There is a temptation to regard the Pensions Regulator as something “other” and the people who work there as being different. The Pension Regulator, in employment terms is no different from any “other” , the people who work there have the same needs as anyone else.
News that the Pensions Regulator’s staff are going on strike is sad news, but it is tells me that the Regulator’s staff have reached the limit of “compliance” and now choose to exercise their right to withdraw labour. They are not happy.
The PCS union says “nearly all” of its 371 members at the Pension Regulator’s Brighton headquarters, will be strike taking action over the next fortnight. That is nearly half the TPR’s workforce
Those going on strike include “nearly all” enforcement officers at TPR said PCS.
— Josephine Cumbo (@JosephineCumbo) January 9, 2024
Within any organisation of 800 or so staff, there will be different limits of compliance and some colleagues will stay at their desks while others will not. In practice the distinction of working and striking from home is making the phrase “withdraw labour” harder to monitor.
I see the tensions at the Pensions Regulator as both necessary and ultimately desirable. There is nothing that could be worse for TPR than a spineless acceptance that as regulatory officials , they are “other” and beyond taking arms against a sea of troubles.
I can’t say I’ve ever gone on strike, but understanding those who do is important. Going on strike means sacrificing pay and is rarely about the happy faces around the brazier, the image of disputes of my youth. It is a “cold and hollow hallelujah” – to use Leonard Cohen’s phrase, an assertion of a right not to agree.
And on the other side of the dispute, those who are calling for new practices and new working conditions. The executive of any organisation are at odds with their own colleagues.
Having been to the Pensions Regulator a fair few times, I think it a Regulator which has a clear sense of its own place. Sometimes I have found the people there self-important to the point of pomposity, sometimes I have found them too compliant, almost as if some suffer from an under-confidence. It would be wrong to generalise about the culture.
At yesterday’s Pension PlayPen coffee morning, at which there were no members of the Pensions Regulator on the call, we discussed the confusing signals coming out of the Pensions Regulator. The old creed hitting up against a new one. Overseeing this, a relatively new CEO and executive and a quite different Chair.
It is disruptive to staff, to have to cope with the degree of change brought not just by new management but a new attitude from the paymaster – the DWP. It is disruptive to move to new premises at such a time and I am not surprised that many of TPR’s staff are fed up.
The view I have of TPR is that it is undergoing necessary change and what is needed from outsiders like most of my readers, is a little sympathy. The Pensions Regulator is not different, it is made up of people like us, who need to feel valued. I hope both for the sake of the Executive and the Staff, that this strike will end well and end soon.
I’m not sure I agree or have much sympathy, Henry.
I don’t expect “policemen” to withdraw their labour, and they should respond to a higher calling. Staff numbers have, like so many back office jobs in the public sector, increased a lot, while presiding over the demise of so many DB pension schemes’ future accruals.
Allan Martin has also suggested on here that TPR’s own future pensions costs may be soaring because of the latest change in SCAPE discount rates.
I would like to know if there is a pensions dimension to this pay dispute.
And did you ever get an answer to your question about TPR’s response to the W&PSC?
Allan Martin has kindly now explained to me the impact of the 2020 valuation of the Civil Service Pension Fund (as reported in September last year):
As a participating employer, it appears that TPR will pay 28.7% pa from April 2024, while members pay 5.6% pa.
The previous employer rate was 27.0% pa after the 2016 valuation (triennial valuations only seem to apply in private sector DB and LGPS).
The employer also will pay 27 basis points pa towards scheme administration costs.
Just wonderful, while systematically shutting down DB for millions of working people, this group of consultants rack up gold plated DB pension for virtually no cost to themselves (well 5.6% before tax relief !).
It would add hurt to injury to find out these pensions are funded off of the back of the levies of the very DB schemes they’ve shut down, being considered too risky for shop floor workers in the private sector?
Just like the Post Office persecution of innocent post-masters, the guiding hands behind this will no doubt remain anonymous behind the veil of corporate history and plausible deniability.
If you happen to work in the wealth creating business sector, then that’s considered too risky to avail you of a decent DB promise, but if you’re part of the dead weight of the State, you’re set for life in retirement?
We may have to disagree here Byron. Firstly, I would support the police’s right to withdraw labour. I suspect that there are many long-standing grievances that we know little about. This strike should not bring the Pensions Regulator into disrespect.
Police officers are not employees, but rather, hold office as Crown Servants and as such lack many of the rights that employees elsewhere take for granted, such as the right to strike and take collective action.
This status also comes with some benefits for police officers; they cannot be made redundant and cannot be dismissed unless it relates to a conduct or performance matter; they have the right to be consulted on pay and conditions, and crucially, though arguably this appears to be absent currently, have a promise from government for fair pay and conditions to be guaranteed.
This promise is renewed for England & Wales with each renewal of the Police Act. (The position up in Scotland is rather different.)
Call me old-fashioned, Henry, but I expect more from office holders and regulators.