Police pensions

[GingerCat]

 

 

Its gone to civilians up here now, used to be police

 

 

Still officers here so there's time yet......

Should clarify the previous pension amount was on working till 65 as well, it was 5700 a year at 60. Nice. The calculator is on the home office website.

[Laird Lugton]

Just for balance the average pension pot used to buy an annuity in the UK is £27,000 which I think equates to a pension of about £1,000 a year.

 

I have some sympathy with your plight. My family are mostly teachers and have been told to contribute more into the pension and they can't start drawing their pension until 68. My sister reckons she'll be in a coffin by 68 if they make her work that long.

 

My father was a senior manager in an electronics firm and his pension is £8k plus state after paying into the company pension for 40 years.

[Dirty Harry]

Shaun, thing is other people can and have done stuff about it. Fireman strike, nurses strike, police can do nothing.

This is supposed to be reflected in our pay and conditions as crown servants and not employees.

Our hands are tied. Yes we could leave but for people who have been paying into the pension they would loose even more.

 

Harry

[leeds chimp]

Personally I would rather pay the money into a saving account and use that than a pension..

[UKPoacher]

Shaun, thing is other people can and have done stuff about it. Fireman strike, nurses strike, police can do nothing.

This is supposed to be reflected in our pay and conditions as crown servants and not employees.

Our hands are tied. Yes we could leave but for people who have been paying into the pension they would loose even more.

 

Harry

 

I've said for years now that the police don't have to strike. All they have to do is work to rule. Arrive at the station exactly on time not 40 minutes early to get some paper shifted and tackle up as I used to. After briefing check your car properly as per the manual, go out on your beat and deal with EVERYTHING properly. Cars with one wheel on the pavement, grafitti on a wall, litter, all needs investigating properly - as per the Force Policy. Within an hour every officr would be tied up with trivia and no one left to send to emergencies.

 

Follow the Force Policy instead of making it fit and the country would be on their knees in less than a day.

[Mungler]

My mate got the same degree as me and we qualified at the same time.

 

He qualified as a solicitor, but opted to join the Met for a variety of reasons but up there was the promise of a fixed working life and fixed pension - the 25 years in job and the pension. All set out in black and white.... I think that amounted to a promise made to him.

 

He has been screwed like so many.

 

If he had known back then what he knows now... well he wouldn't have joined up that's for certain.

 

 

[keg]

Shaun, you forgot to mention some of teh public as well as the bankers and politicians.

 

Welcome to our world. My bro worked for a national retail chain. Final salary scheme etc, they started opening sundays, no extra pay, and after paying into a final salary scheme for over 2o years, gets told one day sorry, all being moved to money purchase.

[ME]

you r friend can book an appointment with a solicitor and discuss this matter.

 

Yeah, your mate should take proper legal advice. Not some bloke down the pub.

[Slug]

Screwed like personal pensions ? *** do public service think they are imune to the real world ? yea they have been butty lubed..Join the que !

Slug

 

Yea I know its been a while since I have been on here * Busy*

[compo90]

I've said for years now that the police don't have to strike. All they have to do is work to rule. Arrive at the station exactly on time not 40 minutes early to get some paper shifted and tackle up as I used to. After briefing check your car properly as per the manual, go out on your beat and deal with EVERYTHING properly. Cars with one wheel on the pavement, grafitti on a wall, litter, all needs investigating properly - as per the Force Policy. Within an hour every officr would be tied up with trivia and no one left to send to emergencies.

 

Follow the Force Policy instead of making it fit and the country would be on their knees in less than a day.

 

sadly work to rule is also industril action

 

this is what the general public dont realise

 

police cant strike.

they cant join a union.

they cant take any industrial action like working to rule. (these are enshrined in regulations and law and any copper taking industrial action will get prosecuted and imprisoned for causing dissafection in a police service- no one else can be imprisoned for following the rules)

they are always on duty.

they cant join a political party or be involved in politics.

they have to have their home address approved.(if the job tell the copper they cant live there they need to move or resign)

they cant associate with who they want.

they cant have a relationship or marry someone without the authority of the job.

any business interests out of work to raise extra money need authorisation and can be refused. (even what my wife does for work i needed to have approved once)

If you are looking forward to a few days off work, expect to have a phone call and go back to work.

dont make any plans after work with family as you cant guarantee you will be released in time from work.

expect to work all family celebrations (easter/christmas/bonfire night/halloween)

 

there are so many regulations regarding the conduct of officers and the rules have a major impact on the officers life and family........this is why the police have historically been paid relatively well and given a good pension in trade for the loss of rights everyone else takes for granted.

 

police are not employees but hold the office of constable...........

if they become employee's then the police regulations would go out of the window.....they would have to......then you would be getting the police service that you pay for, with no regulations enforcing the behaviour you would get politically motivated police, much much more corruption, police associating with anyone and everyone that they wanted to (including criminals and sacked police-there are rules at the minute preventing this) you would get more and more police officers that at the minute wouldn't make the grade.

