I am hoping to be balanced with regards the LGPS. I support this pension scheme being a beacon to which other schemes (including CDC pension Schemes) can reach. I support Prospect who I was with yesterday and whose Conference I hope to go in June. But I am not a member and am a council tax payer who pays more into other’s pensions than I do into mine!
It’s important that a counter-voice to the calls from unions is published. I gave Prospect space on this blog and here is an informed counter .
Prospect’s plans for LGPS gave rise to some comments by my reader “CH”.
The two points quoted below sound wonderful, but amount to enabling member benefits to accrue without the contributions normally required from the member: “- Making authorised unpaid absences of periods under 15 days automatically pensionable
– Make unpaid additional parental leave automatically pensionable (with the cost met by employers)”
Great for the members in question, but the cost of providing these additional benefits must fall on someone, so who is that?
Only two ‘funding’ sources appear available: either other members must contribute more/accrue less benefits OR council tax payers must contribute more money.
It seems obvious which of these two will be the one that actually pays: taxpayers.
Next, we have the statement,
“Prospect has called on the government to adopt the measures across other public sector schemes”.
Of course Prospect calls for additional benefits for its members. This is the raison d’etre of a union — batting for its members.
But is it equitable that the taxpayers funding much of this generosity get no real say in the matter?
Afterall, most of these taxpayers are themselves already struggling to fund their own pension provision, and a sizeable number — the self-employed — have little-to-no non-SP provision of their own accruing at all, yet their taxes are being directed towards making another cohort’s pensions more generous.
When you drill down into “who actually pays?”, it’s not difficult to see why a growing number of people might view this as an inequitable two-tier system: decent pension provision for public sector workers, sub-par pension provision — or worse — for many of the rest, with the former well-provided group funded principally by the latter poorly-served group who, partly as a result, cannot afford to make sufficient provision for themselves. It’s only rational for them to be unhappy about this inequity.
This disparity in provision and of its funding arises, and has survived, only because of its opaque nature. Given greater transparency, the unhappier some people — those funding it via their taxes — are likely to become. I am not a Reform supporter or voter, but can you blame some politicians for beginning to focus on the matter of public sector pension provision and upon whom its cost falls? It seems like an open goal, and a substantial constituency will be supportive.
