Journals and magazines with statistics on company pensions affected by the 1995 Pensions Act.

greatkingrat

You are still missing the point. Nobody lost out as a result of the act. Some people (who were employed after 1997) benefited, other people (including you) remained in exactly the same position you would have been in if the act was never passed.

Linton

Linton said:  There was no legal requirement for pensions to be inflation linked until 1995, so many were not.  The 1995 act could not have backed-dated the requirement  as those pension schemes were never financed to provide it.  So you haven’t lost anything because of the 1995 Act, you never had it anyway.

Amazing how a bit of probing reveals a complete misunderstanding, as I'd wondered! Hopefully OP now understands that the 1995 Act has no bearing on the pension he is receiving.

Claiming that “those pension schemes were never financed to provide it.” Is irrelevant because the schemes in their entirety were never financed to provide it either yet they did but as agreed with the government of the day they dumped those prior to the Act which introduced annual increases.

....

Some pensions, I would guess from banks and other major companies, did provide inflation linked rises as specified in their scheme rules, perhaps with better conditions than the compulsory 1995 Act requirements.  Of course those schemes were financed to provide what they promised.  Your scheme rules did not offer inflation linked increases so why would the scheme have saved the money to pay for it?  You are getting what you paid for at the time as specified in your scheme rules.

In 1997 when the 1995 act was implemented any pension scheme not meeting the new requirements had to be changed for new contributions.  At that time other conditions were probably changed such as employee cost and accrual rate to enable the increases to be paid. So post 1997 scheme members will also be getting what they paid for asspecified in their scheme rules. People in both pre and post 1997 schemes could well only receive increases on the post 1997 part.

BML

I assume that everyone who is rubbishing my objections to being swindled will eventually if not already receive annual increases to their pension. Even the War Department pay annual increases to War Disability Pensions.

Now, how about attempting to answer my question regarding where one may find the information I asked for.

Marcon

BML said:

Marcon.  I'd wondered, but OP refers to 'deprive their employees of an annual increase to their pension' - S51 doesn't actually do that. I'd hoped the poster would respond to clarify their thinking - the post was couched in rather over-emotional terms and some clarity of what was actually stipulated in the Act might help them to understand that it wasn't quite as stark as they may fear.

BML.  I left employment by reason of redundancy in 1993 and as I only had short service I knew that the pension would also be small. I didn’t check whether I was receiving an annual increase until recently discovering and I found that I was not. So for 27 years you failed to spot you were not receiving any increases? Really? I asked the Pension department why this was so and they replied as follows.

“Under the Rules of the Plan, pensions earnt prior to 6 April 1997 do not receive increases in payment.  As you left pensionable service in 1993 your pension is entirely made up of pre 1997 service and therefore is not eligible for annual pension in payment increases.” I have no idea what S51 is Why not read the link given by Linton and find out? or the poster that Marcon refers to - you are the poster referred to, as you posted the original question. As for stating that the Act wasn’t quite as stark as they may fear the facts are as follows.

Over the last 27 years I have not received the annual increase to that pension after paying the same into it as other company pensioner did who have received annual increases. The post may have been couched in rather over-emotional terms but I wonder how Marcon would have reacted under those circumstances. If I received the benefits I'd been promised, I'd have been fine with that. Why would anyone expect 'bumper' increases over and above the ones which prevailed at the time they left active membership of the scheme?

JoeCrystal But as your pension department already said, it is the rule of the scheme at the time, so it is nothing to do with the 1995 Pensions Act. Did your scheme booklet at the time mention anything about the fact the pension will not be increased annually?

BML When I contacted the company and asked them what led to the situation I found myself in they replied as follows which shows that their actions had everything to do with the Act.

"Legislation dictates the level of increase that must be applied to pension benefits based on the period when they were accrued. For benefits accrued before 6 April 1997, there is no statutory requirement to increase the pension. I can confirm that this has been the case throughout your retirement." On the contrary; it makes it clear that increases apply to when the pension benefits were accrued (built up), not the duration of time over which they have been paid out as a pension. Is that what's causing your confusion?

Linton said:  There was no legal requirement for pensions to be inflation linked until 1995, so many were not.  The 1995 act could not have backed-dated the requirement  as those pension schemes were never financed to provide it.  So you haven’t lost anything because of the 1995 Act, you never had it anyway.

Amazing how a bit of probing reveals a complete misunderstanding, as I'd wondered! Hopefully OP now understands that the 1995 Act has no bearing on the pension he is receiving.

Claiming that “those pension schemes were never financed to provide it.” Is irrelevant because the schemes in their entirety were never financed to provide it either yet they did but as agreed with the government of the day they dumped those prior to the Act which introduced annual increases. Employers had to increase their contributions in respect of active members to cover the new liabilities. No idea what your reference to 'dumping those prior to the Act' means.

BML  May I get back to the original purpose of raising the question of the 1995 Pensions where I stated,

“I am looking for information on how many companies as a percentage of all companies used the 1995 act to deprive their employees of an annual increase to their pension.  There other matters such as how many employees this affected that I would like to see.

1. Was it common practice prior to this legislation being passed for pension companies to pay an annual increase? Depended on the rules of the scheme. Private sector schemes typically had a provision allowing discretionary increases, but not guaranteeing any. Although discretionary increases were not uncommon in the period leading up to the 1990s, schemes were typically heavily in surplus and actually had to find a way to 'spend' some of that surplus to avoid being taxed because they failed the 'statutory surplus' test (i.e. had too much cash in the scheme). As funding levels started to drop, employers became less keen on funding discretionary increases, and so they became much less prevalent. The introduction of the 1995 Act sucked up a lot of the surplus, which is why some may feel it impacted on pensioners like you who had no right to increases.

