to not trust the unions or the government re public sector pensions

[bonded]

With even more fire person and NHS strikes that affects us all I want to be informed on the subject. But I don't trust either of them.

Is there anywhere with a balanced view?

I don't want fire people working till they are 68 but at the same time an average earning fire person having a 400k pension pot doesn't sound affordable.

bonded - all that is available on the net with a small amount of research, done in the time it would have taken to ask the questions!

A £400k pension pot can be very a misleading stat as it makes it sound enormous but is calculated over the lifetime - of more consequence is the annual pension paid, that gives a better understanding. The average local govt annual pension is £5,500 a year. No a statistic generally used about the local govt pension scheme.

The average local govt annual pension is £5,500 a year. No a statistic generally used about the local govt pension scheme.

That's also misleading as includes people that only paid in for a few years and part time workers.

In my case I transferred my private sector pension pot into the LGPS a decade ago because I was worried about private firms losing the money. I am unsure whether I will be able to get at that money at 60 anymore or not.

Hasnt public sector pay increased over the years while remaining static in the private sector

hahahahaha brilliant

My public sector take home pay has reduced, my pay having been frozen for a few years (although this year and last it increased by about 1%) and my pension contribution increasing (which I don't necessarily object to).

We used to receive an increase annually as we moved up the pay scale, but this stopped.

Some years back, a proportion of the pay pot was put aside annually to be redistributed as performance related pay. The majority received a cut of this, ranging from a few hundred (the majority) to a couple of thousand (a small minority), depending on your grade and the outcome of your annual appraisal. This has been depleted so that only 5% (I think) received anything at all last time round.

I don't expect sympathy - my salary is still ok-ish. Private sector counterparts in my profession are paid far more than me, but to date the Ts&Cs I enjoy just about convince me not to jump ship (for now).

Hasn't public sector pay increased over the years while remaining static in the private sector

Not in my experience. Examples please?

Some public sector pay has increased yes. MP's pay and some GP pay as a bribe to accept changes. The rest of us, not so much. Or at all.

I wouldn't be surprised if in some areas mean pay has increased, as the proportion of higher to lower grade posts changes. A lot of the most poorly paid public sector jobs have been transferred to private sector providers. Or simply cut, of course.

www.cipd.co.uk/pm/peoplemanagement/b/weblog/archive/2014/04/01/for-the-real-value-of-public-sector-pay-look-behind-the-numbers.aspx

Which says "The reality is that salaries are significantly less than for equivalent private-sector roles - about half".

And there's www.theguardian.com/money/2014/may/20/pay-rises-private-workforce-public-sector-2014.

"...public sector workers, bank employees and the self employed are getting a financial slap in the face, while the rest of the Britain's 30 million workforce could well be smiling"

So op, many of your assertions are at best outdated and at worst, I suspect, deliberately goady.

I think both of those sources are from biased outlets. I'm not really talking about sallery increases in recent years. More over the last 30-40 years.

I wouldn't be surprised if in some areas mean pay has increased, as the proportion of higher to lower grade posts changes. A lot of the most poorly paid public sector jobs have been transferred to private sector providers. Or simply cut, of course.

I have defiantly seen reports saying it has increased, maybe this is one of the reasons why.

Looking carefully to see where I missed my public sector pay rise over the past few years... Nope. Not there!

I am actually quite impressed a) and the government's ability and b) the General Public's willingness to be duped - to make The Financial Crash become not about Big Finance's greed, unaccountability, lack of legal oversight, 'light handed' financial laws, and yes, bankers, i.e. capitalism raw in tooth and claw; but became all about public sector workers' pensions, those well known avaricious grasping bastards. Imagine demanding what you contractually signed up to when you accepted lower pay and compulsory increasingly heavy pension-input, often many years ago!

What some people fail to understand is one effect of the race-to-the-bottom mentality -that some of those who chose private employment with often higher wages but no pension contribution, now coming home to roost- refuse to acknowledge- is that earners are spenders. If you are a florist or an attic-converting builder, or a clothes shop salesperson- who pays your wage? People spending disposable income. Reduce their wage and therefore spending power either by denying them independently arbitrated wage-rises, or making them have to unexpectedly save harder for their futures- and guess what? You lose your job. Win win? No.

Yet we all 'buy' into the politically expedient idea that The Rich and the Multinationals must be protected as their tax input (the bit they do pay after their tax-avoidance schemes are all exhausted) is so vital to all of us.... Suggest that public sector pay might be protected so that public sector workers contribute to their local economy by spending and they're seen as greedy bastards. As an aside, a government wheeze to vary public sector incomes according to geography will see many places without teachers, nurses or firemen!

