So anyway been busy working all day what did the private sector hard working folk of singletrack towers decide whilst I was working?

In summary, that all public sector workers are lazy, idle and had it coming to them ! (or something along those lines)

In summary, that all public sector workers are lazy, idle and had it coming to them ! (or something along those lines)

I love this place, so many people able to spend all day on the interweb moaning about how lazy another load of people are most of whom they have no experience of.

Oh well hope they have good child minders booked!!

A.A are you up here in Gods country? If not, how are your authorities saving money?

Nope I’m down in the shitty south, TA’s leaving are not being replaced but no redundancies as yet. I expect a few members of SLT are feeling a bit nervous though as the school has to save £100 000 next year and thats not going to be done by loosing a few part time teaching assistants.

I love the concise, well stated arguments on the TUC site linked above:

The pension schemes are already sustainable

Well, that’s me told then, can’t argue with detail and figures like that. 🙄

I love the concise, well stated arguments on the TUC site linked above:

The pension schemes are already sustainable

I would also love to see where they ahave managed to create a new final salary scheme anywhere

this amused me

http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2009/09/07/52034/unison-considers-scrapping-its-final-salary-pension.html

A.A; we are (as well as 15% more for 10% less pension at 67)

Phased end of conserved salary,90% SSP,Probationers at 0.9 of full timetable, all supply paid at lowest scale for first 8 days.10% of SSA to go.No cost of living raise last year,this year,or next two.Chartered closed and finished

That is the take it or leave it offer from COSLA.”In return for certain,as yet unspecified guarantees on job and staffing levels” this is what they are imposing without any debate. Looks like we will be out in 6 months. 🙁

Simon Jenkins can hardly contain his delight.

im sure the cabinet of millionaires are all very excited
it means that all their chums in the private sector will find it that much easier to move in and **** over their employees in the newly privatised NHS

As an ex-civil servant now working for a private company. I decided a great pension, pretty good pay, easy hours, 6 weeks leave a year wasn’t worth spending the next thirty years bored out of my mind, killing time and working with the lazy, incompetent and downright delusional. In my particular area, I reckon if I’d picked the right third of staff we could have achieved the same amount and still knocked off at half three on Friday.

work harder now, for more money and much worse conditions but much happier. And 8yrs of civil service pension is worth about £4k a year, index linked with a lump sum at 60. You can’t buy that sort of pension….

And getting rid of the final salary for an average makes sense. Too many people bumped up a grade a couple of years before retirement…

in the newly privatised NHS

Indeed. The CIF article by the CBI geezer was most telling.

Pretty cheeky, given that private sector bids for healthcare contracts are already taking advantage of workforce training provided by the… NHS.

And much as I accept the reality of the demographic challenges, cost, failure to grip the issue etc etc, it’s galling to see the shortcomings of the private pension swindle industry being used as a stick to beat public sector workers.

it baffles me that the shortcomings of the private pension swindle industry are being used as a stick to beat public sector workers

I’ve seen very little of this, even on this thread. What baffles me is why people with public sector pensions think they should be immune from what you describe as

the reality of the demographic challenges, cost, failure to grip the issue etc etc

Rio – its the whole basis for this attack on public sector pensions. Because the private sector pension provision is so poor then its unfair that the public sector gets decent pensions is the thinking hence this whole debate

If companies had not taken “pension holidays” and if governments had ensured that companies had to make decent pension provision this would not be happening

Teh whole basis for the debate is envy based on lies and propaganda

I’ve seen very little of this

Come on… join the real world! is pretty much shorthand for that very sentiment. I notice that the CBI guy is pretty quiet on the many failings of the pension industry – no doubt the kind of thing which now passes for the “real world”.

I don’t think I’m immune, far from it – but the spin is pathetic.

TJ, I suspect you’ve been reading too much on that TUC web site. The current system is not sustainable unless we cut NHS funding enough to increase mortality rates or cut the number of public sector employees drastically.

