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The Gold-Plated Pensions Paid By Britain’s Destitute Councils

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Khandro | 08:00 Sat 18th Jan 2025 | News
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Thousands of retired council workers are receiving pensions of more than £50,000 a year and hundreds are scooping six-figures, a Telegraph Money investigation has found.

Cash-strapped local authorities have been struggling to balance the books for years, but their pension contributions spiralled after experts discovered the system couldn’t keep up with its gold-plated promises to retirees.

As the average household faces a £100 council tax hike and a third of local government pension funds sit in deficit, Telegraph Money can reveal:

7,609 ex-council workers enjoy a pension of more than £50,000 a year. Of those, 203 receive more than £100,000 – almost three times the UK’s national average wage.

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That's ludicrous. And probably indicates how ludicrous theìr salary was when working. Seems like a public scam.

An incentive to encourage best performance from employees, surely.

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Originally councillors in England were unpaid, they did it as an honour and of course for the influence they had on local issues.

The problem with that was that the kind of people who had the time to attend daytime council meetings and other related activities tended to be the better off & comfortably retired & the 'working man' didn't have much of a look in.

Then a modest amount of remuneration began so the composition of the council could be broadened, then came increases, expenses and eventually pensions, and it seems by a process of marking their own homework, it has reached this state. 

I don't think this really about councillors - it's about council employees who seem to be able to build little empires & name their own (inflated) salaries.

The last company I worked for that had a defined benefit pension scheme (based on an employee’s final salary) ended the scheme, as they were paying in almost 25% of each employee’s salary per annum (and that didn’t include the employees contribution) to cover the costs.

In comparison, those transferred out of the defined benefit pension scheme to a money purchase scheme only received a 5% of salary contribution from the company.

 

Of course, there is no pension pot of money held by the State to pay for these gold-plated pensions enjoyed by State employees – the cost is borne by taxpayers as the pension is paid out.

Excess salary doesn't incentivise for long, it becomes the expected entitled norm. It's more about a group looking after each other. Probably why it pays to make contacts rather than give your all to a job.

//Back in the old days, a public service job was security. You received a reasonable salary, nothing extravagant, your job was relatively safe, and the work pressures were expected to be less than in “the real world.” If you wanted more, you ventured out into that real world where there were no limits to what you could achieve and earn. Public service was public service—it wasn’t meant to be Maseratis and mansions. Today, we pay public servants more than they would get in the real world, where market forces—profitability and competence—are at play.//

//Public service remuneration is not in competition with the commercial world; it is public money, taxpayers’ money, that needs to be carefully administered, not squandered.//

//Public servants doing their job shouldn’t starve. No one disputes that they should be able to live comfortably. However, they should not be elevated above the public they serve. They should not get benefits more than the general public or benefit from other special rules.//

A few snippets from American Thinker.

 

//Back in the old days, a public service job was security. You received a reasonable salary, nothing extravagant, your job was relatively safe, and the work pressures were expected to be less than in “the real world.”

the goode olde days _ I dont remember the Mrs Mopps in council hall receiving a of money

 

At Porton DOwn, my conts 1968-70 were £9.92 and were pocketed by the govt ( de minimis etc)

Hi me! - the  difft jobs have difft unions and difft pension  rules

The reason why you see so many ex police as security guards is that they need the money

NHS conts were 14% and 14% and there is no pension pot - it is paid from your taxes.  Previously the  doctors conts always outweighed the cost of total pension

Schools pensions were terrible - there was a pot and it was squandered. Some were getting less than £10 000

Same thing happened to the Clerical pensions ( they  lost £100m by bad investment) if you say they work for the state

Good for them. 

I bow to anyone who gets themselves into a job with a decent pension. Better to live out your last years of your life comfortably rather than spending your entire day grizzling endlessly to random strangers

Hi sp - my gt nephew attended a works meeting where the rep asked  - who has a mortgage, life insurance, and a pension

He put up  his hamd, and was told that the first time anyone had answered Yes

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