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The challenge of public sector pensions

With the expenses scandal overwhelming the pages of almost every newspaper in the country, other important stories have been largely overshadowed.

One of those which would normally have made front page headlines was the publication of a report by the accountants PWC which showed how the gap between the public and private sectors has widened enormously during the last thirty years.

It showed that, over the course of a typical working career, a civil servant starting work in 1981 will have accumulated £340,000 more in net wealth by the time of their death than his or her counterpart working in the private sector. This is mainly due to the long term job security offered in the civil service and a far more generous pension scheme.

For example, whilst the private sector employee and his employer would have paid between 4 and 6 per cent of the salary into his pension, the report shows that the civil servant does far better, paying in only 1.5 per cent of salary over the course of his career, but retiring five years earlier on almost half of his final salary and receiving a tax-free lump sum of three times his annual pension.

Of course, some would argue that it is only right that those in the public sector should be given job security and increased pensions because they are earning less than those in the private sector.

Unfortunately, that is a myth that has been promulgated by those who do not wish to change the current status quo.

The government’s own statistics, taken from the 2008 Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, show that the average weekly wage for public sector workers was £582.

In contrast, the average private sector worker earned £574 per week.

Indeed, as the recession bites, it would appear that whilst many working within the private sector have been forced to take pay cuts to save their jobs, those at the top of the public sector pay tree have continued to see their salaries increase by over 10 per cent between 2007 and 2008.

Within local authorities, the number of employees on more than £100,000 has increased by 25 per cent and it is estimated that sixteen chief executives of councils were actually paid more than the Prime Minister last year.

Given this, there are many who are now arguing that the generous pensions given to the public sector and paid for by the UK taxpayer must be brought into line with workers in the private sector, especially when the current cost of pensions accrued in the public sector has been estimated at over £1 trillion.

With an estimated black hole of £175 billion in the public finances this year, the next government will have took carefully at the role of the state and it is clear that the cost of public sector pensions will need to be examined in detail.

Certainly, with unemployment set to hit 3 million by 2010, the pain cannot be limited to the business sector and it is becoming clear to many that we cannot have a society where one group of workers is protected and cosseted whilst another faces shrinking pensions, wage cuts and an uncertain future.

Comments

Jon of Portsmouth said…
Perhaps you can answer a quetion that has bugged me for some time. Public sector salaries are quoted often but what about the total package of a public sector employee? the pensions that are possible for many pulic sector workers never seem to come into the equation - this would increase the total package of most public sector employees to way beyond that of the public that are paying for thier privilage. So either I have missed something and they do not get a generous pension or we are looking at the wrong figure - their salary!

Pensions should be part of the way a public sector compensation is judged - this would certainly make the system fairer and perhaps reduce the cost to the country. If they would like more money then this should be taken from the pension contributions which come from our taxes. Do you think it would be possible to reduce or atleast freezing public sector pay and review based on total package.

Public sector can't have it both ways - high salary and generous pensions.

Would value your insight
Anonymous said…
well said, but nothing will move the public sector ,its protected by myth and the worst elements of Trade Unions
Adam Higgitt said…
Dylan

Does the ONS data include share options, health insurance, bonuses etc? Public servants seldom have such elements in their overall packages, so the headline comparison might be misleading.
Jon - you are right, what we need to look at is the overall package, which is what Adam is alluding to as well. There was a big furore in ireland recently when the government said that they needed to cut the overall package to the public sector to save money.

However,rather than cutting wages, they cut their pension contribution by 4 per cent and made the employee make up the difference. Yes, it amounted to a pay cut in the final wage packet but moved the burden of savings from the government to the individual employee.

If you equalised public and private sector contributions in the UK i.e. brought the public sector in line with the private sector, it would save around £10 billion per annum.

VM - A very good point but I think we will all have to re-examine public sector expenditure in the light of the massive public debt, and that includes the unions.

Adam - as far as I am aware, it doesn't. However, I would argue that your view of the private sector is misleading. The vast majority of firms, unfortunately, do not offer share options, health insurance or bonuses to their staff and they certainly do not have the protection that many public sector workers have in their jobs. It is interesting that you mention bonuses as top civil servants within WAG are still receiving top ups on their salaries, as do many other senior mangers within the public sector.

and don't gte me started on what Goordon brown did to private pensions....!
Jeff Jones said…
Local government is going to face the perfect economic storm over the next few years. The settlements from the Assembly will get worse not better.This will create a real problem for decision makers who have only experienced the huge increase in public expenditure in the last 9 years. To make matters worse many of the pension funds are serious deficit and authorities will be forced to put more money in. Money that should be used for service delivery will instead have to be diverted to the pension fund. Authorities will also have to deal with botht he short term and long term consequences of equal pay. They might be able to borrow to fiance the back pay (but even this has to be paid back) but there will also be an on going burden cause by the fact that far from being self financing it will add to the revenue costs of the average local authority. Throw in the continued pressures from social services and demands by the electorate in a world of capping and you have a nightmare scenario. The recent down grading of the UK credit rating shows that cuts are inevitable if we want to get out of this mess in a reasonable timescale. The real debate is where those cuts should come. The danger is that some will take the easy option and cut across the board. The better auhtorities should now be thinking about new ways of service delivery and also what services should be delivered in an age of austerity. The attitude of putting off real decisions which has developed in local government in the good years is no longer sustainable. Authorities also have to be honest and engage with their electorate in order to prioritise spending in line with the views of the silent majority and not the well organised local interest group. A start could be made in bringing the number of councillors in each Welsh authority in line with their Scottish counterparts. If this happened in Bridgend it would have no effect on either democratic accountabilty or service delivery but would free up about £312,000 a year. A simple and painless reform which I believe would be supported by the majority of voters.

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