To think public sector pensions should be slashed?

[Monwmum]

I'm probably going to be slated for even suggesting it....but in the private sector, high percentage final salary pensions were phased out in the early 2000s because they are a money pit and unsustainable. They were continued in the public sector as a sweetener because (apparently) public sector jobs were lower paid.

This simply isn't the case anymore. After years of frozen pay or meagre 1 or 2% pay increases in much of the private sector versus mainly regular inflation based pay increases in the public sector, this gap has been reduced if not closed completely. However, public sector pensions are still getting contributions of the high 20% figures while private sector pensions range from 4% -10%.

Quite a difference! Am I being unreasonable to say this would be a good place to start saving some of our tax money? And before people start saying there would be outrage just remember this was done to every private sector employee in the early 2000s so it can be done.

Exactly, there is also no clarity atm around whether local authorities are exempt from the increase in Employer's NI.

OP like many thing these days you'd do well to arm yourself with the actual factsand not come ranting with some BS post that just isn't true

The contributions would need to be decreased for new joiners. 20-28% is not reasonable when most private sector employees are getting 3-5%. 10% is more reasonable.

And I’m quite aware that they would need to go into a ring fenced pot. That’s exactly as it should be.

@boohoo76 The private sector employee can pay in 28 percent if they wish. Nothing stopping them so long as its under the annual limit which is about 40k i think.

Theyll probably still take home more than the Public Sector worker.

The pension is the only reason I still work in the public sector I would be earning more in the private sector and wouldn't be helping people for free anymore. The public sector needs to do more to hang onto its good workers not less.
Also, we don't get bonuses like you do.

Exactly, and add on bonuses too

The size of public sector should be slashed, full stop.

The UK economy has a productivity crisis and the bloated public sector is only making it worse. More than 50% of all spending in this country is by the government. Just think about that. That effectively means that less than half the spending is by private businesses that actually create wealth and hold the economy up.

There are more pen pushers in the MoD than there are front line soldiers.

The NHS has never been bigger or more inefficient.

Civil service departments like Brexit still employ tens of thousands of people. Five years after Brexit.

The public sector is stuffed full of Mickey Mouse jobs and cronies. It needs cutting down to size. Radically.

Having worked in the public and private sector I know that is not true for all employees. There are plenty of people in the private sector that are on similar salaries to the public sector or lower plus they get tiny pension contributions and only SSP.

There are some issues with skilled professionals, such as law. I know that a legal colleague was in the same banding as someone who was basically doing admin and had no qualifications other than a few GCSEs. That’s why there are so few public sector lawyers left and many local authorities have to spend huge amounts of money engaging outside law firms. The salary scales need to be revisited but it wouldn’t necessarily cost any additional
money. If they paid solicitors properly they wouldn’t have to spend huge amounts of money on external legal advice.

My DH has never got a bonus on his life in the private sector. Neither did my dad in a 40+ year career. It’s nonsense to think all private sector employees are getting huge salaries and huge bonuses.

Can someone give me some real examples of pay that is lower in the public sector than the exact equivalent in the private sector.
It's bandied about a lot, but I have never seen any evidence, like for like, that this is the case.
I know a lot of jobs are not a thing in the private sector, so comparison is impossible, but I've seen examples such as a local authority solicitor saying they could earn three times as much in the private sector (as long as they moved to the other side of the UK and went up several rungs of the ladder), which isn't helpful, as a direct comparison would be more like a conveyancing solicitor in a small practice, which would command a similar salary to the local authority one.
I know in my profession, although there is no direct equivalent in the public sector, people who have moved over to local councils to do a role within their knowledge always command higher salaries and would have to have a couple of promotions in my job to reach that salary level.

1. Public sector pensions are no longer final salary.
2. As a public sector worker I've not had a pay rise which has been anywhere close to inflation in the last 15 years, and didn't get one at all for at least 5 of those.
3. Contributions are a % of salary...salaries which are generally lower than private sector so are relative.
4. Not all public sector bodies are funded by tax payers. My employer isn't.
5. I also pay taxes same as everyone else.

Agree! There was a pay freeze from 2010-2013 then a 1% cap which was lifted in 2018 but reinstated in 2021-22. High inflation since then has led to higher rises but certainly not enough to outstrip COL rises!

Please tell me the Brexit department still employing tens of thousands of people, five years after Brexit?

The way to deal with it, in my view, would be to retain all existing CS workers on their existing pension arrangements (i.e. a DB scheme, be that final salary or career average). All new entrants, should be paid a salary comparable to private sector equivalents, but on a DC pension scheme.

@katypp The NHS consultant that was on this thread earlier is a good start....

I'm currently working for minimum wage and for most of next year, while the unions negotiate, I'll be working for less than minimum wage

We already have a recruitment crisis at all levels of the NHS and especially at the lower bands

Slash the pensions and there will be no one left - the pay is shit, the conditions are shit, many of the patients treat us like shit and trashing our pensions would be the final straw for most of us

The likes of the Daily Fail highlight a tiny portion of the fattest of the fat cats, the 'Sir Humphrey Appleby' types, but the majority of state workers have nothing like that income and will have nothing at all like their pensions

1. but they are on whe whole still defined benefit, which is still like winning the lottery compared to the defined contribution schemes we have in the private sector.
2. No one has had inflationary pay rises in the past 20 years or so. No one. Stop thinking the grass is greener. It isn’t.
3. and yet pensions are still massive. That’s how bad private sector pensions are.
4. interesting. A public sector body not funded by the public sector. The whole definition of public sector is that it is funded by the public.
5. out of money paid into the state by tax payers. Public sector employees introduce no new money into the economy, and yet there’s more than ever before and making them redundant is really very hard even tho productivity is on the floor.

The future NHS pensions liability alone will eventually crash the UK economy. Something has to change

I was recently contacted about a legal job at a small private practice firm. I am almost 20 years qualified and they were paying up to £45k!

Because private businesses put their own money into pension schemes, I (rightly) have no say in how that money is spent.

I absolutely have an opinion on how my taxes are spent, hence I think the general haemorrhaging of cash in the public sector should be stemmed.

Given our new chancellor’s propensity for spending other people’s money like there’s no tomorrow, I doubt it’s going to happen though.

The magic money tree is shedding g leaves like crazy.

UK public spending is at catastrophically high levels. The country borrows almost £20b a month just to pay welfare and debt interest.

The debt levels are over 100% of annual GDP.

More than half the country are net takers with less than half paying for everyone else.

The public sector has never been bigger, or more ineffective and useless.

This country will soon be the new Greece. If you feel the pinch now, wait until what’s coming.

Look at how much an accountant or solicitor gets paid in the private sector compared to the public sector. The public sector pay is no where near as high as the private sector. We are already struggling to recruit decent candidates into professional roles where I work because we can’t compete with the pay that the private sector offers.

Spoken like a true daily Mail reader.

You can’t slash the pensions without increasing salaries dramatically and no government will pay more money now to save a future government money.

did you learn something? I suspect not though. Economic illiteracy is not easy to correct. But keep trying.

If you want to attract the best people there has to be a reasonable offer. On average public sector pay is much lower than the private sector. People know that they may be paid less but accept that because the pensions are good although not as good as they were.
Public sector jobs are important, society relies on them . Why should there be a rush to the bottom for their terms and conditions.