Unsustainable public sector pensions
Discussion
Terzo123 said:
loafer123 said:
You do realise that the logical outcome would be to have the worst outcome for all in order to be equally unfair to everyone?
yourself and Sidekick seem disappointed. I take it you both want the government to shaft people who have public sector pensions.HTH
Terzo123 said:
Looks like the judges have delivered the first blow to the government. Their pension changes have been ruled to be descriminatory on grounds of age. No doubt there will be an appeal.
Firefighters, police etc are looking on with obvious interest.
Who sat on the tribunal that found in favour of the judges?Firefighters, police etc are looking on with obvious interest.
sidicks said:
Changing future accrual whilst protecting accrued benefits is not 'shafting' anyone.
HTH
I beg to differ. A & B start the same day, and sign up for the same pension. A gets to retire as was initially agreed after 30 years service with a tapered pension. B on the other hand because of their age is expected work upto 11.5 years more and get a worse pension.HTH
All because of their age. I call that getting shafted.
Terzo123 said:
sidicks said:
Changing future accrual whilst protecting accrued benefits is not 'shafting' anyone.
HTH
I beg to differ. A & B start the same day, and sign up for the same pension. A gets to retire as was initially agreed after 30 years service with a tapered pension. B on the other hand because of their age is expected work upto 11.5 years more and get a worse pension.HTH
All because of their age. I call that getting shafted.
V8 Fettler said:
Terzo123 said:
Looks like the judges have delivered the first blow to the government. Their pension changes have been ruled to be descriminatory on grounds of age. No doubt there will be an appeal.
Firefighters, police etc are looking on with obvious interest.
Who sat on the tribunal that found in favour of the judges?Firefighters, police etc are looking on with obvious interest.
Terzo123 said:
I beg to differ. A & B start the same day, and sign up for the same pension. A gets to retire as was initially agreed after 30 years service with a tapered pension. B on the other hand because of their age is expected work upto 11.5 years more and get a worse pension.
All because of their age. I call that getting shafted.
Things change, not least longevity.All because of their age. I call that getting shafted.
Benefits were never set in stone and guaranteed forever, that's not how life works in the real world!
sidicks said:
You seem not to understand that public sector pensions are unaffordable and massively more generous than those available in the private sector, despite comparable public sector salaries being similar to or above comparable jobs in the private sector (according to the ONS).
Hence there is no justification for keeping them at current levels - by all means retain the DB element but make them more reasonable by reducing the benefit or increasing employee contributions or both.
Fine - but they can still only be changed by legitimate means.Hence there is no justification for keeping them at current levels - by all means retain the DB element but make them more reasonable by reducing the benefit or increasing employee contributions or both.
sidicks said:
Randy Winkman said:
Fine - but they can still only be changed by legitimate means.
Legitimate as in what exactly?sidicks said:
Randy Winkman said:
No idea. I'm just saying that the fact that they "are unaffordable and massively more generous than those available in the private sector" is not the most important point when changing them.
Why else would you change them?!Randy Winkman said:
The thread kicked off again because of a legal challenge. You only seemed interested in talking about how generous the pensions were. I was just suggesting that wasn't much of a response to the legal issue that was brought up.
I was discussing why the legal challenge didn't seem to make sense, given what happened to company pensions and what was happening with the state pension.sidicks said:
I was discussing why the legal challenge didn't seem to make sense, given what happened to company pensions and what was happening with the state pension.
What don't you understand about the challenge? It's fairly straight forward. I think you're being deliberately obtuse. 
La Liga said:
Judgement is here: https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/20...
Still working through the judgement but it is a) certainly inconsistent with the treatment of the state pension and b) extremely interesting to note that not only do the public sector (DB schemes) get favourable tax treatment compared to the private sector (mainly DC schemes) - as far as the lifetime allowance is concerned (they get a multiplier of 20x their pensions where the true number should be 40x (something we already knew) - the judges were previously part of a non-registered scheme which enabled them to avoid the lifetime allowance altogether and although their contributions do not receive tax relief, those contributions had already been correspondingly reduced!!And people wonder why the deficit is £40bn+...
Terzo123 said:
What don't you understand about the challenge? It's fairly straight forward. I think you're being deliberately obtuse.
As explained it's entirely inconsistent with the changes made to the state pension (and previous changes made to public sector schemes) which had some degree of common sense about them.Importantly, what the judgement is saying is not that these payments cannot take place, simply that you can't have preferential treatment for those closest to retirement (ie those with least time available to adapt) so the changes to the scheme have to apply to everyone at the same time.
The only implication is therefore that other public sector workers who retired soon after scheme changes were introduced may have been paid too much and hence need to pay back some money to the state!! This could affect lots of people, as a variety you of different changes have been made to the schemes in the past!
Good luck with getting those retired public sector workers to pay back what they owe and reduce their pensions for the future!!
Randy Winkman said:
sidicks said:
You seem not to understand that public sector pensions are unaffordable and massively more generous than those available in the private sector, despite comparable public sector salaries being similar to or above comparable jobs in the private sector (according to the ONS).
Hence there is no justification for keeping them at current levels - by all means retain the DB element but make them more reasonable by reducing the benefit or increasing employee contributions or both.
Fine - but they can still only be changed by legitimate means.Hence there is no justification for keeping them at current levels - by all means retain the DB element but make them more reasonable by reducing the benefit or increasing employee contributions or both.
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