Barclays pays back it's 40 year old £1 pa benefit at the amazing sum of £1 pa

niloc841

Late last year I was informed by Barclays Pensions Admin. unit that my £1 pa pension entitlement, earned for a short time of employment at Barclays in 1969 is now payable at the rate of £1 pa.

Just think £500 pa would have been an average wage in those days and now, according to some, the average wage is £25000.

Simple arithmetic says therefore that the benefit should now be 1/500th of £25000 pounds i.e. £50.

I am not concerned about my particular 'pension pot' but I would like to bring the broad issue of the treatment of Equivalent Pension Benefits to the fore.

It should be remembered that the entitlement to final salary pensions required a significant service period, at one point Barclays required 10 years service!

In the meantine serving staff will have been denied the ability to contribute to Barbera Cartland's state scheme. Whilst the 'entitlement for indexing' from either scheme will not be life changing it does seem to be significant.

Barclays say, correctly, that there is no legal requirement to index EPB entitlement however there is certainly a moral one.

It would be interesting to know what other major employers of the period did - say for example the industrial conglomerate GKN.

I have previously tried to interest financial journalists in this issue - but with no success.

antrobus

niloc841 wrote: »

...In the meantine serving staff will have been denied the ability to contribute to Barbera Cartland's state scheme. ..

Barbera Cartland's state scheme!?! Britain's most prolific romantic novellist had a role in pension provision? Are you sure? Or do you by any chance mean Barbara Castle, a quite different person.:)

Derivative

A quick google gets me £1500-2000 average salary in 1969 and £20,000 now. So about a factor of 10-15.

niloc841

You are, of course correct, what ever your political slant Barbera Castle is more important don't you think?

However please don't distract.

I am trying to raise an issue - people who are aware of the broad issues of pension provision would have know the correct person and probably wouldn't have felt the desire to merely nit-pick. The EPB ssue is quite complicated and I am certainly not able to completly quantify the issue of this 'loss of entitlement'. That for instance is an area where I would like to see some feedback.

niloc841

:)Yes - a valid and acceptable indexing method would be needed to progress the issue.

However I don't need to google -I was there! I can tell you that to earn a salary of £1000 pa was a target to aim for,

I previously worked in the scientific civil service and to reach this level of pay for my grade would have taken some twenty years.

Footballers were limited to £25 a week.

Just nit-picking!

atush

First of all, many from back in 1969 who left work after only being there 'a short time' would actually get no pension.


If you had stayed at barclays, they had a nice FS pension way back when and you'd be rolling in it now.

So take your pound and spend it wisely.

kidmugsy

All the modern stuff about index-linking of pensions was imposed, was it not, under She Who Must Be Obeyed. It's your tough luck that you are the recipient of a pension run under Harold Wilson's rules.