To be furious that as of 2015 I will be forced into a significantly worse pension scheme (NHS)

[Theboulderhascaughtupwithme]

Ok so not sure how I missed this but it came to me attention yesterday that as of 2015 I will be forced out of the final salary linked pension scheme into a career average one. A version of the new scheme came into effect about five years ago but no one was forced over.

I work part time as a nurse so I am not a high earner by any means, and in common with a huge proportion of my female nursing colleagues I have been relying on the fact that I could redress some of the hit my pension has taken by having to drop down to part time due to having young kids, later in my career at which point I will be going back full time. Now there will be no effing way to make up the balance.

I am feeling so pissed off about this, how the fuck can any one plan for retirement when the goalposts keep on changing every few years. I already pay more into my pension than most other people I know on 'normal'salaries and now I will have to try my best to start another pension or I will still be poor in retirement.

And before anyone starts going on about how fantastic public sector workers have it pension wise, that has never Been the case for nurses ( our pensions are no where near comparable to teaching or civil service for example) and on top of that the nursing pension pot have never been in deficit, in fact currently runs at a excess,with nurses living on average less long after retirement anyway than other professions.

Auntiestella , i think people have short memories , it was the Labour party that really began the process of destroying the NHS and merrily went about doing it for years whilst in power , although they were of course far less honest about their intentions than the current goverment .

Do people even know what the pensions deficit means? It is a forward look, it is an estimate and is not the actual costs paid out each year. You have to accept that it costs money to provide pensions.

The government pays out £75bn a year in state pensions, which are in effect, yet another public sector subsidy of the private sector.

It pays about probably about £20bn in public sector pensions every year.

If the government were serious about cutting costs it would take measures to have proper compulsory private sector schemes which encourage private sector firms to fund instead of the feeble ideas it has had so far.

This would go some way to tackle the deficit.

Same.for tackling the low wages paid by the private sector. The government would then need to top up with tax credits.

And the third thing would be tackling ridiculously high rents which means it pays out obscene amount in housing benefits. Mainly to working people.

The issue I have with the Tories is that to tackle pensions, wages and housing they're hitting the victims without hitting with perpetrators as well. It is all very one sided.

OP Please do not go along with the divide-and-rule tactic of comparing yourself with other public-sector staff: we are all being shafted including those of us with ten years or less to go, who can have no confidence that indexation - even at CPI rates - will be maintained if inflation goes high and the next Chancellor but two announces unctuously that the taxpayer cannot be expected to take the entire burden, we are all in it together, blah, blah, blah. The government that wants to do that (whatever its political colour) will get enough support from the DM without other public sector staff giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

I wonder if in reality what we will see is more people retiring on the grounds of ill health or in the case of my profession leave to work in the private sector or self employed (if the nhs isn't privatized already by then)

Since 1980s public sector workers have been able to opt out of their pension scheme and choose a private one instead. Hardly anyone does, because despite cuts they are massively more secure and predictable, and probably lead to a higher income in retirement.

So I doubt we'll see many people leave the public sector because of pensions, because I think it would be hard to match provision elsewhere (perhaps one of the few companies that are still enrolling new members to their scheme?) and because if you want just to move your pension you can (or at least could, I hope I'm not describing something that has been abolished).

£2bn sounds like a lot but it's not that much of a surplus with the amount of liabilities the scheme has. It wouldn't last long once all the pensions were put into payment.

I think the unions should bear some responsibility for whipping all their members into a frenzy over this. And having read the NUT papers on it, I'm not convinced they understand it either.

I have spent time speaking to pension scheme actuaries about the public sector changes, deficits and how the treasury has run the public sector schemes and I am satisfied that the changes were necessary and no-one has been shafted. And that's when I am personally affected too (through DH's pension). But I understand it and I think that's the key tbh.

I don't think you'll find a single person in the pensions industry who disagrees (but happy to be proved wrong).

