NASUWT: Coalition government’s promise on accrued pension rights in tatters
Despite the promise of the Coalition Government to protect accrued pension rights, regardless of the outcome of the current Review of public sector pensions, millions of public sector workers are now facing a retirement beset by worry and financial uncertainty following the Coalition Government’s decision to switch pension calculations from the Retail Price Index (RPI) to the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
Today, the NASUWT, the largest teachers’ union, launches its online pension ‘ready reckoner’ which allows teachers to calculate for themselves how hard they will be hit by the change.
Based on the current RPI of 4.8% and CPI figure of 3.1%, a teacher with an annual pension of £10,000 could lose a staggering £74,016 over a 25 year period. Even if the CPI and RPI follow Bank of England predictions in the future, the same teacher would still be around £20,000 worse off.
Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT, said:
“This change represents nothing more than naked raiding of public service workers’ pensions to make them pay the price for the greed and recklessness of the financial sector. “Teachers have made their financial plans for retirement in good faith on the basis of the long established and historic link with RPI.
“To change the rules, not only for serving teachers but also for those who have retired, is reprehensible. “It leaves the promises to protect accrued rights made publicly by senior figures of the Coalition Government, including the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Chancellor, in tatters.
“The NASUWT’s ready reckoner will allow teachers to see for themselves the impact of the change. They will have every right to feel betrayed and angry. “Attacks on public sector pensions have intensified, fuelled by the Coalition Government’s constant assertions that public sector pensions are ‘generous’ and ‘gold plated’.
“These statements are nothing more than gross distortions of the facts, designed to mislead the public. “The average public service worker’s pension is £5,000. A teacher’s pension is just under £10,000. Hardly generous or gold plated.
“The real cost to the taxpayer is not public sector pensions but the negligence of the growing number of private sector employers who fail to provide occupational pensions and the £10 billion spent every year to subsidise the pensions of the richest one per cent of the population.
“The NASUWT will continue to campaign with the TUC to protect the pensions of teachers and other public sector workers and for decent occupational pensions for workers in the private sector.”
ENDS
Notes to Editors
The NASUWT ‘ready reckoner’ is available at www.nasuwt.org.uk
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