Public Sector Pensions - Are they really so bad?

grizzly1911

jamesd wrote: »

Public sector employees of the same education level are generally better paid than equivalent private sector employees. lemonjelly was just repeating an outdated claim.

I'd rather not see a repeat of that disaster for the employees. It's unpleasant enough without going on strike for a year, then going back to work to watch your industry being decimated many times over the following years.

Thatcher planned the second miners attack with military precision, ensuring coal was stock piled in advance to "starve" them out.

I wonder if Camerons henchmen have the same level of fore site?

Gorgeous_George

smartn wrote: »

Thats a rather simplistic view. The alternative would perhaps be to cut more staff as we dont have an infinite supply of money to pay public sector wages (unless we keep printing it of course).

Funny how there was (and still is) plenty of money for the bankers that contributed most to the financial meltdown.

Making people work longer leaves less jobs for the younger generation. If they have to work longer, pay more in to their less attractive pensions which will be paid for fewer years, the unions should submit a pay claim for each of the past 30 years (because pay awards were lower than in the private sector due to the earlier retirement age).

GG

Zelazny

You know, it kinda bugs me when people rag on the bankers, in the private sector at least.

If you work for a company and they make masses and masses of cash, then it's surely up to them to decide how much of that cash to give you. If my company offered me a million pound bonus, I'd gladly take it. Of course if the company did so poorly that it had to be bailed out by the taxpayer, that's another matter, and no bonuses should be given out if the performance didn't merit it (but then I think they should just have let the banks fail).

People forget that with the taxes that were applied, for every £1m that the banks spent on bonuses, the government got over £750k, and the bankers netted less than £250k (100% bonus tax reduced amount payable to £500k, tax at 50%, NI at 1%). So the banks paying oodles of money in bonuses were giving stacks of cash to the treasury.

grizzly1911

Gorgeous_George wrote: »

Funny how there was (and still is) plenty of money for the bankers that contributed most to the financial meltdown.

Making people work longer leaves less jobs for the younger generation. If they have to work longer, pay more in to their less attractive pensions which will be paid for fewer years, the unions should submit a pay claim for each of the past 30 years (because pay awards were lower than in the private sector due to the earlier retirement age).

GG

Or wars that we can't win, foreign aid to place sthat have their own discretionary funds and so on.

I do wonder why they have gone for such a big bang approach. I accept they need to fund things better but why not stagger the increase in payment and extension to age of a period of years?

This is a long term issue, apparently nothing to do with "taxation and the shortfall" so why try to move so quick it is enivitable heading towards conflict.

But as they didn't foresee the anger over tuition fees, NHS and collapse in public spending it perhaps isn't surprising. This Government is out of control IMO.

tartanterra

dtsazza wrote: »

Well, sw67 was talking about new entrants; the way I understood it is that they would accrue benefits/pension at an appropriate rate for the time. So if they joined and accrued five years of service on a 80ths final salary scheme, then the affordability changed, I'd expect that the existing contributions would remain on their own terms. So when they retire, they'd get 1/16th final salary + whatever the "new pension" pays for the remainder of their service.

If you're taking issue with the fact that someone might join because of good pensions now, but which disappear after a few years, then I don't think that's a real argument. I agree that this could happen, but that's not unique to the public sector or pensions - it's common to life. Someone who started a career as a coal miner in the 60s, or a morse code operator just before the radio became widespread, is going to be disappointed to see their entire career go, not just the pension. A sportsman who gets a long-term injury is in a similar boat. This is the nature of the future; you can't expect to have 40-50 years of remuneration guaranteed, just as the country isn't able to guarantee it.


Anyway, I think you've hit the nail on the head in one respect though. Who knows what the country can afford to pay in the future? And indeed, why trust your financial wellbeing to the promises of current politicians, who will be dead when you need to call them in? I'm in my twenties, and in any financial projections about the future I'm assuming there will be zero state pension, and ensuring that my own personal provisions completely cover my required expenditure.

Of course if the state pension is still there it'll be a nice bonus, but I'm going to ensure that I look after my own wellbeing, rather than hoping that some non-guaranted income comes my way, with plan B being to complain to everyone about how "unfair" it is that I live in a shed and eat beans because I wanted to spend 2% more of my salary while I was working.


This post isn't strictly about public sector pensions, by the way. But it does touch on not taking things for granted which aren't guaranteed (especially if it's clear that they're quite possibly unsustainable), and in taking personal responsibility.

What on earth do you think you are doing by coming on this thread talking complete sense ?
It's outrageous!

Be careful! - we don't want to learn from this!

abaxas

There is an easy way to resolve this.

Keep the pensions as they are but change the recipient's tax code. Especially as you can have a negative tax code (ie you pay tax on money you haven't earned).

Job done, no default. No change in situation.

daveyjp

Zelazny wrote: »

People forget that with the taxes that were applied, for every £1m that the banks spent on bonuses, the government got over £750k, and the bankers netted less than £250k (100% bonus tax reduced amount payable to £500k, tax at 50%, NI at 1%). So the banks paying oodles of money in bonuses were giving stacks of cash to the treasury.

