Fairness and Pension Reform
Here's a thoughtful letter which appeared in The Herald's the other day - along with an extract from the paper's editorial column - about Lord Hutton's report on pension reform.
I've no idea who Mr Thomson is - but he makes a fair point - as does the newspaper editorial.
Herald Editorial Column
"It (Lord Hutton's report) deserves congratulation for also emphatically rejecting the employers’ option as “the race to the bottom”. Instead of insecure and unpredictable defined contribution schemes, the report recommends retaining defined benefit schemes but swapping the final salary model for a career average scheme.
This is the right course for a government that purports to care about fairness. Final salary schemes favour high-flyers but not cleaners and teaching assistants whose pay barely moves. A switch to career average pensions hurts the lowest paid least.
The unions cannot hope to rally widespread support for strikes against pension reform from a general public that has seen its own pensions shrivel. And recent recruits to the public sector, who are already on career average schemes, are unlikely to strike for a privileged few."
Public sector pensions should not be immune from the pain
I refer to your reports “Teachers told to take cuts pain” and “500,000 Scots in public sector face pension changes” (The Herald March 11).
That figure of 500,000 goes up to over 600,000 when one includes public sector employment reserved to Westminster. The reaction of the various trade unions makes one pessimistic about the future of our country. It made me reflect on my attendance at the lecture given by Professor Niall Ferguson at the Aye Write Book Festival on March 10. During his lecture, which summarised his thinking as outlined in his new book Civilisation: The West and the Rest, he described what he considers to be six “killer” applications. In the light of your reports, two of those applications spring to mind. One is competition and the other is work ethic.
With regard to competition we now live in a society where during the formative years of children at school competition is often discouraged with the widespread abandonment of prize-givings and sports days. We are, for educational purposes at least, in what we in Scotland view as the public sector, apparently all Jock Tamson’s Bairns. Shock and horror that anyone should ever be presented as being either academically or athletically better than others. We also live in a society where more than two million are in employment with an unusually high percentage of that number reliant upon the taxpayer in one form or another for their remuneration, compared with other countries.
Turning to the work ethic, there are, of course, many hard-working individuals among the hundreds of thousands employed in the public sector in Scotland. Are they, however, any more hard working than the many in the private sector who are expected to pay for their above-average pension pots and to subsidise their current rights to retire before the normal state retirement age?
Trade unionists involved in the possible strike action of school teachers and those in the Scottish Police Federation prophesying a perfect storm of industrial action should pause and think again.
There are many of us who have no choice but to face the consequences of the current economic down-turn with its associated increased cost of living and who find the posturing based on “What we have, we hold. Come what may”’ more than a little offensive.
Ian W Thomson
I've no idea who Mr Thomson is - but he makes a fair point - as does the newspaper editorial.
Herald Editorial Column
"It (Lord Hutton's report) deserves congratulation for also emphatically rejecting the employers’ option as “the race to the bottom”. Instead of insecure and unpredictable defined contribution schemes, the report recommends retaining defined benefit schemes but swapping the final salary model for a career average scheme.
This is the right course for a government that purports to care about fairness. Final salary schemes favour high-flyers but not cleaners and teaching assistants whose pay barely moves. A switch to career average pensions hurts the lowest paid least.
The unions cannot hope to rally widespread support for strikes against pension reform from a general public that has seen its own pensions shrivel. And recent recruits to the public sector, who are already on career average schemes, are unlikely to strike for a privileged few."
Public sector pensions should not be immune from the pain
I refer to your reports “Teachers told to take cuts pain” and “500,000 Scots in public sector face pension changes” (The Herald March 11).
That figure of 500,000 goes up to over 600,000 when one includes public sector employment reserved to Westminster. The reaction of the various trade unions makes one pessimistic about the future of our country. It made me reflect on my attendance at the lecture given by Professor Niall Ferguson at the Aye Write Book Festival on March 10. During his lecture, which summarised his thinking as outlined in his new book Civilisation: The West and the Rest, he described what he considers to be six “killer” applications. In the light of your reports, two of those applications spring to mind. One is competition and the other is work ethic.
With regard to competition we now live in a society where during the formative years of children at school competition is often discouraged with the widespread abandonment of prize-givings and sports days. We are, for educational purposes at least, in what we in Scotland view as the public sector, apparently all Jock Tamson’s Bairns. Shock and horror that anyone should ever be presented as being either academically or athletically better than others. We also live in a society where more than two million are in employment with an unusually high percentage of that number reliant upon the taxpayer in one form or another for their remuneration, compared with other countries.
Turning to the work ethic, there are, of course, many hard-working individuals among the hundreds of thousands employed in the public sector in Scotland. Are they, however, any more hard working than the many in the private sector who are expected to pay for their above-average pension pots and to subsidise their current rights to retire before the normal state retirement age?
Trade unionists involved in the possible strike action of school teachers and those in the Scottish Police Federation prophesying a perfect storm of industrial action should pause and think again.
There are many of us who have no choice but to face the consequences of the current economic down-turn with its associated increased cost of living and who find the posturing based on “What we have, we hold. Come what may”’ more than a little offensive.
Ian W Thomson