This is the Big Fat Hole in the middle of the government's maths: Yeah! Look at us! A Government of low tax/supporting 'hard working families'! Unemployment right down! All those lazy work-shy benefit shirkers back in work.... but hang on... Where are the lovely taxes we were depending on receiving? Oh- I get it.. most 'new jobs' are non-jobs, in fact. Zero hours, minimum wage (and still needing housing benefit to keep a roof over their heads) jobs. Wages too low to pay any tax on. That's the real race to the bottom!

Final note: Who are 'the Unions' if it isn't us, the members? They can only do what we vote on them to do, by and large. They won't call a hard-hitting strike, for example, if they haven't got a mandate; so I don't really blame them for the current pension grab. And I like the analogy of your mortgage provider deciding they want you to pay out for longer.

I 'get' that there's a pension black-hole in some sectors; but successive governments holding taxation down to be able to claim to be 'the low-taxation party' is what got us here, not a sudden grab on the part of public sector employees reaching pensionable age, a sum that was easy enough to calculate and plan for!

Tansie even without the crash many public sector pensions were unaffordable, the crash just forced them to be faced now.

This isn't about a few thousand people in the city that earn stupid amounts.

YANBU. I understand what's happening in the TPS and have read the union literature on the changes. What the unions have put out there has as much spin on it as the Government's. You could try and find some unbiased articles from pensions industry publications to gain an understanding of what's happening and why.

I get why the public sector is pissed off about the pension changes, but they are representative of what's happening in the whole pensions industry as a result of longer life expectancy blah blah. An enormous number of people have had their final salary pensions capped at a particular date and have moved onto defined contribution schemes. It's not a race to the bottom but it demonstrates that it's not the public sector being targetted, but that they are on a very outdated pensions model compared to the rest of the country. And that pensions model is funded by the Treasury.

Better for the public sector to concentrate on the feeling that they're constantly being shafted with 1% pay increases and being made to feel undervalued tbh. The pension changes is clouding the issue and is giving the Government something to hang their hat onto and distract people from the real issues.

I had a 1 percent pay rise for the first time in 4 years , last year , it being frozen for the last 3 before that . I also had in the last 4 years , a 3.2 percent increase in my pension contributions to 14.25 percent of my wages , and the loss of two allowances , meaning an actual pay cut . This year , I've just got a 1percent rise as well . If you put the two pay rises together , then deduct my increase in contributions and the loss of the allowances , then if I work on a Bank Holiday for double time , I get a penny an hour more . Before 40 percent tax deductions of course .

Rofl at CIPD being a notoriously biased source. Careful, dear, your agenda is showing.

bonded
"even without the crash many public sector pensions were unaffordable"

Which ones?

oh I think the OP's agenda was showing from post 1 - does anyone need to be 'convinced' to be on a 'side' plus it's all perfectly Googleable

I suspect the OP knows very well which 'side' they are on

It's not a race to the bottom but it demonstrates that it's not the public sector being targetted, but that they are on a very outdated pensions model compared to the rest of the country

I agree with that 100%.

happy Halloween

I joined the public sector about 13 years ago from the private sector. At my interview I was told that although wages are lower in the public sector, part of the package was deferred salary in the form of a reasonable pension.

In the last few years I have suffered a pay cut in that my pay rises have been zero or 1% which inflation is going up.

Like the poster upthread mentioned, 2 of my colleagues have died very recently within weeks of retiring because our job is tiring and stressful and we put in many more hours than those we are contracted to do.

I like working for the public good and enjoy working with my like-minded colleagues but I hate being constantly treated like a fucking parasite for daring to ask for a living wage or an above poverty level pension.

I don't trust the government, I trust my union more when it comes to pensions.

bonded
"but that they are on a very outdated pensions model compared to the rest of the country"

Outdated or just not screwed over by the politicians and businesses?

Outdated or just not screwed over by the politicians and businesses?

Outdated.

Something that was modelled to pay a pension to someone for an anticipated 5-10 year period (65 to 70/75) is now having to pay a pension to someone for an anticipated 20 year period (67 to 87). This is the effect of longer life expectancy. It stands to reason that costs for providing that pension will increase. Then factor in that the pension is also based on final salary when contributions into the fund were based on 20/30 years of lower salaries.

It didn't matter so much when pensions were only being paid for 5-10 years. But now they're being paid for 20 years, the model doesn't work anymore without it being prohibitively expensive and unsustainable to employers who are subsidising it.

Loads of employers have legacy final salary schemes that they are still having to pay into for past service benefits. The public sector is simply another one of those.

chica

Yet this "outdated" model holds up to scrutiny when assessed.

"the model doesn't work anymore without it being prohibitively expensive and unsustainable to employers who are subsidising it."

It is according to the last government assessment self subsidising.

I gave up with that argument, Boney... no one outside teaching believes me. The demonising has gone too far, the facts cannot sway the beast.

Regardless of the facts and figures we public sector workers are patently overpaid and have pensions that the rest of the world are unfairly subsidising and it is evidently not right - OK?

When will we teachers, nurses, emergency services workers etc get the message? TUT