politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Alastair Meeks gives his thoughts on university pensions

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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Alastair Meeks gives his thoughts on university pensions

My first boss was the source of many wise words, some of which I use to this day. “Alastair”, she would often say, “there is no problem in the world that cannot be made to go away with money”. It’s not strictly true, of course, but it is truer more often than is usually appreciated.

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brendan16

It's amazing how little focus there is on the Transport for London pension scheme. It's technically a private not a government scheme and

Is still final salary - the rest of the public sector moved to career average a while back
Allows retirement on full benefits at 60 with no actuarial reductions - other public sector schemes bar the police are based on the state retirement age which will be 66 or more
Still uprates benefits by RPI not CPI and
has a woefully low 5 per cent contribution rate even for top bosses on several hundred thousand a year but an employer top up of 30 per cent

http://content.tfl.gov.uk/tfl-pension-fund-member-guide.pdf

And it cannot be reformed or changed without the approval of scheme members - even though TfL is technically legally a local authority and its services are a public monopoly entirely funded by grant, fares, business rates and council tax.

Compared to every other public sector pension scheme it is far superior and will stay so even though it has a huge deficit.

Just shows the power of unions where they can hold a city to ransom - and perhaps explains why London has the highest fares of any major world city.

Good luck to the university lecturers - but they might have done better becoming a tube driver.