NHS pensions are bleeding the taxpayer dry

bigjl

uk1 wrote: »

I understand all of that, but what is incorrect about the article?

Jeff

Why does the article not come to the conclusion that Private Pensions are extremely bad value?

Is it because the Government and the super rich want to privatise the NHS?

Or because their mates in the banking industry want to continue to give poor returns with private pensions?

And the Pension deal for GPs is nothing like the Pension the average NHS staff member gets.

I retired with a 20yr Pension, was on £35k when I retired and my monthly pension is currently £630.

And it only increased this year by 1p a month.

Anybody that is jealous of NHS workers Pensions should join the NHS and pay for one themselves.

When I retired I was paying nearly £400 a month into my Pension. And a good pension was one of the perks of the job, and made up for the fact the wages were much lower than they should have been.

Politics of envy.

I don't know who is worse? Those that pedal it or those that are fooled by it.

hyubh

bigjl wrote: »

And the Pension deal for GPs is nothing like the Pension the average NHS staff member gets.

GPs were on a CARE scheme before NHS employees, but apart from that, this is incorrect - it's all on the same terms, GPs just earn a lot more so accrue a lot more salary-related pension. Same with other public sector schemes - it's not like what was (is) common in private sector DB schemes (the BHS scheme is an example), where you would have an 'executive' section that was (is) a lot more generous than the main section for regular employees.

edinburgher

Anybody that is jealous of NHS workers Pensions should join the NHS and pay for one themselves.

When I retired I was paying nearly £400 a month into my Pension. And a good pension was one of the perks of the job, and made up for the fact the wages were much lower than they should have been.

Politics of envy.

There are few topics that appear to be more polarised than whether or not government/NHS/DB pensions are good value/a good deal for people paying tax/fair reward as part of the total reward package offered to staff etc.

I don't dispute your claim that the pension is part of the total reward package (I've no evidence to show either way), but I would dispute your assertion that we can all join the NHS if we want a better pension deal. Taking this daft statement to its logical conclusion, we'd all work for the NHS

In the same vein, I don't think we can just state 'politics of envy' whenever anyone talks about the (high) costs of DB pensions. It's a messy topic that successive governments have tried to tame with incremental changes, fought every step of the way by staff who (understandably) want to keep what they signed up for.

Not sure when you retired, but £400/m isn't that much. I earn £4k less than you did, but am paying £360/m into a DC pension that offers no guarantees. I have 35 years until I'll be able to claim my state pension, 25+ until I'll get anything from my DC pension.

Well_excuse_me.

bigjl wrote: »

I retired with a 20yr Pension, was on £35k when I retired and my monthly pension is currently £630.

I don't know who is worse? Those that pedal it or those that are fooled by it.

Is that the full story ?
Did you take a lump sum ?
Did you retire early ?

Andy_L

Well_excuse_me. wrote: »

Is that the full story ?
Did you take a lump sum ?
Did you retire early ?

Sounds about right for 20 years service under the 1/80this scene so I'd expect a x3 lump sum as well

Malthusian

uk1 wrote:

Companies cannot pay dividends unless:

1. All of the corporation tax payments are up to date.
2. Their VAT payments are up to date.
3. They have been certified as genuinely meeting minimum wages
4. Their payments to suppliers are not over x days.
5. The trustees of the pension scheme certify that their is an agreed plan to pay deficits

All of this is already the case because dividends must be paid out of post-tax profits, otherwise it is an illegal dividend and must be repaid.

If their accounts show a post-tax profit when there isn't one, they are breaking the law. If they are not complying with minimum wage legislation they are breaking the law. If they have not paid VAT or corporation tax HMRC should be investigating. If you are proposing that UK businesses should not be allowed to pay each other on credit, that would be a huge and extremely restrictive step.

edinburgher wrote: »

Taking this daft statement to its logical conclusion, we'd all work for the NHS

We aren't far off. The NHS is the biggest employer in the world apart from the Chinese Red Army. No-one seems to ask why British people are so sickly they need such a monumental government colossus to keep them alive. Instead our entire political system seems to revolve around the NHS - "vote remain to save the NHS" "vote leave to save the NHS" "I'll cut the deficit not the NHS" - like star systems circling a black hole, and Danny Boyle includes it as the centrepiece of an Olympic ceremony.

Andy_L

Malthusian wrote: »

We aren't far off. The NHS is the biggest employer in the world apart from the Chinese Red Army. No-one seems to ask why British people are so sickly they need such a monumental government colossus to keep them alive. Instead our entire political system seems to revolve around the NHS - "vote remain to save the NHS" "vote leave to save the NHS" "I'll cut the deficit not the NHS" - like star systems circling a black hole, and Danny Boyle includes it as the centrepiece of an Olympic ceremony.

