I may have this wrong, but I thought it was already illegal to issue dividend that the legal entity doesn’t really have.
I guess with the pension funds, wasn’t there a similar issue with BHS, it isn’t a secured liability as such. I think that is part of the problem, if ongoing revenue has to provide for further promises. I would welcome some legislation against that. But that won’t happen because then our government will be in serious problems as lets face it they’ve got the biggest unsecured pension liability of them all.
Well it seems to do well in the Civil Service, it's who you know, not what you know that gets you moved up the career ladder. We need to take a wrecking ball to the Civil Service and make it fit for the 21st Century. It's going to happen at some point, Brexit will likely force the issue. The Civil Service is about to take on a work load it's not had to shoulder since the 1970's, it might not be upto the job.
You can only pay a dividend I believe if you have enough profit to do so after paying corporation tax. If there is no profit, then it's illegal to pay a dividend.
The laws around pension funds need to be looked at and strengthened where necessary. At the moment it's probably true to say that Pension funds are seen as slush funds for Business and not as what they are meant to be - funding people's retirement. Addressing the ticking time bomb of the state pension (and other associated costs) is vital, but it'll never happen so long as older voters out vote younger generations. Politicians won't want to endanger the goose that lays the golden electoral victory eggs. If and when that liability implodes, the Politicians around today will likely be long gone from the Commons and won't have to face the music.
What does that have to do with certain demographics being larger than others? Firstly younger people will be older people one day. Secondly that has nothing to do with building and enlarging the pension deficit.
Older people are more likely to vote, thus Politicians offer policies that narrowly benefit pensioners. The younger people today will have to work harder and longer to pay for the current pensioners, when those young people reach retirement age they likely won't have what the pensioners of today have. It's an idiotic way of doing things. But who knows with advances in AI and robotics, jobs may well become a thing of the past. It's what humans are good at developing tools to make life and thus survival easier. But that means society will face a fundamental shift in how it functions and what people do with their time.
Not to mention Oxford City Council...
I still don't get your point, as you saying the solution to this problem is to reduce the pension payouts? I was more thinking along the lines of stick to what was promised and make appropriate provisions the aren't linked to future earnings.
Most of what Oxford City Council does is in house, owns valuable land etc. My dad has been on the receiving end of some fairly poor decision making by the city council. But it ain't nothing compared to Oxfordshire County Council. Whose leader still dreams of a bus tunnel under Oxford's High Street (ignoring the fact the colleges will say no and the cost of tunnelling is eye watering).
I see the bright sparks at Oxfordshire County Council have paid to get out of a contract with Carillion Council pays £10.65m for works and to end Carillion contract
Seems the trouble was long in the making -
Carillion was in trouble by mid-2016, says whistleblower