New pension proposals

J_i_m

Work longer... Has anyone considered the fact that working as police, fire fighters and nurses is actually going to be incedibely difficult when you're 65-70? What makes you think people are going to be fit to do this work at and past these ages if indeed they even live that long?

No... What will happen is that many of us will be forced into early retirement or prolonged sick leave with the result that you lot will be whining that you're paying more for it.

Just because life expectancy might be up, doesn't mean life quality, health & fitness will be maintained. And I assure you that you needn't require a medical degree nor even maths gcse to appreciate that.

People need to get rid of this silly notion that they're taxes to pension the public services. You're not.

dshart

J_i_m wrote: »

Work longer... Has anyone considered the fact that working as police, fire fighters and nurses is actually going to be incedibely difficult when you're 65-70? What makes you think people are going to be fit to do this work at and past these ages if indeed they even live that long?

No... What will happen is that many of us will be forced into early retirement or prolonged sick leave with the result that you lot will be whining that you're paying more for it.

Just because life expectancy might be up, doesn't mean life quality, health & fitness will be maintained. And I assure you that you needn't require a medical degree nor even maths gcse to appreciate that.

People need to get rid of this silly notion that they're taxes to pension the public services. You're not.

And what about offshore workers who need to have a stringent medical every 2 years and go through offshore survival courses every 4 years, you think they are able to work easily when they are 65-70?

How is it a silly notion that taxes fund the public service pension deficit? It is a fact that the deficit in public service pensions is made up from government coffers which is tax payers money. If there was no deficit there would be no need for this argument as the public sector pension funds would be fully funded. Someone posted some figures in another post taken from the Hutton report which gave the deficit for 2009/2010 as being something like 3.1bn if I can remember right.

Moby

jamesd wrote: »

Perhaps so, but it still seems like a useful improvement for those who have the least planning time available.

Naive I'm afraid. It was presented so late in the day deliberately to divide and weaken the unions.

The main difference is who does the negotiating. In the private sector it's people like Tesco's buyers refusing to even stock a product if they don't get the price they want, which applies price pressure to companies to get them to cut costs. In the public sector it's the government negotiators representing the buyers of the public sector services - those tax payers, including the ones who are public sector employees.

Perhaps they need to be regulated more then and forced by legislation to take employees pensions into account. I would say unregulated markets and excessive power held by big businesses...like Tesco's are the problem!

Hardly. Have a read of the Turner Pensions Commission Reports from the Labour government back in 2003-5. Those covered the general pensions issues very well, doing an impressive job of covering the issues. The things advocated there included the increase in retirement ages that both the last and present governments are implementing.

No problem with the need for change...but the last Government was doing it consensually and gradually. This Government isn't!

Hmm, that's not quite fully true for DB schemes. There are two types of variation in general, the short term market variations and the longer term structural ones. Things like the current fiscal easing increase the cost of buying gilts and that in turn increases the cost of buying a certain amount of income with gilts or an annuity.

The longer term variation includes changes in life expectancy. In a DC scheme that change in life expectancy is done by annuity companies reducing their payouts for a set amount of capital. Since that's a free market the pensioners have no choice about it other than shopping around and perhaps paying in more money.

The LGPS is unique in that it is a ‘funded’ scheme, which means that its contributing members (70% of whom are lower paid and typically earning less £21,000) has still managed to ensure that that there is £165 billion in assets and that the scheme actually takes in over £4 billion a year more than it pays out in liabilities. Of course the present Government says little about this.

James....as far as I'm concerned whether or not Adair Turner was appointed by New Labour doesn't change where he is coming from. With his background he can hardly to be said to be impartial!

Moby

dshart wrote: »

And what about offshore workers who need to have a stringent medical every 2 years and go through offshore survival courses every 4 years, you think they are able to work easily when they are 65-70?

This is totally wrong if it is happening...no wonder the safety record on the oil terminals has been atrocious!

