To think the old style pensions should be capped.

[Blindering]

ok, I am in Ireland so unaware of how UK pensions function but my neighbour who worked as a college lecturer but retired in 2008 in his 70s gets 600 euro a week in pension, equivalent to 513 stg.
This is on top of a 150k pay off he got when he left the job which I believe all civil servants here were getting.

But aibu to think a bachelor living in a house with the mortgage long paid off has no need for over 500stg a week? Like what would one need the money for at that stage in life?

They have for the most part been stopped. I think you mean final salary pensions? They are exceptionally generous but did depend on working for government run institutions. Nurses used to get them I know.

They are over generous imo but can't be retrospectively changed.

@titchy

Basically the TL:DR version of OP:

"my neighbour saved their entire life and now has lots of money. Waaah it's not fair he should have some of his savings removed."

Yes, it's funny. Nearly.

The PRSI class is different for pre-95 civil servants meaning that no contribution is taken from their wages towards pension. The whole deduction that's taken goes towards the superannuation pot.

If the country ran out of money then those pre-95 civil servants would have ZERO entitlement to a state pension.

They have for the most part been stopped. I think you mean final salary pensions? They are exceptionally generous but did depend on working for government run institutions.

Lots of private companies also ran final salary/defined benefit pension schemes but most closed them to new entrants when they realised the schemes couldn't cope with so many people living longer. These pensions are generally more generous than defined contribution/money purchase schemes. However, as the final salary pension was a big part of the remuneration package, in my experience companies had to offer higher salaries to attract new hires once those pension schemes closed. There were people at the same level as me being brought in on one and a half - double my salary and still complaining about the pension. But they had a lot of money beyond what I was earning to put into alternative retirement savings plans if they had been savvy enough.
I'd be mightily pissed off if my pension was retrospectively reduced to give more to people who earned way more than I did who hadn't planned for their retirement well. Yes, I am only talking about the specific environment I worked in but also know from talking to friends in the private sector that this wasn't unusual.
The fact that there is a pensions crisis (both private pensions and state pension - I now get my state pension at 67 not 60 as it would have been) is because people are living, fit and well, for much longer. What does a 70 year old need money for? The same as people in their 50s and 60s who aren't working. I have several friends with parents in their 80s who pre-covid were still doing long haul flights and cruises in their 80s

You are shooting yourself in the foot with your 'stats show that only 10 percent go into care' point, as (not withstanding that many more pay for care in their own home), people who don't need care can live full and happy lives and SPEND THEIR PENSION , where they are in their 60s, 70s, 80s or 90e.I'm eye rolling at your inability to admit you are being educated by this thread and refusing to acknowledge how ageist and unpleasant your OP was. But I am becoming even more irritated by your inability to use bold or quotes.

@borntobequiet

I’m actually astonished that anyone can think that pension income isn’t taxed, like any income. (But it’s true that if on the state pension you don’t pay NI, for obvious reasons. Perhaps they’ve muddled the two.)

They're probably muddling it up with certain benefits. In the UK attendance allowance isn't taxed for example. And someone on only the state pension would fall well below the personal allowance for income tax.

The PRSI class is different for pre-95 civil servants meaning that no contribution is taken from their wages towards pension. No contribution was taken from the salary when paid, but the salaries were set by a national remuneration committee in comparison with private salaries, and once they came up with a figure, they reduced it by, if I remember correctly, 8%, to compensate for a “contribution free” pension.

@Disneycharacter

They have for the most part been stopped. I think you mean final salary pensions? They are exceptionally generous but did depend on working for government run institutions. Nurses used to get them I know.

They are over generous imo but can't be retrospectively changed.

Thing is you're wrong even about that. Final salary pensions for teachers and nurses etc. were generous on the face of it - but in practical terms the payouts people got were not that high because the people involved were disproportionately female, had had career breaks and had therefore not accumulated a great many pensionable years at high pay. The averages were heavily skewed by a small number of very highly paid public sector workers.

@MereDintofPandiculation

The PRSI class is different for pre-95 civil servants meaning that no contribution is taken from their wages towards pension. No contribution was taken from the salary when paid, but the salaries were set by a national remuneration committee in comparison with private salaries, and once they came up with a figure, they reduced it by, if I remember correctly, 8%, to compensate for a “contribution free” pension.

Initially this was a good deal for the government I believe as payments to pensioners were paid direct from govt funds and not from a pension fund. At first the number of pensioners was fairly low so they clawed back more than they paid out meaning that the govt actually made money from the scheme. As the number of pensioners grew and more CS jobs were outsourced the balance went the other way. Another positive for the govt was by taking the money before it went into the pay then the pensionable salary was lower so the pension was smaller.

The majority of civil servants are in fairly low grades so on retirement the pension isn't the vast amount that the seniors get. I think the average is around £8k (remembering that a lot are women who may have returned to work after family etc so may not have the years service in)

I wonder how your 'pensioner pal', as you put it, would feel were he to read your unpleasant opinions about him.

This is not, as you claim, about 'inequality' - it is about your envy and your resentment, and your feelings of entitlement.

So, uk civik servants retiring now with 40 years' service, is their pension half their final salary and their lump sum 1.5 times their final salary??

This is the case in ireland for retirees who have been in civil service since 1979-1981 ish

It will be 14 years before there are no retirees leaving with these benefits.

In the uk, will new entrants retire with a pension based on the amount they paid in? And if so, from what year did that change?

I always believed that irish civil service pensions were very similar to uk civil service pensions.

On the current CS Alpha scheme, there is no lump sum, and it doesn't start til state retirement age.

I pay in £980 pa, and get approx £450 pa added to my pension, so after 5 years, I'll get about £2k pa.

Not sure if YABU or not, but I remember also seeing the pension of a retired civil servant, about 10 years ago.
He was on about 70,000 per annum in retirement and also got a lump sum of about 150,000.
Those days are over, the boomers pulled up the ladder behind them - unless you are politician/establishment, of course.

@GiantHaystacks2021

Not sure if YABU or not, but I remember also seeing the pension of a retired civil servant, about 10 years ago. He was on about 70,000 per annum in retirement and also got a lump sum of about 150,000. Those days are over, the boomers pulled up the ladder behind them - unless you are politician/establishment, of course.

He would have been earning £140k pa to get that sort of pension. That’s Permanent Secretary/Head of Government Dept level. Hardly the average civil service pension.

We can't blame older people as it was just the scheme but there is a generational problem where pension schemes are very different nowadays & nowhere near as generous. This combined with wage stagnation, ever increasing housing costs & low interest rates so saving is more difficult has lead to big inequality.

People aren't paid according to their needs. Thats the pension he is entitled to for the job he did.

@thegcatsmother

On the current CS Alpha scheme, there is no lump sum, and it doesn't start til state retirement age.

Thanks, I'll google civil service alpha scheme, I want to know how they compare! That's really SAD AND WEIRD! Sunday morning and I'm googling british civil servants' pensions! I'm interested

@thegcatsmother

I pay in £980 pa, and get approx £450 pa added to my pension, so after 5 years, I'll get about £2k pa.

And you'll have entitlement to the state pension as well? The amounts you quoted are what I pay in to the single scheme (new Irish civil service pensions since 2013) and when I retire I won't have full service as I only came in the CS in my forties. I'll have a state pension about 13k topped up by about 4-5k so not a fortune but enough to live on I suppose.

Somebody somewhere will be grudging it to me! in 2035!