A rooftop in Brussels or to be more precise part of the statue that adorns the top of the triumphal arch which is the centrepiece of the Cinquantenaire.
For more of this weeks PhotoHunt pictures check out tnchick.
Tags: Brussels, Cinquantenaire, Flickr, Triumphal arch
Yesterday, in my capacity as PCS Regional committee member along with several colleagues from Shropshire I joined other PCS members from around the country in a mass lobby of Parliament. We chose an economical and leisurely transport option by using the Wrexham and Shropshire service.
Lunchtime was a Faulty Towers-like experience where we didn’t quite manage to grab a late breakfast. We were told that they didn’t do food (not even breakfast) until after 12 O’clock but when we tried again after 12 they said they didn’t do breakfast because it was after 12!!! We all rethought our choices and placed our orders. We were then informed we would have to eat upstairs because the lift wasn’t working. Our food arrived late and was cold and not completely as ordered but due to the tight time schedule we had to go along with it, although we did get free coffees all round.
I missed part of the initial PCS briefing at Parliament because the PCS President asked me to help the PCS national press officer so I will hand you over to my colleague who was present at the meeting to give a full account and how the MPs that we lobbied were very supportive of our action to achieve a negotiated settlement on the Civil Service Compensation Scheme.
Yesterday around 100 representatives of PCS, including a strong delegation from Shropshire, and from across the UK descended on Parliament to lobby MPs over cuts to the redundancy terms for civil and public servants. The lobby and rally come as a quarter of a million civil and public servants gear up for a 48 hour stoppage on 8 and 9 March over the unilateral changes, which will see staff robbed of up to a third of their entitlements and see loyal civil and public servants lose tens of thousands of pounds if they are forced out of their job. Indeed our colleagues in RAF Cosford are still in scope of DTR and if they do not want to move to St Athans will be offered a worse redundancy package should these changes to the scheme take place. PCS have made it clear that there is still time for the Government to negotiate a fair settlement on this issue and Mark Serwotka wrote to the Minister on Monday asking for further meetings and if necessary to go to ACAS. To date the Minister Tessa Jowell has not responded.
Political pressure is mounting over the forced changes, with 155 MPs and former ministers signing an early day motion (EDM) urging the government to re-examine the ‘disappointing and unfair proposals’. I am pleased to announce that MP Mark Pritchard became the first MP in Shropshire to sign the EDM after our meeting with him yesterday. Additionally MP David Wright has now written a letter to the Minister on our behalf and MP Daniel Kawczynski is writing a letter to the Minister and putting down a written question in the House of Commons on our behalf after our meeting with them yesterday. All 3 local MPs agreed with the fact that they want to see a negotiated settlement and support PCS in calling for a negotiated settlement.
The Judicial Review is being stalled by Treasury Barristers not being available in March to appear in the High Court and many MP’s are now taking this up with the Minister since they believe this to be another key way to stop retrospective changes to our terms and conditions.
Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said: “It is disgraceful that the government has denied MPs a vote on these changes which are aimed at cutting jobs on the cheap. Instead the government has relied on an arcane parliamentary procedure to avoid any debate, discussion or vote to change the law. “It is clear that political pressure is growing with MPs and former ministers signing an early day motion that urges the government to re-examine the ‘disappointing and unfair proposals’.
Over 150 MPs recognise that the government should be protecting those who have given loyal service over a number of years rather than slashing their redundancy entitlements and cutting their jobs on the cheap. The government needs to pay heed to growing opposition from MPs and reach a negotiated settlement.”
Next Tuesday the Welsh Assembly is being closed since Labour Welsh Assembly Members have voted not to cross the PCS Picket Line!
This is a fight that we can and must win and it is important to show the Government that we are prepared to take a stance against retrospective changes to our terms and conditions.
Tags: Flickr, Houses of Parliament, Life, PCS, Trade Union
Freedom is important to include in my ‘100 Reasons to be Glad’ because there isn’t a single day goes by that I am not reminded that our freedoms are constantly being eroded away.
Freedom
I WILL not follow you, my bird,
I will not follow you.
I would not breathe a word, my bird,
To bring thee here anew.I love the free in thee, my bird,
The lure of freedom drew;
The light you fly toward, my bird,
I fly with thee unto.And there we yet will meet, my bird,
Though far I go from you
Where in the light outpoured, my bird,
Are love and freedom too.by George William Russell
Tags: 100 Reasons to be glad, Birds, Dover, Dover Castle, Flickr, Weekend away
MYTH #2. Savings could be made by replacing final salary (defined benefits) schemes by a defined contribution scheme
REALITY. Scrapping defined benefit pensions would mean increased public spending on public sector pensions in the short and medium term
What are the Facts?
