Tomorrow is the twentieth anniversary of my having started work for my current local authority employer (there’s no need to post comments saying that I don’t look that old – I know ;p)
For twenty years I have been paying in to the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS).
At today’s meeting of the UNISON Greater London Regional Local Government Committee we received a further update on the current discussions about the “new look” LGPS. I am not at all happy at indications that the most we are likely to get through negotiation by way of enhanced protection is a lowering of the age at which the rights of current scheme members are protected by four more years – this isn’t good enough. It will let down in particular the young members we have recruited through the course of this dispute.
I am even less happy that local government workers forced into redundancy in their fifties may no longer receive a pension and – if they do – there could be “actuarial” reductions of around 40% in the pensions of 55 year olds being made redundant (that’s a lifetime 40% reduction of course!) I would rather we didn’t have to negotiate redundancies – but where there are redundancies then a reasonable amount of compensation softens the blow.
I hope that twenty years from now the LGPS will be better than it is today – but that will only be true if we fight hard now to defend our rights.
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