Public sector Pension

borich_planner

borich_planner

borich_planner

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Joined
16 Feb 2009
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Just been watching Panorama on the pension and savings problems facing the country. I am currently a public sector worker and have a final salary pension which will be 2/3 of my final salary. Now if the government decides to remove this pension, would people who already have it (such as me) still be entitlied to it? and new people joining the council not get the final pension but the new replacement one?

Borich
 
borich_planner said:
Just been watching Panorama on the pension and savings problems facing the country. I am currently a public sector worker and have a final salary pension which will be 2/3 of my final salary. Now if the government decides to remove this pension, would people who already have it (such as me) still be entitlied to it? and new people joining the council not get the final pension but the new replacement one?

Borich
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They usually just change the conditions to make you have to retire later that kind of thing (from my experience of working in payroll in the NHS). All hell would break loose if they tried to take final salary from people who had been paying in for a substantial amount of time.
 
What generally happens is that the current pension is either frozen to new members or frozen entirely and all accrued benefits stay the same. You then may get a host of options as to what to do or what the pension scheme is intending to do. As it is the public sector you also get to go on strike for a while protesting over the changes to the pension scheme :)
 
RDM said:
Most private sector final salary pensions are closed to new entrants with many being closed entirely. Is it right to expect tax payers to continue to fund final salary schemes in the public sector?
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No.
 
Basically unless you get yourself into a position where you and your mates set each others salaries (i.e. become an MP or join a board of directors) you can and will be screwed.
 
RDM said:
Most private sector final salary pensions are closed to new entrants with many being closed entirely. Is it right to expect tax payers to continue to fund final salary schemes in the public sector?
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you wait in 20s years time those that dont get a private firm pension are going to cost the tax payers even more.
 
i have m8s who are in the early 30's with no pension and no idea, how they will fund retirement, there is going to be a whole generation of people in serious trouble soon. I think i'm going to always earn a bit less in the public sector and have hopefully the security of a good pension. but who knows...

Borich
 
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I can see why some young people aren't taking out pensions, I didn't until I was in my late 20s. Partly it's down to the whole benefits-society we now live in, my parents both worked their entire lives and aren't much better off now than a "retired" couple who never worked and get pension + extras due to being consider "poor". They live next door and have more disposably income than my folks.

So I'll be honest, until we stop handing out money to people who cannot be bothered working (not talking about those who are sick), we should lay off public sector workers.

I'd like the politicians to start in the parliaments though, the "expenses" they get are scammed constantly and they never come down hard on anyone caught doing it. They also have quite sick pension schemes, the likes of which the ordinary working person couldn't even dream of.
 
RDM said:
Most private sector final salary pensions are closed to new entrants with many being closed entirely. Is it right to expect tax payers to continue to fund final salary schemes in the public sector?
Click to expand...




Why not? I notice right-wingers tend to complain about "the politics of envy" whenever anyone criticises (say) high salaries, but when the public sector have just one perk - a pension which doesn't go down the toilet if the economy takes a dive - then somehow simple envy is OK? Just because the private sector have abandoned it why should should the government? Public servants are generally underpaid for what they do, and the quid pro quo for that is a pension which is not too bad. But note: a pension which is two thirds of a poor salary is a poor pension as well - it's just guaranteed. It's only relatively recently that the PCSPS started paying in sixtieths, not the traditional eightieths - and for which they now pay a higher contribution. Which means the only way you'll get that two-thirds mentioned before is to be a civil servant for forty years.


M
 
You can have your excessive pension when I'm not forced to pay for it, but fund your employment by choice.
 
RDM said:
Is it right to expect tax payers to continue to fund final salary schemes in the public sector?
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Absolutely! You wouldn't want to break their legally binding contracts with knee-jerk retrospective legislation, would you? ;)

If it's OK for the public to fund Fred Goodwin's pension, I can see no reason why the same privilege should be denied to public sector workers who are already signed up to FSPs.

Dolph said:
You can have your excessive pension when I'm not forced to pay for it, but fund your employment by choice.
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I'm going to write that on a piece of paper and post it to Goodwin.
 
Evangelion said:
Absolutely! You wouldn't want to break their legally binding contracts with knee-jerk retrospective legislation, would you? ;)
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Given that Private companies have been able to make the changes without needing extra legislation, I don't think that's the restriction preventing change in public sector pensions...

http://www.unison.org.uk/pensions/pages_view.asp?did=7559

If it's OK for the public to fund Fred Goodwin's pension, I can see no reason why the same privilege should be denied to public sector workers who are already signed up to FSPs.

I'm going to write that on a piece of paper and post it to Goodwin.
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I don't think many of us have said it was acceptable for the public to fund Fred Goodwin's pension, just that it was too late to do anything about it by the time the government decided to use it to hide bad news...

Let's not make the same mistake again :)

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article5063030.ece gives the full scale of the problem, as well as addressing the lie that public sector workers are paid less and so deserve a better pension.
 
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Most of the FTSE companies that have come out of final salary have aso used the closure of final salary schemes as cover to massively reduce the per centages of salary they are paying in to pension schemes to. Can't let the people that make the profits get in the way of increased profits and higher exectutive pensions...

As for the public sector, only the lucky get a decent salary and a large swathe of them, eg. police, many health workers, do the most stressful work in the country and deserve a decent pension for underpaid jobs.

Dolph said:
I don't think many of us have said it was acceptable for the public to fund Fred Goodwin's pension, just that it was too late to do anything about it by the time the government decided to use it to hide bad news...
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I love the hide and bury bad news soundbite - its almost as good as the "stealth tax " one that describes all the not so stealthy taxes announced in the budget every year.

I'm actually just wondering what the pensions cost is from all the bailed out banks, considering how nobody got help when private pensions collapsed a few years back.
 
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borich_planner said:
i have m8s who are in the early 30's with no pension and no idea, how they will fund retirement, there is going to be a whole generation of people in serious trouble soon. I think i'm going to always earn a bit less in the public sector and have hopefully the security of a good pension. but who knows...

Borich
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with hi rents low wages and high taxes, people cant afford to take out a pension.
 
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