Makes my blood boil

whitesatin

I don't think it is worth dwelling on the differences between pensions. It's all about circumstances and paths we have chosen to take in life. I retired (4 years early) from teaching, knowing I would take a hit. Fair enough, my choice, so my pension is around £10k. My husband, who retired at the same time from a private (French) company, took a hit too as he retired at age 51. His pension, after a similar number of years as mine, was a good bit higher, the difference being that his was RPI linked but also got a minimum increase so, when inflation is lower, he still gets paid more. His pension has increased a great deal more than mine over the past 5 years. I always earned more than he did so it seems a bit odd. But, hey, ho, we are managing just fine and managed to escape the stress of having to work so not complaining really.

agarnett

chucknorris wrote: »

I don't have an agenda! The only thing that I would like to come out of this thread is that people should be financially aware enough to be able to correctly evaluate DB pensions, so that they can make informed career decisions.

Well chuck, that good intention of yours can't happen, can it? The vast majority in society don't have the wit to be able to deal with the shifting sands of the new millennium like you do.

Successive governments have not prevented volatility and imbalances which has upset the equilibriums you perhaps do yearn for on behalf of us all.

It is not going to be fixed by simply telling the masses where hypothetically or with hindsight they took a wrong turn by not changing their career at the right point.

Even as a multi-millionaire and university lecturer you need your dustbin emptied regularly - and incidentally, your car to be towed off the motorway by some kind soul working in hours and in all weathers for a very modest reward if it breaks down. Are you trying to tell them that they took a wrong turn and should change their lives retrospectively to fix it?

Your back yard might by now regularly look like a Naples street in 2008 or 2010 if local authority collectors had changed their careers instead of knuckling under to privatisation under leadership of the sort of civil servants who probably got themselves promoted into the stratosphere by jolly privatisation wheezes to outsource their departments to companies like Veolia ...


And if Muscle750 is an AA man, then once upon a time he too will have had a DB pension scheme, long since kicked into touch. I know. I was even a member of it myself for a short time!

My comments are far from unintelligent, Twopints. They may be unwise, unstructured, long-winded, uninterprtable to some or many, and indeed offensive to those who wish to take offence, but unintelligent they are not. An over-generous allocation of intelligence quotient is sometimes difficult to harness in a lifetime, and difficult to swallow in others - I have had five or six decades to get used to being ostracised occasionally, but like chucknorris, I too like to think I have done, and am still doing a bit of public good as opposed to just looking after number one.

BobQ

Muscle750 wrote: »

Maybe you can enlighten us all to what im stating that isnt true here Plus of course i know that in the public sector private heath insurance isnt unheard of and expenses can get out of hand prime example on that one is that at GCHQ many were travelling up and down to London using the train and travelling first class, They have now got their own coaches to go by road all kitted out with leather seats tables etc and they use these althou i imagine there are still some who go via other means.
I know of one gchq worker who went to a cold climate for a few months and put in a claim for £2k for a few woolly jumpers.

You are making this up - no evidence provided. Try putting in an FoI request and publish that link.

Who paid for the private health care insurance? The government or the individual? Can you provide a job advert stating this as a benefit?

Do you think it unfair that people get re-imbursed for the expenses of travelling to locations their employer asks them to go?

If an employer hires a coach to provide its workers with transport, do you think the private company supplying should remove the seats and install benches? Do you not see the benefits of being able to work during a journey?

Was the claim paid?

chucknorris

agarnett wrote: »

Well chuck, that good intention of yours can't happen, can it? The vast majority in society don't have the wit to be able to deal with the shifting sands of the new millennium like you do.

Successive governments have not prevented volatility and imbalances which has upset the equilibriums you perhaps do yearn for on behalf of us all.

It is not going to be fixed by simply telling the masses where hypothetically or with hindsight they took a wrong turn by not changing their career at the right point.

Even as a multi-millionaire and university lecturer you need your dustbin emptied regularly - and incidentally, your car to be towed off the motorway by some kind soul working in hours and in all weathers for a very modest reward if it breaks down. Are you trying to tell them that they took a wrong turn and should change their lives retrospectively to fix it?

Your back yard might by now regularly look like a Naples street in 2008 or 2010 if local authority collectors had changed their careers instead of knuckling under to privatisation under leadership of the sort of civil servants who probably got themselves promoted into the stratosphere by jolly privatisation wheezes to outsource their departments to companies like Veolia ...


And if Muscle750 is an AA man, then once upon a time he too will have had a DB pension scheme, long since kicked into touch. I know. I was even a member of it myself for a short time!

You seem to have a very pessimistic view of life.

hyubh

Muscle750 wrote: »

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions/12044500/The-public-sector-workers-on-track-for-a-55pc-pay-rise-when-they-retire.html

Read it for yourselves and then tell me im talking alot of !!!!

Do you understand how the scenario given comes about?

