To think public sector pensions should be slashed?

Yes I wish this would happen.
It would make it much easier to compare pay and it would probs help public sector recruit people who have mortgages etc and need a decent salary now.

I was in a public sector job once. I have fairly decent pension from it.
In return for that I worked long hours with no extra pay lots of the time not having a day off for weeks on end. I spent most of the year out of the country but still had to pay basic rate tax. I didn’t see my family for months on end. I wasn’t allowed to join a union and was definitely not allowed to ask for a pay rise.
In the course of my employment I was sent by the British government on numerous occasions to sort out someone else’s problems and expected to give my life if needed.
I think I earned my pension

Peoplein.the public sector work for about 2/3 of the salary they'd get in the private sector. Eg. A senior accountant in the public sector, a lineanager to 8 people and countersigning officer to 3, will be on about £63k unless gets London weighting. In the private sector would be paid about £85k. That's why they get good pensions. I'm sure they wouldn't mind getting a big pay boost but a smaller pension. DH was on £65k in civil service and a similar job outside was paying £115k. One of his colleagues left her £55k paying job and went into private sector on £90k for very similar work. The only thing is the lower admin grades in civil service are on more than they'd get in the private sector.

Sounds like your employee contributions are less than mine. Your employer contribution is more than mine. Your salary is higher than mine. And you want me to feel sorry for you?

I have been thinking n the Teachers Pension Scheme for only 7 years (late career change) am retiring in December and will get 35k tax free lump sum and 5k per year pension.
This is a big reward for a short term, and is the less favourable pension compared to teachers who have been in for their whole career and has an ever cushier pension and who are really raking it in.
The system absolutely needs to be overhauled so that pensions are equitable across all sectors.
My neighbour retired on a large pension from the Civil Service aged 55! No way is that sustainable or fact the younger working population whose taxes are paying for it.

Final salary pensions ended in 2011, it’s now career average. Those who had final salary can keep that up to 2011, pensions after that changed to career average.

So what you want is for people to give up their pensions, stay on low pay and wait for the magical productivity genie to arrive?

Teachers and HCPs should not be subject to "PRP" style regimes, its too complex and would be used to compress salaries.

Funny how some on the right tried to keep down wages and partly blamed increases on inflation.... yet the Tories, then Labour settled public sector strikes but inflation continues to fall......

How come your economic theories don't apply to Director pay? which has outstripped productivity by many multiples.... yet paying more to a Carer or a Teacher would be "inflationary"

Not surprised you have been slated - as nearly a third of all workers are in some way employed by the government. Most have absolutely no idea how valuable their defo ex benefit schemes are - and that even as average salary rather than final salary they are so far beyond the reach of most private sector workers.

there is a reason private schools have been coming out of the TPS which is the government teachers pension schemes - they just cannot afford the massive contributions required to keep pace - for some schools it’s been millions of pounds in additional contributions. Yet 93% of teachers work in the state sector and are still on those DB schemes that a commercially run enterprise can’t afford .

one head teacher realised that public sector pensions were so beneficial compared to private sector as she only knew people with a defined benefit scheme based on salary !!
OP you are however right - our economy is broken until we fix the public sector pensions black hole!

I am a retired civil servant after 40 years service. During that time there was rarely a year that I didn't have a second or third job or work a number of hours overtime, because my salary wa so low, even with London Weighting. The thing I am most grateful for is my indexed pension which as a single person has allowed me to live a reasonable life without worrying about every bill that comes in.

I could walk out of my PS job and breeze into one in the private sector paying at least double (and with lighter workload) .

The main distinctions are the pensions differential and the sense of pride I get from doing work that makes a difference.

Many of those elderly people losing the winter fuel allowance are the worst for their 'good old days' golden handshake public sector pensions 😂. Ask any retired Nurse in their 80's about their £1K per month works pension.

Yes, let's scrap pensions, I'm sure all the public sector workers will continue delivering our babies, emptying our bins, wiping our granny's bum, arresting paedophiles, carrying us out of burning buildings, stopping terrorist etc for lower salaries than the private sector....

I work in civil service. I get paid a lot less than when I worked for a private company but needed more local work to be able to care for parents. Lower paid, no private health care, no bonus, hardly any pay rise in last 8 years, no other perks, far more stress and rigid rules. I get paid less than all my friends and now have anxiety and depression thru my work. No final salary pension and less pay means less pension conts. It’s a joy

I have 2 part time jobs. One in the public sector with a pro rata £60k salary and a good pension, the other in the private sector with a pro rata £90k salary but a shit pension.

So I don't believe it when you say that the pay differential no longer exists.

The public sector do not get pay rises linked to inflation. This is why the doctors were striking as their salary's had not kept up with inflation to the extent of needing a 35% rise to equalise to whatever point in the past they were using as a baseline.

You never know when you might need help from one of us after all...

As pp have said generally staff are making much higher contributions than the bare minimum in private sector and paid less to compensate.

Reduce them and I would assume packages would need to be reviewed.

They are a valuable and good benefit.

Meh I'm projected to get just under £18k when I retire at 67 and that's including my state pension. I pay in 5% of my 31k salary, employer pays 7%.
Yes I'm degree educated in a specialist role but it's the charity sector. So I'd quite like private AND public to stop fighting and start looking out for us 3rd sector workers!

A lot of people stay in public sector (despite the wage gap with private) because of the pension, good holidays and job protection. You start slashing those and there will be a mass exodus, leaving public sector services in a worse position than before. I work with both public and private, so have a good visibility of both. As an example, I earn £90k and my equivalent in public sector earns £50k.

I get 1/49th of my salary added to my pension each year. I'm on course to retire at 67 with a pension of £12k. Please feel free to slash it from bare bones to arse end of nothing.

You need to know how final salary pensions work to understand the contributions needed. Changes would need to be carefully handled due to employment and contract law, it's just not that simple unfortunately. Perhaps the Chancellor needs to understand basic economics, instead of charging the every change they want to make ?

As a former state school teacher I would have left the state actor if the pension I was promised when I started teaching was changed in a negative way - and either gone abroad or into the private school sector. And yes, as someone with good qualifications (2 degrees, one from Oxbridge) I could have done that. And I'm sure many other teachers with good qualifications would have done the same (or left teaching altogether), and the quality of the teaching pool applying to state schools would have been less competitive (and some might say less strong).

You’re comparing apples and pears. Your husband is extremely fortunate to take a 6.5% wage increase each year, trust me that is not common practice.

my salary has only increased at 2.5 per year so whilst I accept better than some public sectors I don’t have the benefit of a increased pension either.

agree given public sector is funded by tax payer and apparently there’s huge holes it does need looking at. But why would they vote against their own pockets.

If you cut the pension I might as well move into the private sector where I’d get a higher salary. hardly anybody is on final salary now. The McCloud judgment means a few more have got it back for a few more years but it is predominantly career average now.

And we do pay in. My contribution is about 10%, can’t change that unless I opt out entirely. Increases have mostly been unfounded for the last decade

This!
I worked in the public sector and in 6 years got either zero or under 2%
I'm now in the private sector 6% this year, 8.5% last year with no fight or strike action.

On top of final salary pension scheme dropped, there's no lump sum either. Earning are around 10-15% less in the public sector than private. Reality is that the overall package is similar probably, just private pays more in salary, which in turn could be put in to a pension.

You have to remember, many public sector workers earn around £25-30K a year. I would (someone can say of they know an accurate figure) guess that outside of teachers, fire service, nurses, and look at council workers, probably 65%-70% of public sector workers earn less than the average salary

I agree.