to think that doctors shouldn't go on strike over pension changes

[starwarrior]

Why shouldn't they just suck it up like the rest of us?

Yes it's about doctors going on strike but we are going on strike because of changes to the NHS pension, a doctors pension doesn't exist in isolation. And the NHS pension has traditionally been a good one, but so is the teachers pension, police, civil service etc. Doctors are generally amongst the highest paid within the NHS (apart from managers and let's not go there) so of course their pensions will be higher as they will have higher salaries and have made higher contributions, and pension is based on salary. Maybe there's more representation from doctors on his site because many women make it to the top level in medicine (which is a good thing, right?) and perhaps there are fewer women who are head teachers of large secondary schools, police inspectors or senior civil servants - I don't know.

And no I'm not advocating a race to the bottom but the argument about not being able to afford these pensions would hold more firmly if the changes were applied to all. Currently the 'we can't afford it for teachers or the NHS but it's okay for civil servants and judges' just doesn't wash. And the NHS pension fund is currently 2 billion pounds in surplus, not sure about other pension funds.

Babybarrister, why don't you retrain and become a doctor? The pension is great you know!

I would give figures if I could. I can tell you that DH is early 40's and has about 15 years with an average salary of 38k, plus a couple of years with no contributions due to being overseas (training fellowships). His salary after a few years of being a consultant is 72k. We don't know how many more years he has to work - he actually had a letter from his trust this week informing him to disregard his contract and that he no longer has a retirement age figure. So I suppose if over the years its decided that his retirement age is 90 then that will work out as a much higher pension that if he retires at 65.

Out of interest how much are your contributions a month. How much tax relief do you get on those contributions?

snoozy you have just shown why public sector employees miss the point that private sector employees are trying to make.

Yes ,my contributions are lower but not only that my pension at the end of the day will be much lower because private sector employees are mostly in "defined contribution" schemes that means that they have a pot that is saved a the end (after massive fees have reduced it) and have to use that pot to buy a pension .In my case despite being in what many would deem an equivalent profession to medicine my pension is worth about £6000 a year .I have paid in for years but to get a pension worth what a doctors pension is I would probably have to have contributed about 60% a year !

Public sector employees have defined benefit that means that however much they contribute they will get a pension at a certain level when they retire for example 2/3 average of final salary .So for example someone on £72k could expect a pension of roughly £48,000 a year plus a lump sum .Yes you do have to pay higher contributions and your employer also has to pay high contributions but you are "guaranteed " a pension at a certain level at the end of it .

The important ratio to compare is contributions:pension ,and on that basis Doctors and every other public sector pension holder have not a leg to stand on .Yes they pay more in but for the amount they pay in they get a darned good deal ,

Don't think anyone has said they get a bad deal on pensions compared to the private sector, that's a moot point. What everyone's saying is the private sector should be better not the public sector worse and the current change is not necessary in order to make the system sustainable it is just an arbitrary unfair pay cut.

Snoozy asked how much my contributions were and how much tax relief i got because like most defined benefit pension holder she is thinking of the contributions like an extra tax ,so she was trying to compare

outtolunchagain, you're right I don't get pensions, TBH I've never really put much thought into it. My major concern at this stage is the retirement age! I'd like to spend time with DH after the kids have left home before he dies. Values you have quoted above are final salary scheme and NHS pensions are now average scheme and there won't be a lump sum.

However, instead of telling us why the NHS pension is so good, tell me why your pension is so bad. Surely it would be better for you to put your contributions into investments if your contributions so far will only give you £6000 a year.

I really don't get why people are complaining that NHS staff have a decent pension pot just because they don't. I could see why they would complain if it was being propped up by the state but whilst there is a surplus going in then it shouldn't be a problem to others. If it is unsubstainable then there shouldn't be money from it going into the treasury but instead it should be ring-fenced for future pensions. Maybe instead of criticizing the NHS pension we should be working out ways of making private pensions better.

I couldn't agree more, snoozymum, it IS time that attention was paid to why private pensions are so unreliable/shite, rather than sniping at the public ones.