With you chicaguapa

I am sympathetic to lots of complaints that nurses have, but I'm not sure this change to pension is one of them

I'm in the nhs, joined in 2008 so missed out on the final salary scheme and am in career average.

I'm not that bothered to be honest. Yes, I'll be worse off.....don't think I get a lump sum for one thing. But I see its fairer.

In my private sector final salary scheme job I worked part time for years, I was ft for the last two years and left. Which really isn't fair on the scheme I guess.

OP, whoever said that your pension to date will still be under final salary I believe is correct. It will be from the change over date that payments from then will be career average. So in effect you end up with two different pensions which I'm sure will be merged to one payment.

So when the scheme is in defecit by 200 billion your happily say don't worry about my pension?

If your unselfish and understand the figures you'd see that the changes are fairer.

Sorry I should been clearer in my post - I was thinking of the age rise more than people leaving because of the pension itself. I know of several people who've recently retired at 55 under the terms of their nhs pension and anecdotally one of the reasons they've gone was keeping up with the physical expectations of the job (and the constant change).

I don't particularly disagree in principle with the age rise but what does worry me is that whilst we are living longer not all of us will reach 65/68 in brilliant unblemished health (this is influenced though by looking at my own family and seeing how they've sadly been unwell in their advancing years) but I guess this has always been the case.

The thing is I am honestly not sure how able I or many of my colleagues will actually be to continue providing quality healthcare to people well into our sixties ( let's face it it will likely be pushed up even further by the time people in my generation retire ( fourties).

Yes we may on average be living longer ( although I suspect with obesity being such an issues now that trend may not be sustained) but living longer does not automatically equal being able to work longer.

I suspect what will happen is people will end up either working whilst sick or disabled ( who fancies that?) or people like myself who have a disability ( in my case hidden) will seek early retirement on medical grounds.

And just to reiterate, pensions for nurses are not THAT GOOD!! I could conceivably pay into my NHS scheme for 35 years and still not get much more out of it than my Mum who paid into a very well managed fund for ten years a while back and still only get the same out!!

Interested in this thread, as in my sector (academia) we are being balloted for industrial action on a similar proposal (moving everyone to career average).

One of the objections to career average pensions in academia is that it disproportionately affects women, who tend to get promoted later in their careers, or who take time out/go part-time when children are young etc.

Can those who've advocated career average pensions comment on that aspect?

'of it than my Mum who paid into a very well managed fund for ten years a while back and still only get the same out!!"

If your DM was paying into a well managed fund over the last 10 years and buying an annuity now, would she get the same pension? It's very unlikey. Low interest rates have harmed private pension funds , and annuity rates are generally very low.

Your DM did OK. And many people already retired have pensions that the current workforce (whichever sector) will only ever be able to dream of.

For some it's already gone horribly wrong: think of the poor people who thought they were investing in a reputable company the then went bust and it took years of court battles to get anything. If your DM had been one of those, then I expect you would look at the risk/benefit equation quite differently.

But Auntie just because some schemes ( terrible for those affected but we are not talking hundred a of thousands here) have been mismanaged or gone bust that does not mean private pensions generally are crap.

If people make the decision to pay into a PP relatively early and keen an eye on the performance of their fund ( not too hard as everyone gets an annual statement) then it's still possible to have a good return at the end of it.

My mum has in fact NOT retired yet, she was a single Mum who at times had four jobs to enable her to meet all of her outgoings and still managed to pay into a pension whenever there was one on offer!!!!

So her scheme is till current and ongoing, I am pointing this out as there seems to be this huge misconception that everyone in the private sector is shafted pension wise which is not tries!!

I know nothing about OP pension scheme, but the way things are usually done I strongly suspect that any pension entitlement built-up under the current system will be protected, and its only extra entitlement that results from employment after the new scheme comes in that will possibly be different to what it would have been. (Possibly because if you don't get promoted then their shouldn't really be any major difference between a career average or final salary scheme, assuming both are equally generous on average.)