David Cameron has proposed replacing defined benefit schemes with defined contribution schemes in order to save costs. In defined contribution (DC) schemes (also known as money purchase schemes) the pension payment depends on the value of the investment in the individual’s pension pot upon retirement. Most public sector pensions are final salary schemes (also known as defined benefits schemes) which guarantee a pension based on the number of years worked for the organisation and the final salary upon leaving.
If new or existing staff were switched to DC schemes, then spending on pensions would increase. This is because most of the cost of paying pensions at any time is covered by using the contributions paid by or on behalf of current employees. If those contributions are instead paid into members’ own DC pots then they could not be used to pay for the pensions of already retired public employees.
In other words tax payers would be paying at the same time for the pensions of those who have already retired and to build up funds to pay pensions in the future for staff currently working - a double whammy.
If the quality of public sector pensions is substantially reduced this could also lead to many retired public employees becoming reliant on means tested benefits. This is because many public sector employees are low paid workers, already on quite low pensions. Increased spending on means test benefits would offset some of any saving on pension contributions in the longer term.
Public Sector Pensions - Definitions
Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution Schemes
A Defined Benefit (DB) scheme (also known as a Final Salary scheme) offers a defined or predetermined level of pension benefit. The benefits are expressed as a fraction of the final salary for every complete year worked for the organisation or as a scheme member of the final salary pension.
In a Defined Contribution (DC) scheme (also known as a Money Purchase Scheme), a pension fund is built up using employee and employer contributions. The pension available at retirement depends on the level of contribution paid, investment returns earned over time and the cost of purchasing the pension at retirement. These things are not known in advance. Therefore the pension it produces cannot be known. The contribution is defined, but not the pension.
Public Sector Pensions - Definitions
Funded and Unfunded Schemes
The terms funded and unfunded do not relate in any way to the contributions made by employees. Public sector scheme members contribute between 3.5% and 11% of their salary annually to their own pensions.
The Local Government Pension Scheme and the Universities Superannuation Scheme are ‘funded’ schemes, in which the funds required to pay future pensions are built up over time. This separate fund allows resources to be planned and managed over time to meet pension liabilities, as occurs with private sector DB schemes. There are around 4.25 million active, deferred and pensioner members of public sector funded schemes
Other public sector schemes such as those for civil servants, health workers, teachers, firefighters and uniformed police officers are ‘unfunded.’ Current pensions for staff are paid directly from central government’s current revenue (made up of contributions paid by civil servants, teachers, fire fighters and uniformed police officers in employment, and their employers). There are over 5.5 million active, deferred and pensioner members of unfunded schemes.
The significance of the difference between funded and unfunded schemes is often misunderstood or misinterpreted. Contributions are calculated and paid in unfunded schemes in much the same way as in funded schemes. The main difference between the two is that while unfunded schemes, in effect, lend contributions directly to the Government and receive a designated rate of interest in return, funded schemes keep control of their contributions and invest them in a range of assets.
When benefits are paid by the unfunded schemes, it is portrayed as public expenditure. In reality it is largely repayment by the Government to schemes of the invested contributions with the money being passed on as benefits to scheme members. Deficits (and surpluses) are identified at scheme valuations in both funded and unfunded schemes and addressed in the same way by adjustment of contributions and/or benefits.
Index - Media myths about civil and public services.
Tags: PCS, Pensions, Public Sector, Public Services, Trade Union
MYTHS AND FACTS
MYTH #1 The cost of public sector pensions is spiralling out of control.
REALITY Costs are set to increase somewhat (as are all pensions costs), but not by an unsustainable amount.
What are the Facts?
Many attacks on public sector pensions give a huge number for the cost of future liabilities. But they rarely explain what this means.
Public sector pension liabilities go a long way into the future. Young people at work today building up a public sector pension could well live for another eighty years. If you estimate the costs of all public sector pensions for decades into the future and then present it as a bill that has to be paid immediately, then it is hardly surprising that you end up with a frighteningly big number.
For example an organisation called the British North America Committee got headlines recently for saying that the cost of public sector pensions was 85% of GDP (the total wealth produced by the country each year). Their press release said:
“Public sector pension liabilities are £1,177 billion, about £20,000 for every person in the UK, equivalent to 85% of GDP”
But these figures do not mean very much. This is just another attempt to work out the total cost of public sector pensions going for decades into the future and expressing it as if it all had to be paid in one go, rather than over the decades the pensions are in payment.