I can't help feeling that the government would rather this spat went on, as it diverts attention from the real issue.

Snoozy - the NHS pension scheme is being propposed up by the state. The surplus is a red herring in an unfunded scheme like the NHS (i.e. current contributions are used to pay today's pensioners). The notional 'surplus' will dwindle as more people retire (and those already retired live longer). The crunch point will come when all the extra staff recruited under the last Labour government retire. When it goes into deficit, it will be subsidised by the state i.e. taxpayer (from whom most of the contributions already come anyway).

Private pensions are tied to the stock market. We have been in recession since 2008 (!) (There are separate issues with the amount charged to manage these funds, but the nub of the issue is that almost all other pension schemes are linked to investment performance.) This is why NHS and other public sector pensions are described as 'gold plated'.

I think this is a tactical disaster for the BMA.

LurkingBeagle, I get that the 'surplus' will dwindle so why isn't it being invested - why is it going into the treasury?

I also don't understand why you say the taxpayer makes the contributions for the public sector. Is it because NHS staff get paid from public money. If so, then obviously the easy answer is to privatise the NHS but nobody wants this.

What happens to private pensions when the stock market performs well? 2008 was only 4 years ago. Recessions don't last forever (I hope not anyway). When private pensions start performing well again, will there be a big outcry about it?

TBH I'm not even sure that we'll notice the strike, Dh will still have an operating list on that day as most of his work is emergencies. He has a meeting that has been cancelled so he will only be working from 7.45 -5.30.

You can't make private sector pensions as good as public sector ones without either bankrupting the companies that provide them, or bankrupting the state.

I agree with everything babybarrister has posted. One of my clients is a consultant. He is on the verge of retiring. Pension will be £28k p.a. plus LS £190k from age 60. Transfer value is £800k, so £610k is going to provide the annuity. Contributions to the scheme are 7.7% of income.

The pension in payment will increaase in line with CPI, and have widows benefits thrown in. If Joe Muggins wanted to buy an annuity for himself from a personal pension, at age 60 he would need to put £800k the way of the annuity provider, not £610k (got from "At a glance" annuity tables). If he wanted to work for 30 years until age 60 (as my client did) and pay 7.7% into his pension to give him a fund of £800k after 30 years, assuming a real rate of return of 5% (that's over and above inflation - and quite optimistic at present) he would have to save £1000 a month for every month of that 30 years. He'd have to earn £156k p.a. That is 70% more than my client is earning at the end of his career, and £1,000 a month is twice what he is actually contributing. And my guy has only been paying at the higher rate for the last few years.

If my guy's career average is 60% of his final salary, he has been paying one-third of what Joe Muggins will have to pay.

That also fails to take account of the fact that Joe Muggins won't have any widows benefits in his annuity.

Who pay for this? Well, predominantly the taxpayer. If my client's pension was funded solely by his own contributions, he'd have been paying 4 times the amount he was.

Collaborating - only because of the importance placed on profit. They private sector has chosen profit over people. You can't have good wages/pensions and profits no.

Who do public sector workers work for? Maybe the public? Maybe they also draw huge benefits from that work and they would pay more and get less if it was done by the private sector because the private sector take profit for the corporation elite.

I am not sure of the exact percentages but for example in the teachers pension for every £1 that is deducted from the teacher roughly £2 is paid in by the employer ( in the case of the public sector the employer is the state I.e.the taxpayer).

My pension is invested in the stock Market but as someone said earlier we are in a recession ,plus the difference is your dh's pension is not paid from his contributions but from the contributions of those paying when he is in retirement ,he will get his pension regardless of the economy.Everyone else has to go out into the Market place with their savings and buy an annuity (an investment that pays out an annual amount until you die),these are becoming more and more expensive for a variety of reasons so to buy an annuity yielding £48k a year a person would need to save approximately £1.2 million over their working life,I bet your dh won't have put in nearly that amount but he will get it anyway.

