To think public sector DB pensions should be illegal

No they don't mean that at all, you're spouting nonsense. The issue is funding state pensions and the shrinking population is the issue because today's taxpayer pays for today's state pensioner - the issue is demographic profile and this has been forecast as an upcoming issue for decades.

This.
I have a high/top band.
I paid a LOT of contributions as did my employer ( GP practice) towards my final salary pension. I claimed it last year- now only work PT and continue to contribute towards my other NHS pension.
If you're jealous you know what to do/.

Look at the military pensions if you thr public sector ones rile you op.
My husbsnd is early 50s and been in receipt of his immediate raf pension for a few years. Its on pa with the average wage and increases at age 55 and SPA.

I work in public sector (joining over 15 years ago). I don't get a DB pension , it is DC. If you are lucky enough to have been in public sector for decades then you may have DB pension but most are not doing it any more and have moved over to DC.

I have no problem with civil servants. I have known many in almost 50 years of adult life, and they range from brilliant to uninspired. But the remaining index-linked DB pensions are something of an anomaly, although I make an exception for ex-military, mainly because I am privileged to know several ex bomb disposal operators who put their lives on the line every working day, in Northern Ireland mostly. Anyone who walks towards a 200lb explosive device in a heavy soiled stinking shared suit to take that apart safely deserves public gratitude and a solid pension.

Definitely an anti civil servant thread than actually about pensions

@Tomikka not disagreeing with any of that. I would just add - because the OP is floating the idea that public sector DB pensions should be declared ILLEGAL because in some way they're unfair on people with private pensions - that the government does support private pensions through tax relief on contributions - about £60bn this year. I feel there's a bit of an anti-public sector sentiment in the thread, as if private sector employees "pay for themselves" while public sector workers are on a gravy train. I wouldn't dispute that public sector DB pensions can be more generous - and less risky. But private pension funds are doing ok. Very difficult to assess the average growth of pension funds, but someone's had a go:
"the performance of default funds of the UK's biggest DC workplace pension providers averaged a 9.3% annualised return for young savers over the last five years. Young savers are defined as those 30 years from the state pension age. Pre-retirement pots, defined as those within five years of state pension age, achieved a 6.1% annualised return."
[ https://freetrade.io ]

There is no ongoing tax payer liability to private sector pension funds because the tax payer is not the employer

For public sector pensions the tax payer is indirectly the employer
Whether it’s DC or DB. For it to be DC the tax payer would actually have to pay up front to pay into public sector pension funds

The state pension is a tax payer (and individual NI contribution) funded DB pension

Public sector pensions are tax payer (as employer contribution) and individual (as employee contribution) funded DB pensions

Both the state pension and public sector pension contributions go to funding current claimants, and have the promise of getting your own pension paid at a later date

Public Sector pension DBs are not a set amount like the state pension, but a calculated valuation based on the number of years and levels of contributions, this is therefore similar to private sector pensions in the sense that there is an assumed equivalent pot. Even though the “employers contribution” never existed and the “employees countribution” was paid
to other people instead of into an actual pension fund

To create equivalent pension funds the tax payer would suddenly need to reach into deep pockets to find the money to put into individuals funds

I didn't much like being an employee either. 😆
But I didn't have a Plan B. 🤷🏻‍♂️

It’s not the same for all occupational schemes. Most private sector schemes are now DC, so there’s just a pot of money available at retirement for the individual, with no guarantee as to the amount and no ongoing liability for the employer.

The advantge of being self employed is that only you control your position. So you can make the best decisions , obviously within the rules, that deliver the results you want. I do not have to consider anyone outside my immediate family or their interests when I review where we stand on our pension. Right now, we have taken our 25% lump sum and given it to our one child, to buy a house, outright. While we still expect one of us to live another seven years.

I really would not want to be an employee. I didn't like it in the 1980s and I haven't been employed since then. But I also was very good at what I did, and the work kept coming in.

This sums it up perfectly. I think my NHS pension looks pretty shit considering I’ll have paid in approx 40 years of contributions when I finally retire. Successive governments have fucked with it. DH has a much better private pension which I’d receive if he died, on the other hand if I were to die he’d receive a paltry amount from mine. The whole gold plated thing is a huge myth.

it is just wrong to imply that this is paid for by private sector workers! Public sector workers pay tax too! (I’m a private sector worker btw).

@Papyrophile your situation seems a long way from a discussion about whether public sector defined benefit pensions should be illegal, tbh. And a bit beyond my ken. I'm no financial or pensions expert, I just try to get my head around the basics of economics. I don't know which politician "rewrote the rules", but it sounds like your tenant who "wrecked the building" is responsible for at least some of your loss. It does sound pretty risky, funding a business from your pension plan, but I've never run a business - and almost certainly couldn't - so I can't really comment.
A public sector job with a DB pension is a safer bet on the face of it, but the industry I was in made a lot of people redundant over the years so it's not all plain sailing. Job losses hit colleagues of mine who worked hard & were good at what they did; the decisions are taken way above your head & have nothing to do with your personal performance.

The 65 yr old, if they didn't have the pension, would have to claim a whole host of benefits so it would cost the public purse more.

The average teacher pension is just under £10,000 a year, which reflects that it’s such a female dominated profession, and that so many female teachers go part time after having children.

