75ZT Community

Tourerfogey wrote:Oi Zeb!! I just tried to quote from your post but you've just deleted it - did you realise you were talking nonsense before I pointed it out to you?

Ah but you'll never prove it now will you..

(Not that this was the reason for deletion..cos it wasn't nonsense. )

Zeb wrote:

Tourerfogey wrote:Oi Zeb!! I just tried to quote from your post but you've just deleted it - did you realise you were talking nonsense before I pointed it out to you?

Ah but you'll never prove it now will you..

(Not that this was the reason for deletion..cos it wasn't nonsense. )

T'was nonsense sir - read my previous post to see why

Tourerfogey wrote:

Zeb wrote:

Tourerfogey wrote:Oi Zeb!! I just tried to quote from your post but you've just deleted it - did you realise you were talking nonsense before I pointed it out to you?

Ah but you'll never prove it now will you..

(Not that this was the reason for deletion..cos it wasn't nonsense. )

T'was nonsense sir - read my previous post to see why

He didn't say 'largely public funded' he said 'public funded'...
Anyway, I deleted it cos I couldn't be arsed to argue about it...I have the Mother-in-law staying don'tcha know!:D

Zeb wrote:

Tourerfogey wrote:

Zeb wrote:

Tourerfogey wrote:Oi Zeb!! I just tried to quote from your post but you've just deleted it - did you realise you were talking nonsense before I pointed it out to you?

Ah but you'll never prove it now will you..

(Not that this was the reason for deletion..cos it wasn't nonsense. )

T'was nonsense sir - read my previous post to see why

He didn't say 'largely public funded' he said 'public funded'...
Anyway, I deleted it cos I couldn't be arsed to argue about it...I have the Mother-in-law staying don'tcha know!:D

Does she have an email address - I need her to have a word with you . . .

Tourerfogey wrote:

Zeb wrote:

Tourerfogey wrote:Oi Zeb!! I just tried to quote from your post but you've just deleted it - did you realise you were talking nonsense before I pointed it out to you?

Ah but you'll never prove it now will you..

(Not that this was the reason for deletion..cos it wasn't nonsense. )

T'was nonsense sir - read my previous post to see why

Could be chancing my arm here, but I doubt it. I believe that LGO pensions (don't forget these are 'defined benefit' schemes, now a dying instrument in the private sector because they are so good (too good for commerce to cover when the money could be paid as bonuses to directors), are entirely contribution free to members (at least they used to be). There is a facility for additional contributions on a voluntary basis, together with additional voluntary contributions (AVC's) in the form of lump sums. These are commonly used to 'buy back years' of service so as to allow earlier retirement on a 'full' pension.

The advent of these schemes was to compensate civil servants for allegedly lower salaries than they would enjoy in the private sector. Ha! I should cocoa. They were a sop to buy loyalty, discretion, and silence from employees who knew were the bodies were buried. Civil servants, far and away most of them decent people, have long benefitted from a 'client electorate' philosophy of government. They did not ask for these special schemes but were hardly likely to say 'no thank you' now were they?


Due to recent military activities, most people are now aware of the 'military covenant' between armed forces and government. Well, there is also a similar in-house attitude to the civil service in that gov. knows they need to keep the civil service close. This is not political bile or venom; it is apolitical, born of many years of direct involvment in the pension and allied fields. But of course, if anyone knows better....

Jumper wrote:

Tourerfogey wrote:

Zeb wrote:

Tourerfogey wrote:Oi Zeb!! I just tried to quote from your post but you've just deleted it - did you realise you were talking nonsense before I pointed it out to you?

Ah but you'll never prove it now will you..

(Not that this was the reason for deletion..cos it wasn't nonsense. )

T'was nonsense sir - read my previous post to see why

Could be chancing my arm here, but I doubt it. I believe that LGO pensions (don't forget these are 'defined benefit' schemes, now a dying instrument in the private sector because they are so good (too good for commerce to cover when the money could be paid as bonuses to directors), are entirely contribution free to members (at least they used to be). There is a facility for additional contributions on a voluntary basis, together with additional voluntary contributions (AVC's) in the form of lump sums. These are commonly used to 'buy back years' of service so as to allow earlier retirement on a 'full' pension.