This is what David Lipsey, the chairman of Straight Statistics - a pressure group that campaigns against the misuse of statistics - said about this report:
“The innocent might think that this means 85 per cent of our GDP in future is going to go to support those getting public sector pensions, leaving just 15 per cent for the rest of us. This is plain rubbish.
“The liability to pay public sector pensions is stretched over many, many years - from now until the last existing public sector employees dies. It is a statistical howler that would make an “O” level student blush to compare this with the figure for GDP for a single year. To make matters worse, we can safely expect GDP to increase over the years to come (if it does not, neither will pensions, reducing the actual liability). So the proportion of present GDP represented by the liabilities is even less relevant. What matters, if anything, is the proportion of future GDP that they represent.”
The Treasury does indeed produce estimates of the cost of paying public sector pensions as a proportion of GDP (not taking into account contributions). They show an increase from 1.5% of GDP to 2% by 2027-28. After this projections show a slight decline in the proportion of GDP taken up by public sector pensions. It is not surprising that there is some cost increase in the next few decades as we live in an ageing society. Either the cost of pensions will increase or many more pensioners will live in poverty. But public sector pensions take up a much smaller share of GDP than state pensions and long term care - also both set to increase in the face of longer lives.
The second claim made is that the cost of public service pensions is “out of control”. This is not the case. Not only is the share of public sector pensions in the country’s wealth less than 2% of GDP every year in the Treasury’s projections, the changes negotiated in many unfunded schemes caps employer costs with employees picking up the bill if people live longer than expected and pension costs rise more than expected.
Another way of looking at the cost of pensions is known as the “net public service pensions” net public service pension cost. It is the difference between benefits paid out to today’s pensioners from unfunded schemes and current contributions paid by current staff. In the current financial year this is estimated to be £4.1 billion or about 0.3% of GDP.
This is eminently affordable, but the figure can change a lot from year to year. This is not because of bad planning or anything being “out of control” - simply because it is the difference between two much bigger numbers that are not linked to each in the short term. These big numbers are:
- the costs of pensions paid out each year - and pension levels are linked to the cost
of living; and- the total contributions paid by staff and employers in the public sector, which is linked
to the numbers of staff and the year’s pay settlement.Over time earnings tend to go up more than prices so this will tend to reduce the net cost of pensions. But there can be sharp variations from year to year - particularly as pay in the public sector is often held back by politicians and then catches up once the damage done to recruitment and retention needs to be mended.
In 2009/10, for example, the increase in the cost of benefits will be determined largely by the 5% increase in the cost of living (RPI) in September 2008. But the increase in contribution income will be determined largely by the size of pay increases in the public sector during 2009/10. So when politicians freeze or hold public sector pay below inflation it has the odd effect of appearing to make pensions more expensive, even though those extra costs are more than met by reduced expenditure on the wider wage bill.
Of course other factors will also affect the cost of pensions. For example, how many people retire each year and how long pensioners live will affect the cost of pensions and the number of current staff and what grades they are on will determine the income figures. But these change relatively slowly over time and don’t produce the big changes between years that critics seize on.
Pension Reforms
The Government and trade unions have negotiated various reforms to public sector schemes in recent years. The reforms were made mostly in response to higher demands from increased life expectancy, with schemes now sharing the risk of members living longer.
Most public sector pension schemes have increased the normal pension age from 60 to 65 for new entrants, in line with most private sector schemes. Only the armed forces, police and fire schemes have kept theirs below 65, reflecting the physical demands of these jobs.
Nurses, teachers and local government employees are now paying more on average towards their pensions than before the reforms. This agreement resulted in an initial increase in member contributions of 0.5% on average with possible further rises when valuations take place every 3 or 4 years.
New cost-sharing arrangements were put in place that mean that if higher pension benefits are paid or if life expectancy continues to rise more quickly than expected, the resulting cost will fall mainly on public sector scheme members rather than on the taxpayer.
The Pension Policy Institute2 has estimated the reforms have reduced the immediate cost of
benefits by 12.5% and the Government expects the reforms to result in savings of around
£13bn on the NHS, teachers’ and civil service schemes, spread over a 50-year period.__________________________
2 Pension Policy Institute (2008) An assessment of the Government’s reforms to public sector pensions
Index - Media myths about civil and public services.
Tags: PCS, Pensions, Public Sector, Public Services, Trade Union
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