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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

that the police get such massive pensions...

499 replies

TakenYears · 25/03/2012 09:57

....and from the age of 50.

Other public sectar workers get nothing remotely resembling that.

OP posts:
cookcleanerchaufferetc · 25/03/2012 21:23

Taken ... Why don't you go off and argue against pensions for MPs, or public sector workers who don't contribute anything? Why police?

TakenYears · 25/03/2012 21:24

"Taken ... You are losing the argument ....."

I don't want to win. I think it's unfair - and I'm not convinced overwise yet.

OP posts:
EightiesChick · 25/03/2012 21:25

YABU. It's a very hard and risky job, if done right. Plomino is right above - the attempt to get us all arguing that one another's occupations should have lower pensions is playing right into politicians' hands. Don't fall for it.

The rank-and-file police must be banging their heads against a wall every time another story comes out about John Yates and his ilk having expensive dinners with journalists and politicians. It has linked all of the officers who do the real work with the tarnished image of the few at the top either sitting around doing nothing or engaged in corruption. Shameful.

cookcleanerchaufferetc · 25/03/2012 21:25

Taken... Why exactly should you get the same pension as a PC?

TakenYears · 25/03/2012 21:25

"Taken ... Why don't you go off and argue against pensions for MPs, or public sector workers who don't contribute anything? Why police?"

I could, but I don't know much about MPs pensions - do you?

OP posts:
ThatVikRinA22 · 25/03/2012 21:27

takenyou know what - im sick and tired of these same old tired old arguments being bandied about. You are ignorant of the facts, clearly, or are you just choosing to ignore what i and my colleagues are saying, repeatedly?

i have massive respect for nurses, but do you work alone?
if you are assaulted, do you have help on hand?
if you are assaulted, who do you call?
i have spent hours getting called to A&E to restrain patients who are assaulting staff, or to remove aggressive drunks, or to babysit another patient that the nursing staff cant or wont. I have been injured in the process.

i am a woman working alone, not having a clue what i am walking into when i answer a call for assistance. I work in a rural area and my backup can also be up to half an hour away.
in my last training session, we had to listen to a recording, in the district in which i work from last year, of 2 women PCs getting attacked with a machete. They pressed their emergency button, that was a routine concern for safety job, and the pcs should have been single crewed, it was the most harrowing thing i have ever heard in my life and it brings home to me that everyday i go to work, my husband and my children may not see me alive again. And i do it for £25k a year. let me just tell you, that with the 11% going into my pension, the fed subs, the added life insurance i felt it prudent to take, and the petrol bill, i am about £200 per month better off than when i worked 23 hours at the local doctors surgery.

where are you getting these figures from? i am certainly not going to get a lump sum and 25k a year - i have recently been looking into my pension and i would be better off in a private scheme. I joined the police at 38.
the new police pension scheme requires me to pay in 11% and work for 35 years.
go do the maths.

if you think we get such a fabulous deal then why not stop moaning and come join us. i am absolutely sodding sick and tired of this, and i wonder why the hell i do it quite frankly.

when i signed up, i knew it was a dangerous job, but what i did not bank on was the endless shit i would have to put with hearing, that endless droning on about how good we are meant to be having it. Why not do the job and see for yourself just how great it is locking up men who are having sex with their 7 years olds, or how fantastic it is picking up bits of people off the road, or how wonderful it feels to knock on someones door to tell them that their son is dead, or maybe you are craving the excitement of having the shit kicked out of you by the drunks fighting on a saturday night, or watching someone jump to their death from a multi storey car park? or maybe you just want the drunk in the back of your car to touch you up repeatedly - have a tiny little peep into the world of policing.

i am fucking well sick of this bitching. i never banked on this shite when i joined.

cookcleanerchaufferetc · 25/03/2012 21:28

No... But you don't know much about police pensions and you are attempting to argue the right to them. I juts hate police bashing. Think they do a great job. Why should you get the same?

cookcleanerchaufferetc · 25/03/2012 21:29

My post was for taken ...

TakenYears · 25/03/2012 21:29

"Taken... Why exactly should you get the same pension as a PC?"

I don't think I should. I think the police should get more than me - but at the moment what they get seems disproportionately more. 5k for me and 25k+ for them. That's a big difference.

OP posts:
DeepPurple · 25/03/2012 21:30

Well said vicar

DeepPurple · 25/03/2012 21:30

My pension will not be £25K Hmm where are you getting your figures from?

cookcleanerchaufferetc · 25/03/2012 21:34

Taken - Police do a dangerous job. They have poor working environments. They get treated like shit. They get physical abuse, verbal abuse etc. They do shift work, often lots of overtime like during the riots. Overtime is not always paid. They literally could be hurt or die any time they are called to an incident. Your job isn't a bit like that at all. Read some of the posts from actual police officers, like vicar, and think twice, and then maybe you will be less ignorant and intolerant.