The advent of these schemes was to compensate civil servants for allegedly lower salaries than they would enjoy in the private sector. Ha! I should cocoa. They were a sop to buy loyalty, discretion, and silence from employees who knew were the bodies were buried. Civil servants, far and away most of them decent people, have long benefitted from a 'client electorate' philosophy of government. They did not ask for these special schemes but were hardly likely to say 'no thank you' now were they?


Due to recent military activities, most people are now aware of the 'military covenant' between armed forces and government. Well, there is also a similar in-house attitude to the civil service in that gov. knows they need to keep the civil service close. This is not political bile or venom; it is apolitical, born of many years of direct involvment in the pension and allied fields. But of course, if anyone knows better....

My pension with a former local government was certainly not contribution free. I paid in to as did my colleagues. No contribution no pension.

On the one hand, I have a pension plan with a private company. We had an enforced change from final salary to career average many years ago, and anyone joining the company now can't even join that pension. So I don't feel a lot of support for paying towards pensions that aren't undergoing the same changes as mine.

But then again, my OH has paid into a government pension her whole life. They are not free of contributions, I see the payslips.

Well, my NHS pension started on the 14th of this month and this has been my first week as a pensioner.

I put in 41 years and right from the start it was part of my conditions of employment in the same way as the actual pay and hours were.

Right from the start I said if I was still in the NHS I would retire at 60 which at the time would be max pension time.

I have always made contributions and think that at the end I contributed 7.5% of my salary. My employing trust contributed 14%.

Now, this is the clever bit, the Treasury has never invested it at all but looked at is as money it could spend.

This means that all my contributions and those of my ex employer have been spent by whichever government was in power on whatever they wanted. Now, it is crunch time and they need to find the money from elsewhere to pay my pension.

Do not blame the pensioners - blame the various governments who did not look after the money we have paid in.

Duncan wrote:On the one hand, I have a pension plan with a private company. We had an enforced change from final salary to career average many years ago, and anyone joining the company now can't even join that pension. So I don't feel a lot of support for paying towards pensions that aren't undergoing the same changes as mine.

But then again, my OH has paid into a government pension her whole life. They are not free of contributions, I see the payslips.

Cannot speak on LG pensons but certainly NHS pensions have cnaged. I was a member of the 1995 scheme. There is also the 2008 scheme which is the only one that new entrants can join. Those members of the 1995 scheme could opt to join the 2008 scheme but unsurpringly it most certainly not in my interest to do so.

One difference is that the 1995 scheme pays full pension at 60, the 2008 at 65.

Strange, when the stock exchange was booming and private pensions were rising nothing was being said about public sector pensions!

Yes, that's a big difference. With government pensions, the money people pay in isn't invested in the way it is in private pensions. But then again, investments aren't much good either....

Depends what you invest in . . .

Tourerfogey wrote:Depends what you invest in . . .

Well, perhaps not property just now eh?

Howsabout V8s?

Duncan wrote:Yes, that's a big difference. With government pensions, the money people pay in isn't invested in the way it is in private pensions. But then again, investments aren't much good either....

I seem to recall a pension meeting when employed for local government and it was specifically mentioned that the contributions were invested in the same way as any other pension scheme: stockmarket, property etc.?

Isn't it the state pension that is not invested? Comes out direct taxation?

Borg Warner wrote:

Duncan wrote:Yes, that's a big difference. With government pensions, the money people pay in isn't invested in the way it is in private pensions. But then again, investments aren't much good either....

I seem to recall a pension meeting when employed for local government and it was specifically mentioned that the contributions were invested in the same way as any other pension scheme: stockmarket, property etc.?

Isn't it the state pension that is not invested? Comes out direct taxation?

Cannot actually speak for LG but NHS pension contributions are not invested, straight in to the Treasury to do what they want with the money.

PaulT wrote:

Borg Warner wrote:

Duncan wrote:Yes, that's a big difference. With government pensions, the money people pay in isn't invested in the way it is in private pensions. But then again, investments aren't much good either....

I seem to recall a pension meeting when employed for local government and it was specifically mentioned that the contributions were invested in the same way as any other pension scheme: stockmarket, property etc.?

Isn't it the state pension that is not invested? Comes out direct taxation?

Cannot actually speak for LG but NHS pension contributions are not invested, straight in to the Treasury to do what they want with the money.

Barmy!!!

But it now makes sense re the recent furore over pensions.