I really think you are over estimating how generous civil service pensions are.
My partner earned barely two tirds what he could in the private sector- 80% of civil servants are entitled to claim Universal Credit- that is basically all civil servants with children- that's how low the pay is. My partner worked for DWP for 33 years he retired aged 58 and even with the whole of his lumpsum ploughed and sond some additional contributions into the pension pot still barely gets £12,500 a year- not exactly princely. This is combined with the fact the NI contributions are lowered because the pay is so poor, so when he gets his OAP it will be less than two thirds the full amount. So should DB pensions be illegal because they are hugely generous- no because they aren't.

But you're not talking about a pension fund in the true sense there - you're talking about having made a property investment in lieu of investing in a pension fund. That's a completely different, and much riskier, kettle of fish.

If you'd put the same amount as you spent on that industrial shed, spread over the years so you didn't exceed the maximum permissible for pension contributions, into a personal pension fund then allowing for the compounding effect over the years you may well have been as well of without the risk.

You talk about keeping "your people" paid - presumably they weren't employees as such as you'd have a legal obligation these days of having a company fund set up - which is another option you could have looked at for yourselves?

I don't disagree with anything @Gizzasec writes. But my situation is one where both partners in a marriage were self-employed from age 35. No company has put money into my pension since 1990. DH and I have one company and one professional practice, and frankly in 1994, both were very risky. But we persevered, and gradually we got our heads above water. There have been good years, but also long periods when we have taken nothing for almost 18 months to keep our people paid every month.

We bought a single industrial shed in a very good location and set up a SIPP to own it. Good tenant, long occupancy... mortgage paid, and in the honey. Company closed with the principals retirement. New tenant, wrecked the building and went bankrupt. We were £50k down in 18 months. Now we are rebuilding our pension fund. We are already 70, and although I enjoy the intellectual challenge of making it work, I can see that the endless administration demanded by HMRC is going to pall. Our heir is temperamentally unsuited to keeping it rolling. When that day comes, I know who will buy it.

This is not a whinge. It's an explanation of how and why some people make money. You think, you plan, you strategize. If you are right, you come out ahead, and then some politician rewrites the rules... that is what irks me. Twenty five years retirement planning trashed.

This. Exactly this. And all this funded/unfunded talk is a bit meaningless. My DB pension is paid from a company pension fund, which ofc invests the money. And a big chunk of those investments (about £1.4 trillion) are in government bonds, because they're the safest. When people talk about "government borrowing" it's often portrayed - particularly by journalists - as a bad thing. They say stuff like "they're maxing out the country's credit card". But in fact the govt is borrowing money from - and paying interest to - UK pension funds, both public & private ones. That's an excellent thing for a government to do. It means our public services AND private industries can offer good, competitive pay & pension rates to employees, meaning they attract top talent. Helps keep us the 5th largest economy in the world when we are only the 22nd largest population.

The "unfunded" public sector pensions appear on the annual balance sheet as it were, and get people's backs up because they think, ooh look at all that money we're paying out! Couldn't that be better spent on other items on the balance sheet? Defence, health, whatever. But if they were made into "funded" pensions, like mine, the funds would invest in govt bonds & interest would be payable on those bonds. That's how pension funds stay solvent, keep pace with inflation. So the govt is still supporting those pensions, it would just appear elsewhere on the balance sheet, as part of borrowing.

Government supports both public pensions, "funded" or "unfunded" and private pensions, through interest and tax allowances. That's a very good thing for the UK. The problem's with the language, really. "Unfunded" makes it sound like a debt that you've got no money to pay. It's not that.

I don't think that's quite correct @celticprincess . English state schools can't force that on teaching staff. Independent schools can and have, using "fire and rehire". State schools can offer an alternative to TPS but they can't mandate that staff switch to it. The Trust in question is still fighting with the DfES over it.

Trust to go ahead with pension change despite DfE 'threats' https://share.google/lsUdrxtegQRYkhri3

Anybody with any financial noise who was designing the system from a fresh start would recommend a defined contribution based system. So on that basis I agree with the OP.

However, changing to that from where we are now would cost billions more in the medium term as the employer contributions would need to be paid to the new DC scheme along side existing retirees.

On that basis, I don’t think it’ll ever change to that. But in an ideal world I would advocate for higher public sector salaries on a DC based pension, purely to take away the unknown nature of future liabilities.

Some schools that are part of a multi academy trust have actually stopped TPS for some staff and new staff and moved them over to other pensions which are cheaper for the trust. There’s been uproar on many teacher forums about this. I’m an ex teacher of 25 years but much of that was part time and my pension sits at the equivalent of 12 years full time. Many women particularly end up with lower pensions than men working in the same sector as women are the ones to take leave and reduce hours. I’m now working for the LA in a non teaching low paid role and have just been enrolled into the LGPS.

Exactly this!!!

Both of my parents were civil servants for over 40 years.

They both paid into pensions all of their working lives but were also both dead before they reached 70. The money they paid into the system far outweighed the money they ever received in pension.

It’s grim but I wonder how many public sector pensions are not or mostly unclaimed. I also know of more than one teacher who has retired then died within 2 years of retirement…

So there’s that. Morbid, I know!