2. Was information made available to the appropriate Minister as to what the cost would have been to the pension companies were they not excused from paying these annual pension increases? Not pension companies who would be footing the bill - down to the sponsoring employer, and there was nothing to 'excuse' them from, since there was no statutory requirement to pay increases.

3.  Is information available showing what organisations as a percentage of all organisations responsible for employee pensions took advantage of the legislation to deny annual pension increases and if so where? They didn't need to 'take advantage of the legislation' because they weren't required to pay increases.

4.  I suspect that any decent organisation would not have taken advantage of the legislation to debar its pensioners from annual increases and wonder if such information is available to show how many people were adversely affected by this legislation? They didn't need to 'take advantage of the legislation' because they weren't required to pay increases.

5. Is information available anywhere showing as a percentage of all Pension departments what percentage took advantage of the legislation to not pay annual increases to pensions? They didn't need to 'take advantage of the legislation' because they weren't required to pay increases.

6. Was a presumed liability for paying those who were affected by this legislation at that time ever quantified? There was never any presumed liability.

7. How many Baxter Healthcare pensioners that were penalised by the legislation are still alive? None, because they weren't penalised by the legislation.

Please see above in bold italic. Hopefully that now brings this hopeful but ultimately ill-founded thread to an end.

Marcon

BML said:

I assume that everyone who is rubbishing my objections to being swindled will eventually if not already receive annual increases to their pension. Even the War Department pay annual increases to War Disability Pensions.

Now, how about attempting to answer my question regarding where one may find the information I asked for.

Please see my answer above - the 'information' you are seeking isn't available anywhere because it doesn't exist; it doesn't need to, because your question is based on an entirely false premise.

Linton

None of my pensions, except for state pension, provide inflation increases.  I am perfectly happy with that as that is what I paid for, not wishing to pay the currently approx 70% higher cost of inflation matching.

As to answering your question.  You will not find the data you seek anywhere.  Luckily I can give you it, no companies used the 1995 act to deprive pensioners of the inflation matching they were due.  The 1995 Act did not give them that right and so could not have been used for the purpose.

Brynsam

BML said:

I assume that everyone who is rubbishing my objections to being swindled will eventually if not already receive annual increases to their pension. Even the War Department pay annual increases to War Disability Pensions.

Now, how about attempting to answer my question regarding where one may find the information I asked for.

You're not listening. You aren't being swindled; you are getting the benefits you were promised when you joined the scheme. None of the legislation which came into force after you left active membership (the period during which you were building up retirement benefits) has had any impact, positive or negative, on the benefits guaranteed under the rules of the scheme for members who left active membership when you did. Doggedly repeating that the Pensions Act 1995 has somehow done you down is simply untrue and frankly plain daft.

War Disability Pensions attract annual increases because there is legislation in place in this respect - completely irrelevant in the context of the argument you are trying to run. 

As Marcon has already pointed out, you are asking for non-existent information, so nobody is going to be able to help you find it, any more than the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow exists.

You've already been through all this in other posts such as https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5990971/percentage-effect-reduction-over-25-years#latest

The answers aren't going to change.

xylophone

Just one question for the OP - was his scheme a Contracted Out Salary Related Scheme?
Does he have a GMP?
https://www.barnett-waddingham.co.uk/comment-insight/blog/what-is-a-gmp/

AnotherJoe

BML, your premise is like arguing that when ABS on cars became mandated in (say) the "2010 motoring safety act', people who owned cars made before 2010 were discriminated against by that law because if their car didnt have it (because some did)  those without didnt get ABS provided retrospectively,  and what statistics are there on how many drivers were "swindled" by that law and didnt get ABS on their 2005VW Polo or 2004 Ford Escort.

BML

Marcon

Please see my answer above - the 'information' you are seeking isn't available anywhere because it doesn't exist; it doesn't need to, because your question is based on an entirely false premise.  A premise if I remember it correctly is a previous statement or proposition from which another is inferred or follows as a conclusion. In other words, "if the premise is true, then the conclusion must be true"

AnotherJoe

BML, your premise is like arguing that when ABS on cars became mandated in (say) the "2010 motoring safety act', people who owned cars made before 2010 were discriminated against by that law because if their car didnt have it (because some did)  those without didnt get ABS provided retrospectively,  and what statistics are there on how many drivers were "swindled" by that law and didnt get ABS on their 2005VW Polo or 2004 Ford Escort.

BML.

With the greatest respect, Marcon and AnotherJoe are making the mistake that Professor Freddy Ayer exposed many years ago. By that I mean that Logic is very little to do with truth. “Logic leads from one point to another within its own self connected system. Truth is a fact. Truth is a location, logic is a map. So if logic is sound and based on truth, all conclusions reached by the logic should be true.  The problem arises if the logic is not sound as in the case of the logic that Marcon and AnotherJoe are using.

BML.

I believe that one may assume that prior to the 1995 Pensions Act  all members of a company pension scheme paid the same percentage into the scheme. Yet, the facts are that the 1995 Pensions Act gave some pension members annual increases whilst at the same time it deprived other members of the very same scheme of the very same annual pension increase others in their company received. No one will ever convince me that was a fair thing to do.

I opened this post by simply asking for information on how many companies as a percentage of all companies used the 1995 act to deprive their employees of an annual increase to their pension whilst giving it to others but it is obvious that members of this forum are not inclined to do that so it’s time to part our ways