A fair system, IMHO, would provide a dignified state pension for all and anything above that should be properly funded (i.e. not paid out of taxes). Why some people think they have some kind of right to make others pay for pensions based on their employment is beyond me.

Edit:

Come on… join the real world! is pretty much shorthand for that very sentiment

I’d read that more as saying what I said; that some people think themselves immune from demographic changes.

Rio – simply not true I am afraid. You have been reading too much tory propaganda

tEH FACTS ARE VERY DIFFERENT FROM THE INCESSANT TROY PROPAGANDA FED TO THE PUBLIC TAHT MANY FOLK BELIEVE

oNE ASPECT FOR EXAMPLE IS THAT MOST PUBLIC SECOTR PNSIONS ARE LOW – A FEW THOUSAND A YEAR – AND THESE are barely enough to lift folk out of benefits – cut pensions = increase benefits bill

**** cap lock!

Why some people think they have some kind of right to make others pay for pensions based on their employment is beyond me.

Because they work for the public sector? That includes the military, all the Mp’s and civil servants, Nurses, Policemen etc, that help the run country.

Perhaps they should just volunteer their services, not get paid out of your taxes and feel jolly lucky they still have a job working for you.

tEH FACTS ARE VERY DIFFERENT FROM THE INCESSANDT TROY PROPAGANDA FED TO THE PUBLIC TAHT MANY FOLK BELIEVE

oNE ASPECT FOR EXAMPLE IS THAT MOST PUBLIC SECOTR PNSIONS ARE LOW – A FEW THOUSAND A YEAR – AND THESE

TJ, you seem to have exploded. 😕

GO TJ MORE sWeaR1nk and Rand0m us3 of numb3r5 please

Fat fingers and caps lock do not make for a coherent arguement. 😳

some kind of right

Much of this has already been subject to negotiation in the NHS – and it will be interesting to see what gets torn up, especially in relation to the contracting-out of services.

Whether an actually-not-very-gold-plated-pension should form part of the deal for those in certain kinds of work is, of course, a matter for debate. Hands up all those who want to be working on (largely under-staffed, under-resourced) elderly care wards until they are 65?

Perhaps they should just volunteer their services, not get paid out of your taxes and feel jolly lucky they still have a job working for you.

Not what I was saying at all. All I’m saying is that employment pensions should be properly funded and not left as a liability for future generations.

I suppose It could left in the hands of Private pension providers…oh, hang on…

TJ’s spot on (never thought I’d find myself saying this after the spats I’ve had with him)………….all those private sector loving STW folk who believe that just because they’ve got crap pensions, and this must be caused by halfway decent public sector pensions rather than the greediness of their own bosses (who, by the way, never forget to feather their own nests in a way that defies gravity), should now resume banging their own heads like metronomes minute by minute until they extinguish that last brain cell. C’mon guys, this is an exercise in extreme masochism – good old ‘if I suffer then I’m going to make bloody sure you suffer too.’ What ever happened to rounding up rather than screwing down?

And for the record, having worked in the public sector for a big chunk of my life, and now having 3 part-time jobs (one vol sector, two private sector) I have to say that I never met these alleged lazy incompetent publicly employed drones you guys seem to meet everywhere. I did however meet many stressed people trying to do their job and make a difference and yes, actually help people, in adverse circumstances. Nothing I have seen more recently in private employment has matched that………..and then there’s the voluntary sector, but that’s a whole new thread.

Because the private sector pension provision is so poor then its unfair that the public sector gets decent pensions is the thinking hence this whole debate

what’s happened to the Unison pension scheme?

Come on… join the real world! is pretty much shorthand for that very sentiment

Hmm. Except I appear to have been the first in this thread to use the phrase “real world”, and if you check my post you’ll see I’ve got a pension which is on roughly the same terms as these new proposals (having previously been on CS terms). This is still a vast amount better than most private sector pension provision, and really not that awful or unfair at all. I’m certainly not suggesting public sector employees should lose their defined benefits schemes (would be rather hypocritical when I still have one).

