Public sector - Pensions

[maisiejoe123]

AIBU - to get irritated by the public sector bleating that they are being picked on with regard to their final salary pension schemes and being asked to retire at 65 as opposed to 60.

Why are they any different from others? I would love to retire at 60 but my company has moved the retirement date to 65. The state pension age has also moved. I understand all of this and whilst I am not happy (dont want to chase my retirement!)I accept that things need to change.

And they plan to strike???

tazmosis - the redundancy terms for central gov are so generous i can't see how they could ever make anyone redundant. I work for a company with pretty generous terms, but they are nothing compared to gov ones - was amazed when i read about them.

if you worked for the private sector then your terms can and do get changed - my future pension has changed - unlike you, though, i feel lucky to have a company pension at all.

in an ideal world this wouldn't happen - but you cannot expect to continue with such massive redundancy and pension packages paid for by a public which has had all this taken away. even with the reductions you are talking about you still get a much better deal and countless surveys show that you are now paid better than the private sector

vival - i'm not a pension expert but everything i read says you have to take a long term view with pensions. so sometimes the company i work for has a massive surplus and sometimes it doesn't - depending on the stock market. Plus with everyone spending longer in retirement the surplus may get used up that way.

I don't read any of them, frankly. I voted Labour in 1997, but grew out of it. :-)

Would be interested to see the basis for your "totally affordable" suggestion. If that's the case, why have the Hutton review at all? You may have noticed that the country is in just a bit of a financial mess. Perhaps we should just print some more money, no? It stinks (as I said) but with the economy going to hell in a handcart, I don't think there will be a great deal of sympathy for strikers.

There is no way I will be standing in a class room at the age of 65 trying to get coursework out of pupils and marking most nights. Hell no!

flumposie - how do you think engineers feel about climbing up electricity and telephone poles, or going down holes in the road at that age? noone wants to be working at 65 - but you can't have one section of the population finishing at 60 and another working till they are 67 (and paying for those to retire earlier).

So you want 65 year old firemen?

I'm utterly sick of hearing about 'gold-plated' public sector pensions. I have worked in the NHS for many years as a health care professional and I am well aware that the pension scheme has been regarded as a very good scheme compared to private pesions. BUT you only get your pension at the end of a long career and I have never been paid for overtime or taken time back. I have always stayed at work because I care deeply about the job I do and the people I care for. We have had a 2 year pay freeze and there was also the threat of a freeze on incremental pay increases. I haven't 'bleated' at all - what's the point? Apparently it's hard working public sector workers who are being punished for the excesses of millionaire bankers (that's bankers with a silent w!). Bitter, me? Not at all!

Why not? Because it was never designed for people to live very long after finishing work, or even getting to the point where they finished work at all.

So what's needed is a paradigm shift because folks, this is how it is now.

Never mind what you were promised.

Tough.

You want to live to be 80+ years old you need to be mega-friggin' rich or else you're going to have to toil along.

Me, you, our kids, their kids, everyone.

There's no magic bullet here, people. The money's either there or it's not, and let's not forget the ones who will be in power, our children's generation, might not be willing to toil along till they drop so others can retire at 55 or 60 because they don't feel like working anymore.

I'm afraid there will be few exemptions allowed, I know I won't be one of them, that's for sure.

But people are going to have to get over this idea that at 60 they're going to be able to prop their feet up except to play golf or walk up a gangplank to the cruise ship for 40 years because I've a strong feeling it ain't gonna happen.

'BUT you only get your pension at the end of a long career and I have never been paid for overtime or taken time back. I have always stayed at work because I care deeply about the job I do and the people I care for. We have had a 2 year pay freeze and there was also the threat of a freeze on incremental pay increases.'

You think it's different for everyone else?

'So you want 65 year old firemen?'

If they're there to help I really don't give a rat's arse how old they are.

I've got mates who are 65 who can run circles round my 40-year-old fat arse.

• Because, no other job in this country requires you to put your own lives at risk, deal with drunken yobs, unsocial hours with said yobs/chavs/annoyances/dangers to the public, often with 4 days of this in a row, and have threats made to you regarding your family or petrol bombing your house.

• Because, without them most of us would not be able to give birth in a safe environment despite suffering from stress and severe burnout when you feel you cant attend call outs any longer due to you having 2 hours sleep over 4 days.

• Because, you wittness harrowing scenes often, see corspes of those of every age, which often dont smell too nice and is distressing to deal with

• Because, you deal with the most vulnerable and dependent of those in society

• Because we wouldn't have all of the above if we didnt encourage those to teach and deal with spoilt brats with challenging behaviour/chavvy offspring every day

• Because...Oh for god sakes give our:

• Police Officers
• Midwives
• EMTs
• Control Staff
• Ambulance Staff
• Organ donation service
• Nurses
• Firemen
• Teachers
• LSAs
• Coastguard
• Mountain rescue

A bloody break and imagine yourself in their shoes.