No business could afford to employ people or operate effectively and provide these levels of pensions it's just not viable .So it is pointless going on about how the private sector should provide the same level of pensions as the unfunded public sector ones .

I would love to spend time with my dh in retirement ,he works a minimum 60 hours week ,however we both know we will have to work until we drop .

collaborate, you're talking about someone on the old scheme though. The new scheme (whilst still very generous) doesn't pay out this well. It was altered 4 years ago to make it more sustainable.

offred those profits pay the corporation tax that pays for the NHS ,schools etc,plus they pay for more people to employed .What do you want all businesses to make a loss and pay no tax?

I agree with babybarrister and collaborate
For what its worth, I don't think doctors should be allowed to go on strike. They should be one of the professions like the police, that are not allowed to strike. They are potentially putting lives at risk which is presumably the very thing they became doctors to prevent.

I think the BMA are shooting themselves in the foot on this one. They would have been better to have taken action over the changes in GP commissioning. There would have been far less bad publicity. However Iif the current industrial action doesn't acheive its aims I wouldn't be surprised if it escalated to boycotting the commissioning proposals.
The whole thing is going to be one big mess and result in a big work backlog for the doctors and very annoyed patients.
I think that the government may make concessions over the retirement age by increasing it in stages, rather than going from 65 to 68. Neither side will want to admit defeat.

The bitterest irony I see in doctors moaning about how bad their working conditions are, and how they deserve enormous pensions for it, is if the pensions weren't so enormous perhaps the working conditions would be better...

MOSagain

Doctors are not going to go on strike. People taking part in the industrial action will not be doing any routine work that day, but will be at work as scheduled ready to do urgent and emergency work.

Outtolunch - please go away and look up the actual stats. Tax evasion, not including avoidance, has been greater than the budget deficit for over a decade. Corporations are not paying their taxes, this is well known. Anyway it is a moot point because profits that go to private hands don't exist in the public sector, all the money stays to either provide the service or goes back to central govt.

Obviously tax evasion is contemptable but if private employers (and most people are employed in small businesses not big conglomerates)were required to provide the sort of levels of pensions that public sector employees have then they just wouldn't exist as businesses because they would be making no money at all .Businesses need to make profits to survive.

I work in this field so I am not talking out of my hat .

"Tax evasion, not including avoidance, has been greater than the budget deficit for over a decade. Corporations are not paying their taxes, this is well known. Anyway it is a moot point because profits that go to private hands don't exist in the public sector, all the money stays to either provide the service or goes back to central govt."

1. Tax evasion is ILLEGAL. Some forms of tax avoidance may also be illegal but tax evasion is entirely illegal. If you are aware of any companies practising it, I suggest you nip down your local nick and report it.

1. Corporations in the UK are paying their taxes. Some of them may make use of tax planning and legitimately plan to minimise their taxes. In much the same way as you as an individual may put some of your hard earned lolly into an ISA so that it is not taxed. There are some but very few engineered tax avoidance schemes that are legal. The amount of public ignorance on this issue is frankly quite frightening.

1. I don't understand your final sentence at all. I have no idea what point it is making. I would however comment that taxation pays for public services (in a healthy economy). Or increased borrowing (in an unhealthy one).

I'm aware it is illegal but HMRC needs adequate support in order to police it. The government has spent oodles of cash cracking down on tiny amounts of benefit fraud and undercut HMRC to the point where it no longer even functions adequately. People who pay PAYE can't avoid tax but it is fairly common for big corporations like Vodafone and Goldman Sachs to illegally evade tax and wait for HMRC to chase them then cut a deal. Quite often this then establishes a legitimate tax avoidance scheme that was previously considered evasion.

I mean where there is profit that profit is money going into private hands. It doesn't matter how much tax is paid it cannot compare to the public sector where there isn't any profit taken into private hands.

Businesses don't behave like people. They don't just obey the law. They do a calculation to see whether breaking the law is the best financial option and it often is because the punishment is often a fine and in the case of tax evasion a court hearing may very often go their way because of HMRC underfunding and the power of these big corporations.