Teachers' Pensions / judges and firefighters / implications?

hyubh

Oliver1191 wrote: »

I wonder how much of an uplift in the value of the benefit statement this will be...For some, hundreds...for others thousands?

Many will have been better off in the CARE scheme though. Lucky public sector workers, their pensions won't be adjusted downwards were the government to lose its appeal however.

Different normal pension ages does complicate things though. Would you prefer a higher pension at SPA, or a lower one at 65? If we say, use whatever discount rate the scheme bases actuarial reductions (and increases) on, what if that rate has been altered between introduction of the CARE schemes and now...?

Oliver1191

Would you prefer a higher pension at SPA, or a lower one at 65?

I guess at 65, though i'm maxing LISA, adding to SIPP and paying into ISA, so should be financially independent way before then anyway.

Silvertabby

hyubh wrote: »

Many will have been better off in the CARE scheme though. Lucky public sector workers, their pensions won't be adjusted downwards were the government to lose its appeal however.

Different normal pension ages does complicate things though. Would you prefer a higher pension at SPA, or a lower one at 65? If we say, use whatever discount rate the scheme bases actuarial reductions (and increases) on, what if that rate has been altered between introduction of the CARE schemes and now...?

Your typical LGPS member, with just one or 2 promotions throughout their careers, will almost certainly be hugely better off under CARE due to the increased accrual rate and annual revaluations.

Pocket9s

Reading through the available info it is not clear at all what would happen. My thought is possibly some kind of lump sum one off compensation amount to affected members, and pensions stay the same. This would be cheaper for the government long term compared to switching people back etc, and easier to administer. Having said that switching people back has the benefit of kicking the payout down the road a few years so who knows.
Definitely the new schemes are here to stay, best case is we are all switched back, then all moved over to CARE under the same terms, no taper or protection, at some date in the next few years.
Whole thing has been handled badly from the start

hugheskevi

Whole thing has been handled badly from the start

It actually got off to quite a good start. The Hutton report, a Government commissioned report into public service pension reform, concluded in 2011 that:

7.34 The Commission’s expectation is that existing members who are currently in their 50s should, by and large, experience fairly limited change to the benefit which they would otherwise have expected to accrue by the time they reach their current scheme NPA. This would particularly be the case if the final salary link is protected for past service, as the Commission recommends. This limitation of impact will also extend to people below age 50, proportionate to the length of time before they reach their NPA. Therefore special protections for members over a certain age should not be necessary. Age discrimination legislation also means that it is not possible in practice to provide protection from change for members who are already above a certain age.

It turned out the final salary link was protected, and now a court has determined protecting those within 10 to 13.5 years of Normal Pension age was not a legitimate aim and the change was not lawful. Hutton seems to have got it pretty much spot-on.

It all went a bit wrong when the Government decided to ignore their own expert findings warning of the exact scenario that they decided to put in place, and in so doing take a legal risk which appears to now potentially cost billions to rectify.

Pocket9s

I meant the rollout / implementation but agree with your point above. Didn’t agree with tapering or protection from the start - felt let down by the unions arguing for this as basically just ignored all the members under 47. Would have been better and fairer to fight for better conditions(lower contributions/better accrual) in the new scheme.

As it is we now have the mess of the contribution tiers and cliff edges. Plus unfairness of tiered contributions in a CARE scheme meaning the value of the scheme goes down as your career progresses. Still not rectified for at least the next 2 years as well.

Whole pension scheme has become massively more complex and many staff don’t understand it fully leading to opt outs etc with contributions increasing.

Yes it is still a v good pension but whole thing could have been better value and much more straightforward IMO