Local politics and LGPS
I don’t think we have had time to think of the impact of new councils on old pensions but I’d expect this event to be interesting
I won’t be going this year, my media pass has been withdrawn on the basis that I am not a journalist and because I say what I think not what my editor asks me to say. This blog does not carry advertising and is not constrained. So I will speak as a council tax payer in a country that is increasingly exasperated by the failure of the organisation called the Local Government Pension Scheme. LGPS is funded by councils and others who are almost exclusively funded in their turn by ordinary people who pay council tax and similar demands on their income and savings.
The councils who are the major funders of LGPS are no longer being managed by Labour or Conservatives (or even nice Liberals) , many of these councils are being run by Reform who has no time for LGPS and the way it’s run. I don’t suppose the Green party have got to grips with LGPS but I doubt they will side with an organisation who congratulates itself for being in surplus while those who fund them are frankly furious. In case you come from Greater Manchester and are involved in LGPS take a look at who is in charge from today
This map is courtesy of The Mill, a paper emailed to Manchester people that tells them what’s going on. This is what it said last night
The scale of the beating handed to Labour in these local elections is difficult to convey just in words. You need to see numbers and maps, showing seas of red replaced by turquoise and green and yellow; you perhaps need to see the tears and feel the desolation longtime servants of the party are feeling this evening. That this defeat has been suffered in the heartland of the modern Labour Party — the stronghold atop which names like Andy Burnham, Angela Rayner, Lisa Nandy and Lucy Powell have built their reputations — is all the more harrowing.
To suppose that those who hold the council responsible for Manchester’s frustration will walk away is unlikely. The politicians named will have to revise what is being done from Westminster while the Turquoise Reform UK party get to work dismantling what they see the excesses of Manchester’s Council. The Council’s pension scheme – LGPS – will be in the cross hairs from left and right. Does the Pensions UK have an agenda that includes the thoughts of those who voted for Reform and the Green Party?
Local elections , unions and private pensions
While unions remain involved in LGPS, they are now seeing a role for them in negotiating better pensions for their members in the private sectors. for many years they have argued for a return to DB with little impact. But now they are arguing for DB lite (as I’ve heard it called) or Collective Defined Contribution or most easily CDC.
Frustrated for a quarter of a century, unions are finally getting some influence, finding that pensions can be part of collective bargaining delivering “deferred pay”.
Unions have two choices going forward. They can either continue to hide behind a Labour party that protects and funds them or they can step up and become relevant.
I hope that unions will step up and bargain hard for better pensions. There may not be a priority among hard pressed members to lose pay by contributing more or even lose out in take home so that guaranteed income can be paid them. But there is for many unions and their members an opportunity to improve pensions for staff by getting employers to move from DC to CDC.
I see unions taking a view on what has happened around the country to Labour and assert the views of their members , even if Labour cannot. We have not included unions in the discussions of what has happened to politics over the past two days but I think we should.
Unions will fight to ensure their members are protected LGPS and unfunded public pensions that , but they will press for their members in DC pensions will be upgraded to CDC pensions.
What pension impact will there be in Westminster?
Our Pensions Minister’s Swansea seat is in Gŵyr Abertawe and in Swansea, in Wales’ second city only one Labour councillor remains, the Labour leader did not get returned and Swansea is now no longer a place of sate seats for Labour. Torsten Bell’s seat will be in jeopardy. He has an 8,500 majority in Swansea West. He will not be quite so cocky going forward
For our Pensions Minister, the tenure as a politician looks in jeopardy so we must look to what he can achieve while a minister. There is a lot to do, there is the third part of the CDC legislation (Retirement CDC) to finish. There is the secondary legislation to make the Pension Schemes Act stick. This now must become the main ambition of Torsten Bell. The Pensions Commission is for another parliament and cannot be prioritised. Labour must now use Westminster to get things done.
My three conclusions are that the local elections will galvanise the Labour party in Westminster to get things done, will spur the unions to improve pensions to become more relevant and LGPS will need to listen to a new group of councillors who will have different priorities.