Public Sector Pay & Pensions - Time For Reality?

nheather

Ironic.

Accusing me of not believing links that don't support my agenda.

How about you provide some e.v.i.d.e.n.c.e and we will see? So far you've offered none.

rustybin

MOD COMMENT:  OK children, time to grow up now.

domtheone

the problem we have in this country is that we have a press owned by plutocrats who dictate what their journalists should print and woe betide any who go against their wishes for they will be sacked as sure as night follows day.So much for free press. So called newspapers are no more than propaganda rags with the odd salacious/gossip story thrown in.
It is claimed that when Murdoch was once asked why he disliked the EU so much he answered" The British Government do pretty much as I tell them whereas the EU completely ignore me

rustybin

I don't begrudge public sector workers their Final Salary pensions - especially as I am one of the reducing few still lucky enough to be on a private sector Final Salary pension.

What I do object to is the lack of management applied to the fund.

It is a ironic that after the Murdoch Mail Group pension scandal the government mandated that company pensions must be managed independently and that the employer must not be able to access the funds, but the government does not apply the same rules to state pensions -do what we say not what we do.

The problem is that state pensions are not paid into a separate a protected fund to be invested but go straight into the coffers to be used for annual spending.  This means that when a pension is to be paid there is no pool of money to go to, instead they must pay it out of the overall budget.

Your could argue that it is just wooden dollars but the problem is that it makes the pension much harder to manager and hides the growing tsunami waiting to happen.

Private pensions have identified holes in the pension pot much earlier and much easier and therefore, have been able to try and address the problem.

For example when I first joined the company pension both my employer and I were contributing 5%.  Over the years the contributions have been increased - I pay 12.9% and my employer pays 26.4%.  And even that isn't enough to fix the hole in the pension pot.

There have been changes to state pensions but I don't think they have been as aggressive as those in the private sector.

For example, I don't think that contributions for existing pension members have been changed significantly (and to close the hole they need to be).

The scheme for new joiners have been changed, but they haven't gone as far as to cease the final salary pension.  For example, my wife is a new teacher and she is on a final salary pension but the final salary used is actually the average lifetime salary.

But whatever the rights and wrongs the state pension now takes up too much of the annual budget and it is growing - it will break the finances eventually.

Cheers,

Nigel

MemX

The Government is between a rock and a hard place though - Teacher recruitment is in crisis. I'm not sure how it works in the Private Sector, but I'd imagine you're not going to solve a recruitment crisis by worsening pay/pensions.

MemX

Probably have to import a load of foreign teachers if peeps here don't want the job.

Wouldn't have a need for so many teachers if we controlled our spiraling population better mind.

Who'd be a teacher though with today's generation of kids

IronGiant

You can't be a teacher without a strong grasp of the English language (written and spoken), which is one of the main reasons we don't have many foreign teachers at all.

vijayvasa

A lot of foreign people speak better English than British people... lol

MemX

I have serious concerns that public sector voters are going to be royally fudgeed over by a future government with regards to their pensions.

"Sorry, we can't pay your £7000 a year pension that you've worked 40 years for on little over the minimum wage, there's no money left.  Have you considered begging?"


EDIT:  haha, I so did not write 'fudged'

vijayvasa

That's how our glorious leader set up the swear filter