I do think the career-average makes more sense than final salary for those funding defined benefit schemes. Final salary is potentially a racket where someone just needs to be promoted to a high salary for a short time to in effect earn a career-end bonus of hundreds of thousands of pounds. Career-average is a much fairer reflection on someone's overall contribution.

Not tries=not true

I think that more people will work part time in their sixties. Maybe the nhs will have find a way for staff to work shorter shifts.

My mother worked 2 shifts a week as a nurse on maternity until the age of 68. She retired after collapsing and having to be taken to A and E. The poor midwives were short of staff at the start of the shift and women's lives were put at risk by my mother literally collapsing under overwork.

I feel my mother is proof that 68 years don't make good nurses/ midwives

Can those who've advocated career average pensions comment on that aspect?

I advocate CARE pensions on the basis that they are more equitable. I would imagine final salary pensions are better for those who go part time in the middle of their career and CARE better for those who go part time at the end as they phase in retirement.

Pensions are expensive. It's a fact. Anything that's going to guarantee to pay a certain amount of money out each year for life has its price, especially when no one knows how long that will be. If someone is now expected to have a 20-year retirement (ie die at 88) instead of 10 years (ie die at 78), the cost of providing that pension has doubled.

Janine

I wholeheartedly second the issue you have raised, eg that as always it is going to be part timers, usually woman with families, who will feel this change the worst.

And particularly woman who have not been married and hence have no right to support from their partners pension fund ( despite the fact that they may have been stray at home parent/ part time to enable the partner to continue in a career).

I advocate CARE pensions on the basis that they are more equitable. I would imagine final salary pensions are better for those who go part time in the middle of their career and CARE better for those who go part time at the end as they phase in retirement.

Are the gendered implications as strong in the cases of people going part time to phase in retirement?

I don't think any thing that disproportionately affects women is in any way equitable.

there seems to be this huge misconception that everyone in the private sector is shafted pension wise which is not true!!

Agreed.

I'm in a private sector CARE scheme, paying 8.5% for 1/60 of my career average salary. DH will pay 9.8% in the TPS for 1/57. That's about the same.

Although people waking up now and realising they need to think about how they are going to provide for themselves when they want to stop working have very few good options. Private pensions or company defined contribution pensions need a committed savings strategy to be able to provide a decent income after 65.

So public sector scheme members do need to understand that whilst their pension benefits have been reduced, it's still a very good pension benefit. But I don't think they should be pathetically grateful either, which is what I think people in the private sector think they should be.

My husband is in the military and as of next year he gets swapped onto a career average pension. However (and I hope this is the same for other public sector workers) the pension he has accrued until now remains unchanged. So, he has served for sixteen years up until now and has another fifteen to twenty years left (depending on the rank he reaches). When he retires, he will get the first part of his pension on a final salary scheme, the second part on a career average.

No matter how they spin it, it isn't as generous but everyone is in the same boat and a lot are worse off. At least the military pension is non-contributory and pays out relatively young, in recognition of the toll service can take on the individual. My husband passed his initial pension point this year (aged 40) and could take his pension and do something else - he's already has two operations on his knees and will need replacement joints when he's older. It's a very physical job, even if he enjoys it.

We've also paid into private pension schemes for each of us since we were married to top up the pension we'll get from the government.

Local authority pension schemes had distortion ate burden on the lowly paid workers. Lots of people are n very lowly paid jobs get very little with a final salary pension scheme. Women are paidly hit as they rarely get promoted after having children or take a career break.

people who have worked in menial jobs tend to die sooner than top executive fat cats. Yet in the past they paid the same percentage. Final salary pension schemes are only good if there is the prospect of progression.

It's a bit of a bummer. I have less than ten years to go (only just), and whilst my 1995 scheme pension will be frozen, I will be forced into the new scheme in less than a couple of years. Payout of this will not be until state pension age. Had I been a couple of years older I could have remained in my current scheme until I retired at 60. The new scheme links with state retirement age.

I've now got less than 10 years to work out how the hell I am going to make up the shortfall and implement it.