View Full Version : Public and Private Sector Pensions!
weeboyagee
28-Nov-05, 14:43
Well, well, well........ I've heard it on the news today and wondered (before I voice my own opinion!) what everyone thinks of the public sector employees being able to retire at 60 and the private sector not being able to retire until 67!!!
Do those in the Public Sector think it is right that they can retire at 60 while the rest work on? Do those in the Private Sector think that it is right that they should be able to????
TOTTALLY WRONG. Cival servants get more holidays, alot of them get extra pensions, full pay when ill and they want to retire early should be the other way around! Or to be more fair because of people living longer everyone should have to work longer to help pay for everything.
TOTTALLY WRONG. Cival servants get more holidays, alot of them get extra pensions, full pay when ill and they want to retire early should be the other way around! Or to be more fair because of people living longer everyone should have to work longer to help pay for everything.
You are talking through a hole in you head, I'm a newly retired Civil Servant, and I had to work until I was 65.
Extra pensions...where? ......I never got any extra!!!!!
More Holidays..... I got 6 weeks holidays that was with 41 years service.
Full pay when off sick...aye for 6 months only.
And my great pension was paid for as the result of low wages, the pension was part of my wage negotiations
Golach, we all read in the papers that civil servants get to retire at 60, so I assume that at least some of them do! Do you know which subset of civil servants are the lucky ones? Somehow, I imagine they might be the ones with the best-paid jobs.
67 it should be 60 for everyone what a disgrace.
Golach, we all read in the papers that civil servants get to retire at 60, so I assume that at least some of them do! Do you know which subset of civil servants are the lucky ones? Somehow, I imagine they might be the ones with the best-paid jobs.
Oh Aye DrSzin, I could have retired at 60 on a vastly reduced works pension,
and then would have had to wait a further 5 years to qualify for my State Pension, which I may add is a reduced sum to what the normal male pensioner gets, as Civil Servants were contracted out, which qualified us to receive full sick benifit.
But I digress yes I could have gone at 60, but with 4 years mortgage to pay. I dont think so.
I was a Administrative Officer / Assistant Officer / Clerical Officer / Band 3
just some of the wonderful titles HM Treasury thought up, these were all the same job / grade.
for those Civil Servants who were of higher grades then they had to go at 60 but as you said they were the better paid
Civil servants can be a right bunch o whingers. Only 6 months pay for being off seek. Ma hert bleeds for them.
Maybe a spell in the private sector would inject a spurt of reality up their ungrateful unraxed rear ends. Unlikely! They couldna handle it. Job Security is a wonderful cushion against the ravages of life. 6 months full pay for overcoming the stress that comes with the job is indeed a remarkable elixer.
I know Im generalising and ma owld mate Golach is unlikely to have been one of the skivvers recuperating on full pay for 6 months but for goodness sake wheres the deterrant against abuse in that nice little wage deal? Presumably the pension continues to be credited during illness? Im sure theres research somewhere that would show that civil servants have been so weel kept during their working lives that the poor craturs live longer and therefore take more out of the pot than the rest of us.
Euro MPs are another bunch of overpaid big pension grabbing beurocrats.
MPs too rob us blind whilst justifying their excesses as necessary expediture. How long before wur councillors join the gravy train? As for our MSPs Im lost for words.
Aye its an ill divided world right enough.
Golach, i should have been clearer. I ment a lot of cival servants get a pension fund, as in more than the state pension, like a lot of dounreay employees(cival servants basiclly, as in my tax pays their wages) As in the holidays i get 20 days and that includes christmas etc. If im ill i get no pay for the first 3 days then approx £60 a week after that(i think it is) I have to work to 65, maybe 67.
Thne very least that should be done is that everyone,regardles of where they work, or if they are male or female, retitres at 65 to get the state pension.
TOTTALLY WRONG. Cival servants get more holidays, alot of them get extra pensions, full pay when ill and they want to retire early should be the other way around! Or to be more fair because of people living longer everyone should have to work longer to help pay for everything.
Very interresting topic. I hear the same arguements here in the states. I was a civil service employee who planned to work until reaching the age of 70 years, but due to heart problems I retired at 66 years. Like I tell the folks in this country, "you had the same opportunities to work civil service as I did, but you chose the private sector. So quit your complaining."
Golach, i should have been clearer. I ment a lot of cival servants get a pension fund, as in more than the state pension, like a lot of dounreay employees(cival servants basiclly, as in my tax pays their wages) As in the holidays i get 20 days and that includes christmas etc. If im ill i get no pay for the first 3 days then approx £60 a week after that(i think it is) I have to work to 65, maybe 67.
