To think public sector pensions should be slashed?

I am doing increasingly well because I absolutely deserve it because I manage a front line service. I am not “average” I am a leader. don’t really get paid a lot £23 per hour for the responsibility I have (life or death)! So leave my pension alone otherwise people like me won’t be around to help you.

I am in the public sector

I will have worked for 47 years for it!!!

I’m sorry but I have to come back to this. You have a civil service pension coming of £19,000 a year??!! And you’re angry about this? You’re telling us to fuck off? This is exactly the problem. You have absolutely no clue how huge your tax payer funded pension is compared to those in DC schemes. The vast majority of DC pension members might get £3-5k a year. Yet here you are, moaning about £19k a year. Tone deaf.

A lot do. Even if you don't, that doesnt mean others don't. Most of my friends and family in the private sector receive annual bonuses as well as some of the other perks I mentioned.

The average pension pot for DC pension members aged 55-64 is £107,300. That will buy them an annuity/pension of about £3.5k a year. I’m sorry, but if you’re due a £19k a year pension, you’re doing incredibly well.

@Rhayader absolutely correct, except that until recently, if your pension pot went over £1.03m you got a massive tax bill. So with annuity rates as they are, it was impossible for anyone in a DC scheme to build a big enough pot to buy an annuity paying more than about £34k a year.

@Ritasueandbobtoo9 just come and join us in the public sector. I too have a masters degree which is necessary to perform my job. The amazing thing about the public sector is that there is usually a job for everyone because all these skills and professions are needed to keep the country running and benefit everyone else. Welcome on board!

Wait till you hear about my former boss.
Started working at British Rail at 20, got made redundant at 40, but on final salary pension as part of redundancy package (2/3rd of salary). Then joined public sector final salary scheme type of company (can't say which one) and worked there for another 20 years. Again, with luck had the same retirement package 2/3rds of salary.

@CandidHedgehog generally, divide the pot by about 30 to get your baseline annual income. Then add a bit to your pot size if you want your pension to uplift by inflation each year and pay 50% to your partner if you die before them. And obv if you want to retire at 60 it will cost more to buy an annuity than if you buy one at 65/70. Currently, if your pot is £120k and you bought an annuity today you’d get a guaranteed income of about £4k a year, but depending on your age, it should absolutely grow!

Fuck off, I have career average pension which will pay out £19000 at age 67. A masters degree, will have worked 47 years if I go that long, manage 24 people - a much larger number of people using the service and work really fast all day long with very brief breaks. Just fuck off. You would last one fucking minute in my shoes.

This. We have had SO MANY years of shit or no pay rises. Other parts of the public sector like teachers and NHS staff have better pensions, public support and the power to strike to get better salaries. No one gives a shit if civil servants strike. Our pay is so far below market rates it's ridiculous.

My public sector pension is less than my state pension, and I am still taxed. Cut all those PS pensions and tax take will reduce. Where's the saving? Also the P S do provide all the services to the general population, health, education, dustbins, local services etc; maybe you should consider the benefits of the PS

Nobody wants to be a teacher as it is. Scrapping a perk of the job will make things even worse.

It’s not as simple as just ‘slashing’ them because unfortunately, with a couple of notable exceptions, most public sector pensions (including the TPS) are unfunded.

Today’s teachers are not contributing to their own pensions. They (and in the case of the ‘employer’ pension contributions, we, the taxpayer) are paying the pensions of all the teachers who are already retired. The employer contributions are huge - 28.68% on top of every new teacher salary, but they are not funding the teacher’s own pension.

These unfunded public sector pension schemes are effectively a giant Ponzi scheme - ‘fine’ as long as the economy is growing, but not so great and something of a ticking time bomb once the economy starts to shrink.

It isn't fuck all. At all. The old school, final salary pensions that don't really exist any more as they have become so expensive used 1/60.

In order to qualify for "full pension", which was two thirds salary, you'd only have to work for 33 years. So if you started work at 20, you'd have accrued a full pension at 53.

I’m sure your not alone…lowish paid public sector workers are the backbone of the economy & keep our wheels in motion…thank you!

I think people don't see the wastage that having uncompetitive salaries in the sector causes either- the private sector ends up stepping in and providing services to fill the gap -private sector organisations who exist to make a profit from the public sector on top of the higher salaries that their staff are paid.

For me that waste is far more criminal than giving people pensions which form a balanced part of the overall remuneration/benefits package.

Better still….original poster should apply for a public sector job!

I’m all for my millionaire parents and parents in law having their heating allowance removed. I thought it was means tested?

Public Sector workers also pay tax BTW.

I completely agree with you, but the private sector under this system, can spend the lot on fast cars and holidays should they choose. So when Gen X retire (which includes me) we’re the generation who lost private DB schemes to DC. There is an entire generation who haven’t built up their ‘pot’. They are going to cost an absolute fortune in pension credits etc when they suddenly hit retirement, realise their £100k retirement pot will buy them a £3k a year annuity and they are, for all intents and purposes, fucked. (Edit to add, I’m not pleading poverty, personally, I will be OK, but many, many of my generation won’t be). It’s a ticking time bomb.

Can I ask where you are getting that figure from? My pension (DC) is forecast at £8,000 a year on a pot of £120,000 at retirement.

Is my pension provider just being incredibly optimistic?

I know that.
The point I’m making is that £81 a year is fuck all.

£6.75 a month

It's not about sectors being low paid though, the issue is the equivalence- would someone manging a production kitchen in a school earn a similar salary to someone in the private sector with the same overall level of responsibility- line management, team leadership etc- with an equivalent job probably being a canteen in a private sector workplace which serves 300 people a day and has a set menu of 3 or 4 different options to pick from?

Some sectors are lower paid than others, but the issue with the public sector can be that the equivalent job in the private sector can be much more lucrative, which is where the pension can help make things more equivalent.

This is very true and most young civil servants would choose higher salary now over better pension later. But no government will offer money now when it could be another future governments problem.