Staff at Essex County Council will have to pay more to plug a £674million pensions blackhole.It looks as though they are starting to realise there’s no more money in the Magic Money Pot!
The deficit was revealed in County Hall’s annual statement of accounts and will see employees having to make up most of the gap.
The figure is down from a shortfall of £800million revealed last year, mainly because councils can now link future pension increases to the consumer prices index, rather than the retail prices index, which knocked hundreds of millions of pounds off the deficit.
Across the county, councils are all struggling to plug the pensions gap.As a result of this shortfall, many councils are looking at changes to staff conditions. So, can we expect union intransigence?
Southend Council is £126million short, while Rochford Council has to find £18million.
Colchester Council has a shortfall of almost £60million, Braintree Council needs to find another £40million and Tendring Council has a pension gap of £37.85million.
Surprisingly, no:
Ms Whitfield has told members: “If you reject the changes, the only way we can take this any further would be to enter into a formal dispute with the employer and one of the possible outcomes of this could be strike action.Wonders may never cease!
“The branch is, therefore, recommending acceptance of these proposals as the best that can be achieved.”
16 comments:
Yet again it seems that the 'workers' are having to pay for Council greed & deceit.
Councils simply disposed of experienced and expensive staff and replaced them with younger, cheaper ones. They were put out to grass using pension funds simply to reduce their own total staffing costs.
You seem to think it right that those who abused a system for their own convenience should get away Scot-free and the 'workers' have a duty to repair the damage?
The problem is hardly helped by the former workers having the intransigence of living until their late eighties. they should be like manual workers and barely stagger into the early seventies.
The really co-operative workers should live until they retire, and then die peacefully.
that, in a nutshell, is the problem: Ex-workers living too long.
It isn't a lack of contributions either.
The police pay 11% of their pay as their personal contribution....due to the nature of their work they also barely manage to stagger into the early seventies....
Mind you, since the pension industry collects more tax relief than it pays out.....
I paid 8 or 9% plus a similar contribution from County. I didn't want to stop working BUT they, aided and abetted by Government, thought they could save money in the short term. They abused pension funds for their own convenience. We are not troughers - we are simply pawns in their little games and they now expect our replacements to fund their little games!
But they don't actually pay anything. Not one slim dime.
It all comes from tax. Every last single penny of it.
If they pay more, it is because we pay more.
Probably better just to tell them to 'do one', and reduce taxation as a result.
That's a bit too much like common sense, isn't it?
Xopher,
You haven't paid a single penny whilst in Government employ.
Why don't you piss off and get a real job, y'know, one that creates wealth, not drains it?
PS Being a wanker is not 'working'.
"Councils simply disposed of experienced and expensive staff and replaced them with younger, cheaper ones."
Maybe, but economic reality is fast catching them up...
"that, in a nutshell, is the problem: Ex-workers living too long."
Better not give them ideas!
" They abused pension funds for their own convenience. We are not troughers - we are simply pawns in their little games..."
I have some sympathy for those who are caught up in Brown's mad pension gamble, but I can't see anything that would ease it, without unfairly acting on the rest of us.
As EV points out, the easy ride is over.
English Viking --- Get a grip - reality is out here!
I paid plenty. The Government employed me on the impossible but important job of educating people so that they could create wealth.
Your abuse and ignorance highlights the difficulties faced
JuliaM - "As EV points out, the easy ride is over."
Easy ride maybe but for who?
Pension funds were raided for the convenience of "Brown's mad pension gamble" etal but it is not those who did the raiding who suffer. Have you looked at MPs pension schemes? Are they included in the changes?
It may be public employees in the headlines at the moment and some may wish cause division by insulting or deriding them BUT we are ALL being screwed by incompetent Government (and their pals).
Xopher,
You haven't paid a penny that didn't come from someone else first. You are, to all intents and purposes, a parasite. A very well paid, well holidayed, great pensioned, short working day parasite.
Spare me the diatribe about your monumental efforts in educating the future brain surgeons and rocket scientists of this country; little Timmy will more than likely leave your 'establishment' with a hatful of GCSE's and an inability to read, write and count properly.
Still, he could always become a teacher. In the public sector, of course; proper schools (those that are good enough to be able to charge for their services) wouldn't touch him (or you) with a barge-pole.
EV- "You haven't paid a penny that didn't come from someone else first. - "What rubbish
Where do you get yours? Do you get it from someone, do you print it or amgic it from fresh air?
Or maybe the godlike don't use it?
Xopher,
I realise you must be a bit dim to be a teacher, but you should know the difference between money that is generated by 'adding value' to an item i.e turning a pile of wood and a bolt of fabric into a sofa, and money which is stolen out of the proceeds of such actions and given to toss-pots like you. You then give a small amount back and laughingly think you have contributed to the pot.
Muppet.
OK then - I'll try to turn it all down to your level of dimness although I can't lower myself as far as you - I left the mines many years ago.
You are intolerant and thick. You're incapable of looking beyond your irrational prejudices and simply insult any that have an alternative opinion. You make so many assumptions about people you know nothing of and assume added value is something unique to those you praise.
Wake up and smell your sh*t for brains!
Xopher,
Ooooh, get you.
Just because you've finally realised that you contribute nothing to the economy, in fact you do nothing but take from those who do, doesn't mean you have to get arsey. It's not your fault you can't get a proper job, what with you being retarded and all.
Bet you're a PE teacher, and you got 3rd in Social Sciences.
BTW It's not really the fact that public 'servants' get massive pensions, earlier than the people who are actually paying for them do, or the 3 months a year you spend on paid holiday, or the 7 hour days, that bug people like me. It's the fact that, bearing in mind all the aforementioned benefits, people like you continue to have a massive, smug sense of entitlement and are apparently under the illusion that you are performing a miracle of education under extremely harrowing circumstances. If it were not for you, and the selfless dedication you display, the Earth would fall of its own axis, eh?
You're a real hero - hope your knuckles don't hurt too much as they drag along the ground.
So many unfounded statements - Shows how little you understand and what a prat you really are.
Now who's 'simply insulting'?
Oh - It's clicked!
You must spend less time talking to the cats.
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