• The current CARE schemes deliberately favour the poorly paid
• These schemes were designed assuming contracting out was to continue
• The fact it has now ceased means public sector scheme members are now paying the standard rate of NI in order to receive the (new) standard rate of state pension

These things combined lead to the headline example (my emphasis):

The analysis, which is derived from Government data, shows NHS hospital porters who have worked full-time for at least 35 years with an at-retirement salary of £14,600 can expect to retire aged 65 from next year on £16,843.80 a year, or 115pc of their final salary.

I can't say a working life on a full time salary of £14,600 in today's terms sounds fun, but if it rocks your boat, you should go for it. If your local hospital isn't looking for a porter, see if local schools are looking for teaching assistants, with the caveat that will be a few hours part time. Still, you'd achieve your goal of low pay but a very good pension (LGPS in the teaching assistant case).

agarnett

chucknorris wrote: »

You seem to have a very pessimistic view of life.

Life? Nope I am unusually comfortable in my own skin in a much wider set of life's scenarios than most - perhaps like you in that regard. I too have made a number of life changing career moves as my interests and skills have allowed it, as they can be applied to almost anything, other than a successful career in politics or blogging perhaps!

I do however harbour great disappointment that UK society and the world generally is as much of a stinking rubbish tip in too many places as it was when I was a kid. Technological progress especially in communications and western medicine (effect on life expectancy) has been wonderful. Progress in equality and fairness has gone backwards.

Who held it back? You? Me?

hugheskevi

It may be worth recapping the various changes that have been made to Civil Service pensions as some posters appear to believe there have not been any changes:

• In 2002 the scheme was closed to new joiners, replaced by one of comparable quality and contributions increased from 1.5% to 3.5% (reflecting superior survivor benefits in the new scheme)
• In 2007 the existing scheme was closed to new joiners and replaced by a career average scheme with Normal Pension age of 65, which for most was less generous than the scheme it replaced
• In 2011 revaluation and indexation switched from RPI to CPI. Impact depends on personal circumstances, but reductions in value of accrued pension of around 15% would not be uncommon.
• In 2012 member contribution rates increased by an average of around 1.2%
• In 2013 member contribution rates increased by an average of around 1.2%
• In 2014 member contribution rates increased by an average of around 0.6%
• In 2015 existing schemes were closed to all members except those close to retirement, and replaced by the alpha scheme which was less generous for most members.Contribution rates changes, but overall didn't increase, although longer-serving members (pre 2002 joiners) saw a 4th year of increases.

In addition to the above Civil Service specific changes, the general tax environment has changed to be less favourable. For example, someone earning £160,000 [which is a very small proportion of membership] in the post 2015 scheme will be accruing an Annual Allowance charge of about £20,000 a year due to the tapering of the Annual Allowance in 2016/17 and the way their pension accrual is valued. All members earning £108,000 or more will breach the Allowance every year and have to pay additional tax.

Similarly, the abolition of contracting-out in 2016 has increased National Insurance contributions by up to £450 p/a.

Anyone with a pension of £100,000 p/a would also have a £325,000 tax bill for breaching Lifetime Allowance due to the reduction of Lifetime Allowance from £1.8m to £1m. However, this level of pension is fanciful, particularly as many are subject to a pensionable earnings cap of £150,600 [This assumes no protection and that a lump sum of 3*pension is payable]

From my calculations, all the above means that all Civil Servants who have had salary increases of 1% p/a (ie not promoted) since 2010 will have less take-home pay in 2016/17 than they had in 2010/11, despite the much higher Personal Allowance. Their pension value has also been reduced, both past service due to the RPI-CPI change, and also the value of pension they accrue going forward.

The Civil Service pension scheme is also considerably smaller than the NHS scheme(liabilities of £133bn compared to £240bn), and the NHS have more higher earners.

Muscle750

Next.................

agarnett

Thanks hugheskevi,

I don't suppose you could prepare a similar executive summary of what typically occurred in the private sector over the same period, but also go back say 20 years for both public and private sectors to the time when the end of the baby boomers where starting their careers, and add in comparative current day effects for the cohorts who might have chosen their public versus private careers back then?

You might be able to generalise with just two earlier time periods
up to 1990 (following financial services "Big Bang") and from there up to your summary start point i.e. 1991-2001.

For me, in the private sector, I had little public/private sector pension scheme difference to worry about in the first, and only one Maxwell type difference to a DB scheme I was a member of in the second period I have suggested. So all was broadly fine until maybe 2002.

That's when you've started talking about differences occurring in public sector pensions. What I think then happened in private sector was a much faster race to the bottom, from which public sector generally has remained insulated to varying degrees, but in general (if not fully privatised) insulated a lot.

saver861

agarnett wrote: »

If so, isn't that too easily extrapolated beyond the limited context of university employment to imply "I don't care about anyone in the private sector whose pension is less of a reward to them than mine is to me, and nor do I care that it mine is overly generous to the point that the rest of society will actually be shouldering the burden of it due to an unintended national anomaly, because indeed I made a deliberate position to place myself in that position"?

Forums are great for debate .... but you do need to try and keep it real bro .....