust me it is still really really hard. You need a minimum of 80% to get an A in maths and the maths itself is really difficult. Here is a link to just one of the 6 papers you need to pass to get an A level maths. Ths exam paper is Jan 2010.

http://store.aqa.org.uk/qual/gce/pdf/AQA-MPC4-W-QP-JAN10.PDF

I'm not sure what the grade boundaries are in all subjects, but think about it, a student can get 78% (and the exams are not easy honestly) in an exam and that is "only" a B. Does that really sound easy?

The reason students get very high marks these days is because they work unbelievably hard. They really do.

thescouselander

Generali wrote: »

The problem here is the difference between the public and private sectors.

If a private company signs a contract with you that they will pay a huge future benefit to you which they ultimately can't afford then they will go into administration and the benefit won't be paid. This happened with US car companies that offered their staff future health benefits that they couldn't afford to pay. The companies went into administration or something similar and those benefits aren't as generous as they were.

The problem with the future pensions that have been promised by Governments is that the contracts that have been signed are probably unaffordable but there isn't a system for contracts being overturned by administration or bankruptcy.

What the Government can do legally (AIUI) is that they can change the law to change the promise as the law trumps a contract. An example of that would be if I had signed a contract to pay an employee £2.00 an hour before the minimum wage came in, once the minimum wage was introduced I would have to pay more than I was obliged to in my contract as I now have to pay a minimum of a fiver an hour or whatever it was.

The Government even recognises this fact in their accounts. The stated reason why no liability is accrued in the national accounts for Civil Servant and state pensions is because the Government can change the law and thus not pay.

Clearly as a free marketeer I think that fair, legal contracts freely signed between two parties should be honoured. As a realist I understand that if the money isn't there to make good on a promise then the promise is going to be broken. It's not whether the promise will be broken but how that will be interesting to see.

I think what you are suggesting would set a very dangerous precedent. If the government was to change to law to allow it to get out of its contractual obligations to its employees then why stop there?

The government could also change the law to get out of any obligations to its private sector contractors. 25 year PFI contracts could be wiped out at a pen stroke. Large Defence contracts could also be cancelled immediately. In fact, why should the government pay for any services provided by the private sector at all - it could just change the law so it doesn't have to honour its agreements.

This would provide savings to the tax payer in the very short term but no-one would ever do business with the UK government again. We'd all be in trouble then.

Gas_Powered_Toothbrush

It's always amusing in threads like this to see the private sector demand that the public sector have benefits / salary / pension / terms & conditions reduced "because the rest of us don't get them".

If you all had half a brain you'd see that the sensible thing to do is to improve the conditions of those at the bottom (which can easily be done with a change in what public money is being spent on. eg not spending billions a year giving the Afghans democracy by bullet), not cut those marginally higher up. That's the decent thing to do, to try and make things better for your fellow human beings.

Though if you all had half a brain, there wouldn't be a single Tory MP in office, so it's clear that's just wishful thinking on my part.