Thne very least that should be done is that everyone,regardles of where they work, or if they are male or female, retitres at 65 to get the state pension.
I pay my taxes too, so where is your argument, I decided to pursue a job in the Civil Service, and yes I knew that I would get a pension...at what cost?
As my owld pal Gleeber says it was my decision to be a Civil Servant, ok I agree and I worked for 41 years on not very good wages, but I knew that I was in a non contributary pension fund, again my choice.
As for the 6 months sick pay Gleeber, sorry mate that was negotiated long before I joined, and thank goodness I never had to take more than a few days sick leave in my whole career. Again this was a condition that was brought up at every wage increase negotiation by HM Treasury.
I and most Civil Servants do/did their jobs to the best of their abilities, so the whinging masses could get their Giros delivered till their doors, ( Yes I was a Postman too) and I have been chased up the street by a workshy lazy pratt at 8am looking for his Giro whilst in a snow storm, and I am no supposed till get angry because I started work at 05:30 in the morning, an he had the nerve to ask me for a loan.......I lost a days wages as a fine for that instance.....It was worth it.
weeboyagee
29-Nov-05, 11:22
Interesting answers.
Tea-break time in the private sector and I write this little contribution before I barge in with all guns blazing later on! The fact that the government could even contemplate a difference in retiring age is damnable - a two class sytem - those who work to administrate for a government and keep a country ticking and those who work to allow them to invest the money and flush it down the proverbial pan in nosensical public spending programmes that rarely have the accountability to the public on a level that private companies have to their investors and shareholders!
Be assured, until the accountability of the public sector is as responsible to their funding sources as it is in the private sector there is no way that there should even be a thought of a difference in the retirement age - and that's only the start of how I feel at the moment! :mad:
The Civil Service is no longer the cushy job that it once was. Sure there is a pension and one of the best tones you can get but job security? tell that to those that have been victims of job cuts. Stress levels are high and staffing is low - the pressure is on for many civil servants across a whole range of departments.
This is NOT to say its not a good job - it is. But its not a holiday. Aye 6 months paid holidays unless after you have had 11 days off you have to have an inefficiency interview and go on a six month trial period for poor attendance regardless of the fact that your doctor has given you a medical certificate.
People working in the civil service can often be at risk of violence and are often our last port of call when we are desperate - benefits payment s etc. often their job is not an easy one. They are at the whim of politicians and have to cope with constant change.
Retire at 60? yes it was a deal - part of a pay and conditions deal that the unions fought for in the days when unions were able to make a difference. These days pay rises are so small that you hardly notice it. The pay scales are gone - it was worked out that it would take someone working for one department 30 years to reach the maximum pay for their grade as there are no longer increments - its performance pay.
Now its a good job - of course it is and especially in Caithness where jobs like that are scarce - but its not an easy cushy holiday
Well, well, well........ I've heard it on the news today and wondered (before I voice my own opinion!) what everyone thinks of the public sector employees being able to retire at 60 and the private sector not being able to retire until 67!!!
Do those in the Public Sector think it is right that they can retire at 60 while the rest work on? Do those in the Private Sector think that it is right that they should be able to????
It is a pity that you were not a bit more accurate in your assertions.
The fact is that all male employees in the UK are entitled to receive the State Pension when they are 65. For a female it is 60 years of age but this is being adjusted gradually until they are treated the same as males.
What you are seeing in the media is that the Director of the CBI (the employers organisation) has highlighted the fact that the Government has agreed to maintain, for all current members of the public services, an occupational pension scheme which allows the members to choose to stop work from the age of 60 and take the benefits of the occupational pension scheme. The benefits of the State Pension will not be available to them until 65 or whatever the age is at the time (perhaps 67, perhaps higher).
For private occupational pension schemes the conditions will have been negotiated between the employer and the employees and may well allow taking pension rights at 60. For a personal pension the conditions will depend on what the individual has negotiated with the life assurance or other financial services organisation concerned.
In the public sector, pensions are normally non-contributory and the pension rights are guaranteed by the employer – HM Government on behalf of us all. When pay levels are reviewed value is apportioned to all existing benefits (leave, sick leave etc.) and to future benefits such as pensions. This has the effect of pay settlements being somewhat less in the public sector than in the private sector.
What has been clear for some there is a looming pension crisis in the UK.
Many private pensions were missold by the (private) financial sector and people are finding that their pensions are going to be less than they had reasonably expected.
