If we can believe them, expect an 'independent' commission to examine whether our pensions are affordable. There's an ominous commitment to protection of the pension benefits we've earned so far. This amounts to a signal that final salary benefits will come to an end once the government implements the bits of the commission they agree with.
We can therefore expect to be worse off in our retirement than we expect to be now. Replacing final salary with defined contribution benefits would assume that the NHS scheme would have to become funded as defined contribution relies on investment returns.
Defined Contribution simply means an amount is agreed between employer and employee to pay into a fund during your working life. The employers contribution is fixed and usually you can vary how much you put in. This fund is invested over your employment and when you come to retire whatever is in the pot you turn into a yearly cash amount paid out by an insurance company.
The key issue is all of the investment risk is with you. If there are no cuts to the benefits we have earned in the LGPS then no immediate savings will be made because the deficits inside the funds would still have to be paid for.
There is of course a lot to campaign for including making the Local Government Pension Funds more efficient by fund merger which could bring in an estimated £1bn in extra income. As highlighted by an LGPS advisor Chris Edge, a consultant at pension-fund investment advisors AllenbridgeEpic, has said "One obvious thing they will probably want to take a look at is public-sector pensions. We advise six local-authority pension funds and clearly this will be an area that the new government may look at for cost savings.
"We have already seen that the Scottish local-authority schemes are studying the idea of merging investments, and other activities like accounting or custody. So I think there may be a degree of push towards pooling maybe elsewhere. Where Scotland has gone, others may follow." http://www.efinancialnews.com/story/2010-05-12/fund-management-coalition-government-reaction-roundup
We need to place pensions higher on all of our agendas so that we understand what we are up against and what we should be fighting for - not just for ourselves but for generations yet to start work.
