Now -read the book!

Here is a link to my memoirs which, if you are a glutton for punishment, you can purchase online at https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/an-obscure-footnote-in-trade-union-history.
Men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name. (William Morris - A Dream of John Ball)

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Being made an example of...

I have commented previously about the disappearance, from our website, of a document setting out "examples" of the impact of proposed changes to the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) which I thought embodied dishonest assumptions (http://www.jonrogers1963.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/where-have-all-examples-gone.html?m=1).



As you'll find out when I write up my NEC report, our NEC was told, in no uncertain terms, by our national Head of Local Government, that the withdrawal of this document was to correct technical errors and had nothing whatsoever to do with any issues I had raised. Clearly we are in touch with economists who can explain how a capitalist economy would function if, over the long term, earnings rose by substantially less than prices and can therefore disregard pesky blogs.



However, at today's sparsely-attended (having been arranged at short notice) Regional UNISON briefing on the LGPS we were told about the assumptions made by the Government Actuaries Department (GAD) when they costed the LGPS 2014 proposals.



GAD assumed that - over the long term - increases in the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) would average 2% and that Average Weekly Earnings (AWE) would increase, also over the long term, by 2.25% more than CPI. It must certainly be the case that any honest "examples" document explaining the future impact of predicted future changes to a pension scheme should include an illustration based upon these authoritative assumptions from a Government agency.

Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

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