Occupation Pension contributions (from employees and employers) are invested largely in equities (the Stock Exchange). The buoyant state of the Stock Market in the 1990s encouraged employers to have contribution “holidays” over a number of years. The huge fall in share values in the early 2000s meant that the notional values of the individual pension funds were less than that required to meet all the future commitments. Responsible employers have been assisting their employee pension funds to redress the balance, and the partial recovery of the financial market is helping.
The other main factor in the pension problem is that we are all living longer and the birth rate continues to fall. The payments per capita from those in employment may well have to rise (in pension contributions, National Insurance contributions and in Income Tax).
The above are the facts – now for the opinion!!
The tactic Digby Jones of the CBI chose to use was an attempt to set one group of workers against another group by implying that public sector employees are being treated more generously than private sector employees and that it is the latter who are paying for it. What he does not say, of course, is that the treatment of the private sector is largely the responsibility of the members of his organisation – the CBI. Their first responsibility is to their shareholders and, sadly, the employees come a poor second. The relative generosity of the public sector (in conditions of service rather than pay) has long driven the conditions of the private sector – without the public sector the private sector would ride roughshod over the needs of employees.
weeboyagee
29-Nov-05, 14:46
It is a pity that you were not a bit more accurate in your assertions.
The assertion was as general as it needed to be - there is nothing inaccurate about it - I asked the questions of those in either sectors regardless of how the CBI are pitching it or any deal the Government has struck.
Whether you work in the private sector or the public sector is a matter of choice. Your employment is governed by the factors bearing down on the sector you work in - in the private sector it is called competition! In the public sector its the control of money, or lack thereof (be it overspend, lack of investment etc). The Governments ability to spend money wisely is what keeps or doesn't keep the public sector in a job. The ability to keep the private sector in jobs comes by being able to beat the competition and that is usually by controlling cost, improving efficiency, achieving maximum return on investment and hoping that you can beat off the cheap labour markets invading your patch with unbeatable competition and poor quality products!
Anyway you look at it, there is a gulf of difference between the two sectors.
Pension protection for the future is largely in the hands of the individual but the Government has a duty to protect the future interests of all it's citizens - public or private and regardless of their political motivation! Fine to thrash out a deal with its own employees that will see them right at the age of 60 (albeit by the individuals own choice) but it's not on that they will not have policies effective enough to protect the rest of us in the private sector from being in a situation where we will NOT be able to CHOOSE to retire at the age of 60 without us living on beans and toast for the rest of our life - (what's left of it).
And for the parting shot, any way that the Government will look at funding pension schemes for those in the public sector to retire at 60 - will inevitably involve the payment in kind by the private sector - be it through investment, taxation of the masses, you name it!....... and to top it all, to strike a deal with the unions who will be up in arms and bring the country to its knees with strikes no doubt should they renage - well, finally we will be getting back to a Labour government, currently doing better with Tory policy than the Tories, at last getting back to true Labour governing! There, that should get you all going Squidge! :)
There, that should get you all going Squidge! :)
Who me?????
I and most Civil Servants do/did their jobs to the best of their abilities, so the whinging masses could get their Giros delivered till their doors, ( Yes I was a Postman too) and I have been chased up the street by a workshy lazy pratt at 8am looking for his Giro whilst in a snow storm, and I am no supposed till get angry because I started work at 05:30 in the morning, an he had the nerve to ask me for a loan.......I lost a days wages as a fine for that instance.....It was worth it.
LOL golach. I can just see the scene but have you ever considered he may have been a stressed out civil servant in the 7th month of his illness? Poor mannie.
weeboyagee
29-Nov-05, 23:13
I can picture it right enough golach! Did he ever get his Giro??? The worst thing was, the poor chap was probably wearing a 'Gers top :D
Anyway, this isn't a stab at the individuals who work in either sector - I don't particularly follow either political party in Westminster at the moment - but I can't be annoyed with the ducking and diving of Mssrs Brown and Blair with the direct questions they have been avoiding on this issue. I care not for the pitching of Mr Jones, although the CBI have a very valid point in the funding of the pensions of the country in future years - for all employees regardless of sector employment. If the public sector were full of squidge and golach we'd be sound and the country wouldn't have a crisis!!!
By the way squidge, did you post the giro that golach run up the road with? :D
LOL golach. I can just see the scene but have you ever considered he may have been a stressed out civil servant in the 7th month of his illness? Poor mannie.
Gleeber, he had never worked for over 10 years and bragged about it. So you could say I was the stressed oot Civil Servant, but in the 70's nobody had heard of Stress at work, ye just got on with it.
By the way squidge, did you post the giro that golach run up the road with? :D
Not in the seventies i didnt - how old do you think i am!!!!!!!!
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