Oh dear - another sympathizer who thinks bankers bonuses are paid via PAYE.

If you are a banker earning a £1m bonus chances are you have access to some very good tax and legal advisers (they are probably in the next office, or drink with you after work) who can find 1001 ways of ensuring you don't pay anywhere near the tax due under PAYE.

Cleaver

abaxas wrote: »

Being almost unsackable and no reason to work hard, are two more obvious benifits.

Let's take a palliative care nurse who works in the community to care for those dying at home. Their job is all about firstly ensuring that the person's death is as pain-free, dignified and as comfortable as it can be. I guess their second, and just as important job, is about helping the family around the dying person to cope with what's going on. And incredibly stressful, emotional and important job. The nurse who did this job when my Mum was dying at home was an amazing person who simply couldn't have done more for us and nothing was too much trouble. In fact, I find it hard to think of anyone else I've come across in life who seemed to care more and work as hard at their job. I imagine she was like this because she genuinely cared for the people she worked with, had a passion for what she did and ensured that she worked as hard as possible because of this. I'm sure that there are other nurses, healthcare professionals, fire service people, police offices, teachers and all sorts of othe public sector who work incredibly hard at their jobs because, plainly and simply, they care a lot about the people they serve.

By all means debate public sector pensions, but don't make sweeping statements like that. It's really disrespectful to a lot of people who just care about other people. The public-sector bashing on this forum gets on my nerves at times.

Loughton_Monkey

Cleaver wrote: »

...... I'm sure that there are other nurses, healthcare professionals, fire service people, police offices, teachers and all sorts of othe public sector who work incredibly hard at their jobs because, plainly and simply, they care a lot about the people they serve.

I am with you all the way on the 'thrust' of this, but I remain an avid 'public sector basher'. I forged a good career from operational efficiency, systems/IT, and getting true hard work and customer focus - in every case with (on average) about a 40% reduction in headcount.

Number 1 culprit is always the poor systems and procedures.
Number 2 culprit is lack of 'empowerment' with training [people tending either to make stupid decisions if allowed, or becoming a 'jobsworth' if not.
Number 3 culprit is motivation of staff - which should largely be given by trained managers who are seen to work as hard as the front-line staff.

I have to say that I see all three 'culprits' in trumps whenever I 'touch' with the public sector.

The sort of person you outline is fairly rare, and to be applauded. She, and people like her, probably cost us about 0.1% of the entire taxation budget.

A recent experience with a health issue involved a minor operation as a 'day patient'. But the complete and utter nonsense I saw would take me an hour to write down. For such a simple thing, why did I have to write down my name/address - that of next of kin - the address and postcode of my GP eight times?

When promised I would be given a follow up appointment in 1 week, why did this simply not happen. I had to phone them. Why after the follow-up was I given 3 further X-ray (etc.)/appointments have I still not had one of them (the most urgent, promised within 2 days, but nothing after 5 days), whilst one of the others they gave me two conflicting appointments!

Why, when I got the follow up appointment, was the clinic working 1 hour 20 minutes late? I arrived 20 minutes early. So I waited 1 hour 40 minutes. During the whole of that time, a little cleaner girl sat in a cupboard, listening to a radio, emerging just twice for about 2 minutes?

At a pre-op appointment, I witnessed (and was almost part of) a 'patient revolt'. Sat in two rooms, about 20 of us 'patients' were there to (a) fill in about three forms - with duplicate information, (b) give a urine sample, (c) have our height/weight/blood pressure taken and a blood sample, and (d) have a 5 minute 'interview' with a doctor to tell the doctor first hand (for the 7th time) what drugs you were taking or if you are allergic to anything.

Now forgive me if I am wrong, but isn't this process rather brainless when there were 8 or 9 nurses, one administrator, 20 patient with appointments anything from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. But the doctor did 3 patients, bugge4ed off, and came back at 12:30.

The nurses, however, dedicated, were just hanging around, giving us the occasional coffee, aplogising for the dely, couldn't explain why there was a delay......

Jeez!

Let's understand the the public sector is a complete shambles. In the middle is certainly a handful of people doing as best they can under the circumstances. But the real cost (including pensions) is 'round the back' or 'up at Regional....' or 'in the Trust....' who quite frankly don't deserve jobs, let alone pensions!

Yes, within the public sector, there are a few drops of 'honey'. I very strongly resent having to pay for and wade through three large buckets of treacle to find it!

grizzly1911

Cleaver wrote: »

I'm sure that there are other nurses, healthcare professionals, fire service people, police offices, teachers and all sorts of othe public sector who work incredibly hard at their jobs because, plainly and simply, they care a lot about the people they serve.

By all means debate public sector pensions, but don't make sweeping statements like that. It's really disrespectful to a lot of people who just care about other people. The public-sector bashing on this forum gets on my nerves at times.

Totally agree.

There are a great many who enter roles because they are passionate for peoples well being medical clinicians, education, and emergency services for example.

There are admin, management, bean counter roles, for example, where this isn't so inbred.

Perhaps these different groups need to be handled differently.

Also don't forget some of the "job worths" aren't empowered to vary from the script. In a similar way that call centre operatives are often bound by scripts for example.