Nuff said.

And of course our armed forces :)

This will all become more privatised and voluntary, banana.

That's reality now.

And there will not be the money, there just won't be the money, to support so many for so long.

The age will have to be raised.

expatinscotland - I'm not saying it's different for anyone else but I resent the fact that people complain about paying taxes to pay public sector pensions. We all pay taxes for essential services, that's no different if you work in the public sector, and yes some of that money does pay for pensions but we pay significant amounts into this monthly. I always wanted to become a nurse - I could have picked another profession that was more highly paid but chose not to. There are few perks and you face your fair share of verbal and, at times, physical abuse but I was aware of this before I entered the profession - the pension scheme was a bonus.
I can't understand the battle between normal workers from public and private sectors - it's wasted energy but fuelled by the Daily Fail. There are individuals from banking walking away with huge bonuses whilst largely owned by the taxpayer.

Yes, there are bankers walking away. We are workign poor people who live in a rented, damp-infested place.

But people voted in this government.

'and yes some of that money does pay for pensions'

It is now the most significant percentage of the 'welfare' budget.

And it will grow as boomers retire.

What is to be done about it?

Things will have to change. There's just no way round it.

I was told my pension was deferred salary

I have allready had to pay more for less

the gov wants to change a deal they made with me, to suit themselves for reasons not of my making without me having the time to 'make it up'

none of this really matters since I have lost my job and been looking for nearly a year now

i received no redundancy pay

as a result of which we lost our (rented) home

My private sector friends have carried on with their private school fees, investments, and swiss ski chalet buying without missing a beat!!

And, guess what people, as well as paying in nearly 12% into their own pensions, they have to pay tax and NI too!

The NHS pension scheme has a surplus each year so more is paid in than paid out - the surplus goes directly to the Treasury.

The average female NHS worker walks away with the grand sum of £3500 pa pension - not exactly gold-plated in my opinion.

I can't comment on other public sector pensions but am aware that there are differences in maternity pay between public sector departments - some areas pay full pay for 9 months. I think that's the risk of the collective term public sector.

You need to remember the jobs these people do. Frankly, society would be alot worse without them. Somebody posted a link the other day, of the most stressful jobs according to some research. The top 8 were all frontline public sector jobs. Remember, most people do not grow up saying "ooh, I must work in the public sector with the great pension". They just want to teach, or police, or fight fires, or nurse. It is not a question of public or private, you just want to do that job, and public sector is all there is. The pension was a draw, because frankly over the past fifteen years, all my private sector friends have had bonuses, and pay rises, and health benefits, and the flexibility to move for better conditions. We have had none of those.

Expat, you have totally hit the nail on the head re increased life expectancy etc - people are living so much longer than a generation or two ago. When retirement age of 60/65 was set, people only lived for maybe another 10 years max. My grandfather for example, retired at 65, died at 71.

There are lots of retired people now who are part of what was, frankly, a golden era - many of those who were born in the 30s/40s bought their own houses (and did well financially), all got final salary pensions enabling them to retire by no later than 60, and are now sitting on a pension of c £15k a year, plus house, investments etc. A friend's dad who worked for a big financial institution for 30+ years(but only in a lowly admin role, average wage) is financially better off since retiring because his pension is tax free and he doesnt pay to commute. Lot of others like him BUT that was never a reality for any previous generation, nor will it be for ours or our childrens - we can't and shouldn't expect it. There isnt the money there once was - simple fact.

And as for not working beyond 65 - why the hell not? Where do people get the idea that working at 66 or 70 is somehow beyond and/or beneath them? My father had no pension provision so really had no choice but to work - however he was still able to do so in a v physical full time job (6 days a week, 10 hours a day) until nearly 70, despite various health problems. It's certainly not impossible to work past 65, and I suspect in coming years it will be the norm.

It is not impossible at all to work beyond 65, but it does start to vary from person to person and job to job. At that age some people will have health problems, and then people will bleat about them being off sick. Some jobs are tougher than others, physically or emotionally. Ideally, it needs to be judged individually.

Im sorry but after the "how much do you earn" thread, I cant take any of teh comments re private sector seriously.

And the point about peoples' tax paying for Public Sector Pensions - have you considered why this is? It's because successive governments have failed to invest/put to one side the money that was 'deducted' before settling on the pay scales for public sector employees. Not even the 1.5% that is paid by even those with a non contributory pension.

There are now thousands of people facing a poorer future who could have made different choices if they had known that a governement could wipe out their contractual terms and conditions without reserved rights.

But, hey, there are other people in difficult situations who don't work for the public sector - so the public sector should pay. After all we are all lazy, wasteful and without proper jobs

The World health organisation (WHO) classifies the elderly as those over 60.
So my home and nursing home visits to "the elderly" will take a completely different slant in those last years heading towards 65 (or probably 70 by then)