How is it a silly notion that taxes fund the public service pension deficit? It is a fact that the deficit in public service pensions is made up from government coffers which is tax payers money. If there was no deficit there would be no need for this argument as the public sector pension funds would be fully funded. Someone posted some figures in another post taken from the Hutton report which gave the deficit for 2009/2010 as being something like 3.1bn if I can remember right

As has been indicated previously. Everyone pays for everyone else's pension. Private companies include the costs of their pension schemes when pricing their goods and services.

jamesd

Moby wrote: »

The LGPS is unique in that it is a ‘funded’ scheme, which means that its contributing members (70% of whom are lower paid and typically earning less £21,000) has still managed to ensure that that there is £165 billion in assets and that the scheme actually takes in over £4 billion a year more than it pays out in liabilities. Of course the present Government says little about this.

I wouldn't make much of it either because the number is meaningless. What matters is whether the funds being built up now are sufficient to pay for all of the future liabilities of the scheme. In any scheme with more working members than retired it's likely that there will be an annual excess of income over expenditure because the employees are building up benefits that they will get in the future.

"more working than retired" is an approximation for the changing liabilities - the working building up liabilities, the retired reducing them as they get paid and approach the end of their lives and end of obligation to pay.

J_i_m wrote: »

People need to get rid of this silly notion that they're taxes to pension the public services. You're not.

Not? Taxes are paying for the equipment, the pay and the pensions. A bit of the payroll is paid back to the government as pension contributions but taxes were still the origin of that money.

In schemes that are genuinely fully funded it's current tax that is paying for the pensions. In others it's future taxes - the children's generation paying for part of the pay benefits of the current workers.

dshart wrote: »

Do not for a second suggest that or we will have mass union walkouts and the country will be brought to a standstill Oh wait they are already planning to do that when the proposals are no where near as drastic.

It's the same deal as the rest of us get, so what's wrong with that? Surely unions want equality for all?

There's an alternative approach anyway, privatising more services. I assume that this government will get around to that eventually if the unions keep the cost of directly employed workers high enough. Then the former public sector workers will get completely normal private sector terms as part of the private sector.

Not sure how much the unions are pointing out that higher costs mean fewer public sector jobs. Probably trying to ignore the issue.

J_i_m

dshart wrote: »

And what about offshore workers who need to have a stringent medical every 2 years and go through offshore survival courses every 4 years, you think they are able to work easily when they are 65-70?

No clearly not, I doubt they'd be fit enough. But guess what? Their employers the oil companies make profits of billions. Yet you compaign to take away from public servants, that's a bit like Bill Gates stopping in the street to borrow a coin from a tramp.

dshart wrote: »

How is it a silly notion that taxes fund the public service pension deficit? It is a fact that the deficit in public service pensions is made up from government coffers which is tax payers money.

I work for the NHS, yes a government funded organisation. My salarly band is between £14000 - 17000. I'm actually amongst the lowest paid in the public sector. Just like anybody who works in the private sector PAYE & NI appear on my wage slip. I also pay all the other taxes levied in society, VAT, Fuel duty, council tax, vehicle etc. yet you people strive to imply that I'm effectively the same as someone who is unemployed and on all manner of benefits.

It is ignored that I actually provide a vital service to the public, it is also forgotten that the emergency services are routinely abused and often actually assaulted by the very public we serve.

You strive to make us as poor as you perceive yourselves to be whilst overlooking the fact that MPs, also tax funded enjoy far more lucuritive pensions than the other public services not to mention the expenses that go with the role. Or even worse... The fat cat executives at the top of the private sector who have salaries of millions and STILL pensions to match.

That is where this campaign should be aimed at, not at the people who in reality have little more than you and traditionally actually far less.

atush

If you are earing around 15K, then you are out of the proposed changes.

Thicko2

Potentially Jim is still affected by a longer working through the increased retirement age (and greater lifetime contributions), RPI to CPI, and potential to remove fairdeal, if and when this condem government transfers his job to the private sector.