5th biggest
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17429786

and even lower down the pecking order if you class Foundation Trusts as the independent organisations they are supposed to be & GPs as self-employed

uk1

Andy_L wrote: »

5th biggest
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17429786

and even lower down the pecking order if you class Foundation Trusts as the independent organisations they are supposed to be & GPs as self-employed

Interesting article, thanks.

No wonder we have an obesity problem. MacDonalds employs more than the NHS!

Jeff

(....... alright ... I know ... they're not all in the UK!)

agarnett

This is the crux of it - size matters, of course whether you are talking stars, planets, balls or b¤ll¤x!

Size so often hides the real workings of, and failures within, any system.

We can all say what it looks like from where we stand, and occasionally we can even vote on these same type of giant enigmas - tomorrow we vote on whether we believe in EU, but who amongst us can truly say we understand the pros and cons sufficiently to make proper judgement? All most of us have got to go by is a few personal anecdotes and a bunch of secondhand ones based on whatever media we've been exposed to :rotfl:

We can perhaps make at least one accurate generalisation - we might correctly judge that all such large systems support those intent on continuing to obfuscate corruption for their own benefit.

There are too few amongst us who are capable of penetrating the cloaks behind which unscrupulous opportunists operate, be they big time corporate shysters, or individuals who have wriggled to the top of a poorly managed heap and become kings of ugly little castles, or even the smaller-time habitual skivers who are happy to be lost in the heap, prone of course to mugging on their occasional outings across a few streets within a big very unpredictable city to meetings with the new boss!

The sad fact is that all of the above feel both legally and culturally excused, and expect a free-ride to a clean sheet start of yet another day tomorrow - that's one more ticked off towards a ridiculously generous retirement package that will fund not just a few comfortable twilight years, but an average expected almost 35 years for those most adept at exploiting rules - more years than earned them their pension!

Of course, I have to acknowledge there are far more NHS workers who do not fit the above descriptions of bad eggs than do fit them, but who nevertheless daily know where some of the bad smells come from ... they share a workspace.

So who amongst us can sort the wheat from the chaff, or the bad eggs from the good? Would it be a good rule that bad eggs generally are the ones that float to the top?

How about uk1's old boss? Now he was rowed in specially, not floated up there. Or could he be too generously rewarded and still harbour corporate private sector ambitions? I haven't met either, but I would dare venture that because it was our Jeff (uk1) wot introduced him, we can trust his old boss (like uk1 himself) is an all round good egg that hasn't discoloured and gone rotten, but has instead picked up reddish tinges in older age ... it's really very difficult to tell the good ones apart, and all those "on the turn" / past sell-by-date but occupying shelf-space, isn't it?

And which battle-hardened stormtrooper was it that central government brought in from the retail sector to advise upon procurement just six short years back (NHS got one mention in his report which may have been largely about paper clips - again, difficult to tell what it was really about, or why he was ever asked/a$$ed ...)?

Clue - he didn't have SS on his lapels or T-shirt but PG!

After that, he must have thought he was invincible - we shall see!

uk1

agarnett wrote: »

How about uk1's old boss? Now he was rowed in specially, not floated up there. Or could he be too generously rewarded and still harbour corporate private sector ambitions? I haven't met either, but I would dare venture that because it was our Jeff (uk1) wot introduced him, we can trust his old boss (like uk1 himself) is an all round good egg that hasn't discoloured and gone rotten, but has instead picked up reddish tinges in older age ... it's really very difficult to tell the good ones apart, and all those "on the turn" / past sell-by-date but occupying shelf-space, isn't it?

Actually, you are way "off mark".

He was roped in as a temporary director of personnel in the NHS at the direct request to our ceo by a cabinet minister and as a result the corporation I worked for when I reported directly to him, "lent him" temporarily.

His background was personnel and corporate affairs ie the relationship between the corpopration and the outside world. He passionately cares about "people" and puts people before "profit". Because the NHS was so poorly managed at the most senior levels and short of genuine "management skill" he was within months made ceo of the NHS. He would have earned considerably less in the NHS than he would have if he had stayed with "the corporation" and the job he took was far more demanding.

He was passionate about the NHS and made that sacrifice a permanent one. He was seen within government as a man of integrity and as a result went on to become head of the police complaints authority and afterwards the department within government that investigates and approves honours and many other things. He was also gonged by Her Maj.

I guess if you wished it might prove whatever bias you wish to ascribe, but basically you couldn't be further from the truth. He was simply "a manager" who wanted to see if he could use his skills and experience to help improve the NHS. His boss was the cabinet minister that had asked for him.

Jeff