The thing is, when our terms changed, we weren’t that happy, but working for a (now) private company where the pension scheme has a large deficit (due to market conditions and actuarial changes rather than any pension holidays – though Gordon’s grab had an effect) and pension costs directly affect the viability of the company, you sometimes have to accept these changes when what the company is offering isn’t too bad. It’s these aspect of the “real world” which public sector employees are insulated from.

As for public vs private sector pay, I’m earning less in real terms than when I was a CS 10 years ago, and would be earning more now if I’d stayed as a CS and just got the standard CoL rises. Given the way my pay is going, I reckon there’s actually a good chance I’ll be better off under career average earnings than final salary (and there is no prospect of a big pay rise pre-retirement round here – even assuming I’m still in a job with a DB pension scheme in 3 months time)!

except I appear to have been the first in this thread to use the phrase

To be clear, aracer, I didn’t mean you specifically (or indeed, this thread) – but that is certainly the tone of discussion out there in the, er, real world.

Must go – have to clock on. 🙂

all those private sector loving STW folk who believe that just because they’ve got crap pensions, and this must be caused by halfway decent public sector pensions rather than the greediness of their own bosses

Haven’t actually come across one of these people yet. I’ve certainly never said, or heard anyone else say, that private sector pension problems are caused by public sector pension provision – that’s a quite bizarre statement, and in fact many private sector pensions are extremely good and a lot better than much of the public sector gets. Is “you’re only jealous” the only argument anyone’s got for not reforming public sector pensions to take into account demographic changes?

It is clear that Public sector workers no longer live in the real world. I worked for a private company that had a mix of final salary and defined benefit schemes. The company paid 28% of salaries on top of personal contributions and the cost was rising each year.

I say move public sector workers on to defined contribution schemes where the state matches the contribution made by the employee between 5-15% (still generous by modern standards) and lets see if retired school teachers still buy a new car every two years as most of the ones I know do.

The Hutton report can only be a stepping stone to further reform in 2020.

the politics of envy is such a disatesful thing to see 😯 Why not just work for the public sector after all it is a total piece of piss and you can spend your time doing very little. free market with labour mobility blah blah blah

Affordability is the issue not envy

Nope – envy, hatred of the public sector and lies are the issues

The pensions are easily affordable and in many cases fully funded.

Teh NHS pension scheme has already been revised to take account of demographic changes.

So has ours we pay three percent extra for and extra ten years now and get less in the end but that’s not good enough :'(

Defined benefit pension schemes are never easily affordable.

A worker on £30k would need a pot of £360k to pay for 20 years of pension, It would be like paying a mortgage for 40 years.

mine is 🙁

Well feels like it anyway

As an aside, does this also include MP’s pensions too? Perhaps a good hard look at their benefits would also help.

If anyone could be called workshy it should be that lot. These days they just troop in to tick the boxes their bosses tell them to.

Of all parties.

Which reminds me, does the Labour Party these days have a leader? Where is s/he? Been on holiday or something?

😆

envy, hatred of the public sector and lies are the issues

As someone who has a perfectly adequate pension provision and therefore has no reason to be envious I’d say the issue is more one of “I’m all right, Jack”, the attitude that made Britain the country it is today. 🙄

point of fact for you TJ since you’ve forgotten it since last time, companies were encouraged to take pension holidays when funds were in surplus by the Inland Revenue (as was) otherwise a substantial portion of any additional contributions to a surplus fund were taxed. Changes in accounting principals (FRS17), actuarial assumptions (like forecast real returns and life expectancy) and bond rates have been the main reasons that funds now are nominally in deficit, not contribution holidays which were perfectly rational when they were taken in the late 90s.

In fact even BP and Shell have taken contribution policies as recently as 2009.