Drs' payrise should be funded by cutting 23.7% govt pension contribution

[eyeses]

The Telegraph today suggests that the Government could fund a significant payrise to Resident Doctors by reducing our surprisingly high payments into their pensions.

"Yet what is often forgotten is that these doctors enjoy bumper pensions worth close to 75pc of their salaries in retirement – and which are guaranteed to rise with inflation each year.
Doctors enjoy index-linked, taxpayer-funded “defined benefit” schemes, many of which pay a proportion of the recipient’s final salary from the day they retire.
Under the NHS scheme, staff contribute between 5.2pc and 12.5pc of their salaries while the state contributes a vast 23.7pc each year.
By comparison, private sector workers, who are almost all enrolled in “defined contribution” pensions where the value of the final pot depends on investment performance, receive a contribution of just 3pc from their employer.
The NHS is paying out nearly £1bn a month in staff pensions, with almost 2,000 staff receiving pensions of more than £100,000 annually – a figure that has more than doubled in a year."

AIBU - No, junior Drs deserve that we fund a big pay rise and huge pension
IANBU - We pay far too much into Dr's pensions and they want the money now

What Resident Doctors don't want you to know about their pay

The Telegraph is obsessed eith public sector DB pensions and getting rid of them. The only thing they're not keen on saying is who will replace all Dr's, teachers etc when all the current lot quit if they do get rid of the do pension

Why should they get decent pay and a decent pension?

I don’t understand the issue what public sector pensions in general.

If people in the private sector want them then they should join unions and request it is made a priority, write to MPs, etc. or get a job in public sector themselves.

🤣🤣🤣 so in effect cut their overall pay?! Hmm that's going to work real well when doctors are leaving the country in droves

I agree with the OP. Public sector workers always like to winge about pay and comparing it to private sector, but suffer memory loss when it comes to their very generous pensions which private sector workers can only dream of. Time the TOTAL packages were compared not just cherry picking.

I think something has to give, and the pension should be the logical place to cut back. There's nothing to stop anybody saving, investing or opening up a private pension in addition to their workplace pension.

For some low paid public sector employees the pay is terrible and their pension won’t be great either.

Teaching assistants for example probably do not have a life of luxury to look forward to in retirement and many probably rely on universal credit top ups to pay their bills now.

If they public sector pensions they will have to increase wages. People in the public sector are underpaid as the pension makes up a large part of their compensation package.

No Government would ever do this because it would be way way more expensive for the first few decades. That 25% doesn't actually exist, it's just the theoretical value. That 5-12% that the employee puts in is then used to pay the current pensions. If the got rid of DB that money would be put in a pot for the employee and the government/NHS would have to make it up.

The strike is less about pay and more about the fact that we are training doctors who then go and work abroad due to the difficulties of getting a job here!

Well it makes some sort of sense.

someone earning £30k with a 23.7% pension costs their employer £37,130 a year, compared to a standard private pension of 3%, which means total cost is £30,900.

So if you reduced pensions, you could pay a lot more.

Maybe the public sector should consider advertising their jobs as ‘total cost of role’ to highlight how attractive it is, so people don’t think they’ve got the short straw! Or offer up the choice of either higher salary lower pension or how it is now, would cost them the same. They can’t take pensions away though.

That would be one way to cause more strikes.

The torygraph is a joke

Tbh I think the doctors have had a big enough raise already BUT wages should continue to rise every year to a more steady rate.
I also think that they shouldn't have to incur fees for exams.
It's wrong to strike now, when the government have made some concessions.

All state employees should have the same pensions as the rest of us.

The 3% private pension contribution is a minimum. All the professional level private sector pensions i have come across matched employee contributions up to a minimum of 8%, but often more.

I do think that public sector employees often forget the value of the pension they have. But would I swap my private sector pay and conditions, for a public sector job? Not a chance.

Or maybe the private sector should unionise and get their companies to pay into decent pensions

Let people decide what to pay into a pension scheme, as is the case in private sector. It's ridiculous that public sector salaries include a pension contribution that is ignored by loads of employees who would probably prefer to have increased salaries now to pay for eg housing.

Good idea. People seem to value pension far less than salary, even when the cost is equivalent.

Paying a large pension rather than more cash seems really inefficient.

The usual argument for pension is to ensure people don’t fall into poverty after retirement. Is there evidence that doctors are especially prone to this? Or especially unable to understand or weather market risks (so needing a DB scheme)?

But most of them won’t I remember having this conversation with a British doctor in Australia who was happy to give it a go for two years but there was no way it was a long-term move for them
Far too many times to the UK and enjoyed a much better standard of living in the UK places like Australia are expensive to establish yourself in if you don’t have family money and assets
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the price of a desirable suburb in Sydney, Melbourne or Perth, but it’s not cheap

You can in the public sector, you can opt out but are auto enrolled again 3 years later so have to opt out again.

Or maybe private sector employees should get off their arses and demand proper pensions or join unions instead of forcing other people to have shit pensions because they can’t be arsed to fight for a decent pension.

Private sector workers are welcome to come and join us Public sector workers, my working life would be a trillion times less stressful if I had adequate staff to run my service. The pension really is not that good when you are a lower earner, certainly does not make up for the many many years of slog working in many public sector roles.

It doesn’t make up for dealing with the general public either!

State employees should not be allowed to strike, I’m sick of it, just go back to work and do your job and stop complaining like staff in the private sector do.

Here we go again with the gold plated public sector pensions stuff. I won’t get mine till I’m state pension age (so god knows when as I expect it to increase beyond 67 way before I reach that age). It also won’t be particularly big as I’m not very well paid. It’s also very likely that I’ll need to leave the NHS before I reach pension age as I will not be able to do my job until I’m 70, reducing my pension even further.
I know plenty of people in the private sector who have excellent pensions and who are planning to retire before they are 60. I could only dream of that.

But sure, cut my pension, it’s fine.

I didn't realise you could opt put, and have the money instead, that's good.
I agree total remuneration should be looked at for comparing. And also t&c, working hours, job security etc. Its not realistic to say private sector employees should get defined benefit schemes - they are so unbelievably expensive in some years depending on how investments perform.