LumpyLatimer · 25/03/2012 21:34

Oh Vicar matey step away from the thread. There is a lot of police bashing but if you hang around here you'll forget how loved and admired and respected the British police force is. Far more so than any other national force. One day I'll tell you about the lad I knew who was a professional rioter and loathed the British police - until he tried his hand at protesting in Canada and got slung in the cells before you could say 'Occupy This, Muthafucka' Grin

It's not as shite as the OP makes it sound. You can do nothing about resentful ignorant small mindedness. At the end of the day, you are - as I so often tell my DP - a costumed superhero. And precious few people can claim that.

saggarmakersbottomknocker · 25/03/2012 21:35

I don't think you are comparing like for like (aside from the contribution issue) when you quote 5k and 25k.

30 years contributions for an NHS nurse would get you more than 5k according to this document pg 14

Hecubasdaughter · 25/03/2012 21:35

I'm not a police officer as I said above I couldn't do it. According to my pension statement my pension will be £9 per month. Not that it's relevant, considering I can't afford to eat properly now I am hardly likely to reach pensionable age. You know what though I still think the police deserve their pensions. I don't think others should be in poverty just because I am, I'm not that cruel.

PigletJohn · 25/03/2012 21:35

well an MP, after 20 years, will get a pension of 50% final earnings, having contributed 11.9%.

If he is a back-bencher, not a minister or undersecretary or something, he will be on the basic of about £65k p.a. so will retire on about £32.5k p.a.

He is lucky enough to be accruing pension at 1/40th of earnings p.a.

Lots of people accrue at 1/60th or 1/80th (so they would have to work 30 or 40 years respectively to retire on half-pay).

I don't know the accrual rate for nurses or police, but that, multiplied by the number of years you've worked and of course your salary, will determine whether you retire on £5k or £25k or £32k. A lower-paid person will almost always get a smaller pension that a high-paid person.

By my calculation an MP would have to hold down the job for a bit over 3 years to get a £5k pension

TakenYears · 25/03/2012 21:35

"My pension will not be £25K where are you getting your figures from?"

What will it be?

I'm getting figures from my brother-in-law who is 5 years from retirement.

OP posts:
ThatVikRinA22 · 25/03/2012 21:36

if i shout this really loud will you hear it OP?

your pension will probably be better than mine. if i could afford to retire at 58, my pension would have run for 20 years.

it will be the equivalent to a part time wage. i have looked into this. trust me.

with the windsor report, the pensionable age is set to rise to 60 for all police officers - that means we cannot draw on it until we are 60, but in reality, with windsor wanting compulsory redundancy for police officers, a fitness test that results in dismissal for those who fail it 3 times, or dismissal for injured police who are on light duties after a year, how many police do you actually think are going to be still working at 60?

Catsmamma · 25/03/2012 21:39

your percentage is never going to balance up against the percentage a police officer pays in.

plus most police officers do not live to enjoy long luxurious retirements, most of them cark it within five to ten years of retirement. And that money effectively remains "in the pot" for others.

you do seem unduly obsessed with police officers when many of your queries could be better directed.

I am sure there's plenty of folks who think your pension arrangements are cushy compared to theirs.

TakenYears · 25/03/2012 21:39

And by the way - I am not police bashing - that's a rubbish argument and also an excuse for not engaging in the debate.

OP posts:
GinIsTheAnswer · 25/03/2012 21:40

Taken

As a nurse, I simply don't understand your argument. Even if you are paid at management grade, your pension contribution percentage will be considerably less than that of the Police.

You put less in, you get less out.

I'm sure I will appreciate my OH's pension whenever it arrives Grin but I certainly don't appreciate cancelled plans last minute when days off go out of the window. 4 am starts because 'Duties' say so, never mind the complete change in shift pattern and reduction in days off for the 3 months of the Olympics.

As an NHS worker, I have the option to say 'no' to extra hours/shifts/whatever. The Police do not, and have no recourse to industrial action either.

Are you prepared to take these changes in working conditions as well as the monetary advantage?

Hecubasdaughter · 25/03/2012 21:40

So don't you like your brother-in-law then OP, is that the source of the venom I detect in your posts?

cookcleanerchaufferetc · 25/03/2012 21:41

Taken ... Also how often are you faced with vile scum who should be kicked to kingdom come yet as a police officer you are required to be civil? That for me does it. I would not read Ian Huntley his rights, I would shoot him. I would not treat a rapist of a baby civilly, I would want to cut their balls off. I would want to parade the local paedo around the streets warning parents. I could not be dealing with the red tape the Home Office imposes. I would want to punch the judge that says some scumbag who murdered a girl has more rights than the dead girl, or decides to give a drunk a lenient sentence as he has suffered enough .... Just dealing with that is more than I could handle. That is one reason why I could not be a police officer. That is just one reason why I don't have an issue with the pensions police get, even if your figures are skew-wif.

Thank you to all the police officers on here.

TakenYears · 25/03/2012 21:42

"if i shout this really loud will you hear it OP?"

Why are you talking like that? That's very dranaatic. Hmm

OP posts:
Winkly · 25/03/2012 21:42

OP if you worked as a nurse for 40 years paying (say) 10% of your salary (approx 30k now for nurses with London weighting if not more) to only get £5k a year payout on retirement for (roughly) 10 years of your life before you died, your pension scheme is SHIT. You'll have paid in, what, £120k taking inflation into account to get back £50k.

Your maths are fucked or you're not looking at your own pension properly, never mind how unreasonable you're being about police pensions.