Shoud I join the company pension scheme or start an ISA for pension?

Notfarfromtheborder

RichandJ wrote: »

I really do wonder sometimes if I'm safe in putting my health into the hands of those who work for the 'sainted' NHS. When this is the level of financial knowledge they have & the 'advice' they get from colleagues. If they can't be ar5ed to find out about their own benefit arrangements from information that must by law be supplied to them how confident should I be in their knowledge of their own job ?

Bit harsh, but I get your point, not all NHS staff are operational either

ratechaser

RichandJ wrote: »

I really do wonder sometimes if I'm safe in putting my health into the hands of those who work for the 'sainted' NHS. When this is the level of financial knowledge they have & the 'advice' they get from colleagues. If they can't be ar5ed to find out about their own benefit arrangements from information that must by law be supplied to them how confident should I be in their knowledge of their own job ?

Steady on, we were all financially inexperienced at one point. I'd been working in a bank for over a year when I first became eligible to join their final salary scheme and I certainly had no clue about how it really worked initially. And no, it wasn't me that caused the financial crash either!

OP, One more vote for 'total no-brainer, sign up now!' - if you needed it... Defined Benefit pensions are like gold dust these days...

RichandJ

Notfarfromtheborder wrote: »

Bit harsh, but I get your point, not all NHS staff are operational either

Yes, it was harsh, but Jesus wept, the lack of ... ah never mind.

P'raps being harsh sometimes will get people to think ? Maybe make them realise the world doesn't owe them anything nor does it have to explain itself in social media bite size bits ? It's got to be worth a try.

kidmugsy

dunstonh wrote: »

the NHS, more than any other, is rife with misinformation to the level of intentional trouble making.

My own trade union was only utterly hopeless about pensions: the NHS unions seem to be pernicious.

Southend1

RichandJ wrote: »

I really do wonder sometimes if I'm safe in putting my health into the hands of those who work for the 'sainted' NHS. When this is the level of financial knowledge they have & the 'advice' they get from colleagues. If they can't be ar5ed to find out about their own benefit arrangements from information that must by law be supplied to them how confident should I be in their knowledge of their own job ?

Their job is to know about healthcare, not pensions. I'd rather they knew plenty about the former and little about the latter than vice versa.

Paul_Herring

Southend1 wrote: »

I'd rather they knew plenty about the former and little about the latter than vice versa.

You appear to have missed the bit upthread where it was explicitly stated that:

do be aware that the NHS, more than any other, is rife with misinformation to the level of intentional trouble making

This isn't ignorance about something they really don't need to know about to perform their duties, it's outright lying.

And if they're doing that about stuff that's not directly relevant to the job at hand...

PeacefulWaters

I suppose the best answer to the question is to do both.

Join your employer's pension scheme and start a stocks and shares ISA. The latter could be used to increase retirement age flexibility and pension top up options at a later date.

RichandJ

Southend1 wrote: »

Their job is to know about healthcare, not pensions. I'd rather they knew plenty about the former and little about the latter than vice versa.

Quite. Paul Herring has already come up with a good answer to that one.

My point, insofar as I have one, is the total lack of exactitude ("company pension scheme" for the NHS scheme for e.g.), the unwillingness to learn (although coming on here & asking does show some from the OP who I am now trashing perhaps unfairly), and the general attitude of the UK workforce that "that's good enough".

Over the last few days I've found a transfer value for divorce purposes quoted in 2011 based on an incorrect deferred pension. Nobody looked at it properly, nobody cared enough to check it properly. It was then £170k, member has come back for a new TV & based on the correct deferred pension it's now £96k, gods know what it would have been back in 2011.

I'm going to take the hit/flak for this when the member comes back after being told the previous quite was incorrect. But I had nothing to do with it. P'raps that might give some context to my rants. Hey ho.