He may well feel as well that morally an agreement was reached in the 2007 negoitiations that is being broken by the government on shifting sands of evidence?

dshart

J_i_m wrote: »

No clearly not, I doubt they'd be fit enough. But guess what? Their employers the oil companies make profits of billions. Yet you compaign to take away from public servants, that's a bit like Bill Gates stopping in the street to borrow a coin from a tramp.



I work for the NHS, yes a government funded organisation. My salarly band is between £14000 - 17000. I'm actually amongst the lowest paid in the public sector. Just like anybody who works in the private sector PAYE & NI appear on my wage slip. I also pay all the other taxes levied in society, VAT, Fuel duty, council tax, vehicle etc. yet you people strive to imply that I'm effectively the same as someone who is unemployed and on all manner of benefits.

It is ignored that I actually provide a vital service to the public, it is also forgotten that the emergency services are routinely abused and often actually assaulted by the very public we serve.

You strive to make us as poor as you perceive yourselves to be whilst overlooking the fact that MPs, also tax funded enjoy far more lucuritive pensions than the other public services not to mention the expenses that go with the role. Or even worse... The fat cat executives at the top of the private sector who have salaries of millions and STILL pensions to match.

That is where this campaign should be aimed at, not at the people who in reality have little more than you and traditionally actually far less.

Workers are having to work to those ages in the oil and gas industry because they cannot afford to retire. The industry has seen many ups and downs with workers regularly getting laid off. The headline oil companies you read about may make billions but there are hundreds of small support companies who are the main employers in the industry and I can assure you these do not earn billions. The big oil companies may have quite generous final salary schemes for their top executives but these schemes are now closed for majority of their workforce and are almost non-existant in smaller support companies.

I am not trying to take from public service workers, but what I am saying is that their pension funds should be properly funded for their retirement like any private scheme. In the private sector most final salary schemes have closed and more workers are in stakeholder pensions where the employer and employee contribute. These contributions are invested to build the pension pot that the worker buys an annuity with when they retire. The pension they get is based on how big that pot is when they retire and what the annuity rates are at the time. For the public sector worker they make contributions and their employer (the government) make contributions but these contributions are not invested into a pension pot for retirement, these funds are paid out directly to pay pensions of public sector workers who are already in retirement. The problem is that the sums don't work out and what is currently paid in each year is less than what is going out and this deficit is where the problem lies as it is growing larger each year as more public sector workers take pensions and people are living longer.

It is the deficit in the pension that is unfair as it is made up from government coffers which all workers public and private have contributed to in the form of tax. There is no recourse for a private sector worker to make up any shortfall in their pension by dipping into government coffers. They just get told, you should have saved more.

If you were to take all the contributions you make through your working life and add to them your employers contributions and work out what size of pension pot that would have built up if invested in one of the better performing pension funds over the period of your working life, I am sure the pension pot that you would have would not be able to buy you the pension amount you get from the government. And this is the crux of the whole matter. We are not looking to take money from you but want a level playing field. Only by showing what the inequalities are can we hope to put pressure for changes. The private sector cannot hold the country to ransom like the public sector. If a strike like the one currently proposed by the public sector unions was called by private unions the companies would very quickly take it to court and deem it an illegal strike.

Nobody is ignoring that you provide a vital service to the public, but so does a bin man and so do a lot of workers in the private sector, people in my industry work at times in very harsh environments to provide the life blood of the world economy. So no one is detracting from the importance of your job, we just feel there is an inequality that needs to be addressed.

Koicarp

dshart wrote: »

I am not trying to take from public service workers, but what I am saying is that their pension funds should be properly funded for their retirement like any private scheme.

The government could not currently afford to put us all into "funded" schemes, because it would then have to meet the total cost of paying the pensions of all those already retired staff. I think that was around £24bn for the four largest schemes in 2009/10, the treasury paid £3.1bn of that.