 

It will get a lot worse before it gets better..........we all moan about the police at the minute and in some cases justifiably ..........but i guarantee when you open the flood gates to people to join the police due to the fact that the decent coppers are getting scarce due to the financial dis-incentive........we will have a lot lot lot more to moan about...........pay peanuts and get monkeys is true here

[shaun4860]

Screwed like personal pensions ? *** do public service think they are imune to the real world ? yea they have been butty lubed..Join the que !

Slug

 

Yea I know its been a while since I have been on here * Busy*

Edited September 14, 2012 by shaun4860

[shaun4860]

This has been the point I have been trying to get over,

 

It's everybody that's affected.

 

But the police/firemen/forces/teachers as well if you like, all come on here saying they are the ones suffering, as if nobody else is.

 

I'm done on this topic now as I feel nobody is getting anywhere. (hooray some will say)

 

:Shaun)

[al4x]

Screwed like personal pensions ? *** do public service think they are imune to the real world ? yea they have been butty lubed..Join the que !

Slug

 

Yea I know its been a while since I have been on here * Busy*

 

that is actually about it everyone with a private pension is getting no where near what was expected back they have no one to sue or complain to. However the public sector just expect it and really that is the issue the public sector is far too large to sustain so the whole thing is in danger of going seriously Greece like.

[Asa Bear]

 

It will get a lot worse before it gets better..........we all moan about the police at the minute and in some cases justifiably ..........but i guarantee when you open the flood gates to people to join the police due to the fact that the decent coppers are getting scarce due to the financial dis-incentive........we will have a lot lot lot more to moan about...........pay peanuts and get monkeys is true here

 

 

This applies to the whole public sector. Joe Public can moan about us all he likes but when all that's left in the emergency services is the dross this country will truly be on it's knees.

 

I was talking to a control operator yesterday who said she would now be required to work until she's 68. Don't fancy having her pick up if I'm in need of an emergency response in the middle of the night.

[colliwobbles]

Taser ticket handed in, Psu, cbrn and medic ticket handed in, arrive on time and leave on time, do what I have to, to the best of my ability and that's it. What the general public forget when they bleat about what a good pension we get is that we pay for it(at the moment 12.5%) going up to 13.7%, get abused, assaulted and everything else that goes with it, as well as the total of 30 years of shifts on our bodies. I don't know anyone else who pays over £300 a month into the pot, so yes it is (was) good but we pay for it.

[Whitebridges]

Thanks for the post compo90, i am more enlightened than before.

I've had a fair bit of envolvement with the Poiice, all for positive reasons I might add rather than the force moving me off to the slammer! Every time i've been impressed by them. If they were poor at what they do i'd say so.

The Police force shouldn't be some kind of third division club. It needs to maintain a high profile, be respected by the people and have a highly motivated workforce. All the time we hear of "cuts", degradation of benefits and changes to improve "efficiency".

I feel the policemen on the ground are a bit beaten up. This recession we are in will get worse, it's only just started. So, here we (they) are trying to introduce quite radical reforms to policing when just round the corner there is a very strong probability of anarchy in the UK.

So the country goes in to mayhem and we have an even more ****** off and delapidated law enforcement regime.

While all this goes on we have some fantastic graduates with sublime degrees out there looking for jobs. "The deal at the Poiice is ****" they say. I've heard it from three people. My nephew got a 2:1 and in his first year quite fancied working for the Police. When he got his degree he thought the package "miles out".

There was a time if you worked for the Police you were a respected and upstanding member of the community. It was a job that people aspired to. It was something that underpinned life and Law and Order was respected because of the quality of staff and their belief in the laws of the land.

 

Police Officers had a better environment, they were confident, healthy and good at enforcing the law. Now they seem stressed and looking up their ***** and worrying about why they signed up in the first place. It all stinks, I genuinely feel sorry for them all.

 

Very sad days, try working in a demoralised institution and see how you feel.

Edited September 14, 2012 by Whitebridges

[coyotemaster]

Very interesting topic and as a retired civil servant I much empathize with the policemen. Much the same is going on here in different sectors of our country basicly due to the recession and the fact that a lot of investments tanked leaving pension funds underfunded along with the fact pensioners are living longer. In Illinois the government has been dipping into the teachers pension fund for years and now is unable to repay what it took(stole) so the discussion is how can we cut teachers pensions? Unfair--you bet it is, my shooting buddy, a retired principal, is 71 and they want to jerk the rug from under him because the state made some bad moves. My/our pension fund is in good repair but they don't have the revenue coming in as when the interest rates were double figure, lucky to draw 5% now on notes. I am not sure of the solution but agree a lot of people are retiring only to be forced back to work, and remember those cops that seem to be living the life of Riley have at some point put their safety at risk and deserve their day.

[hawkeye]

I can feel sorry for them i spent 25 years as a financial adviser. The company i worked for decided to change the pension scheme to a money purchase scheme and also take away our salary and we were to go commision only i worked it out i would have had to sell twice as many contracts to make the same salary...

But they did give everyone the option if you had 10 or more years service you could stay in the old scheme.. Under 10 years and all new starters had to go into the money purchase scheme

and also anyone over 51 years of age could retire with a full pension i was 55 at the time so took the pension and got out.. That was 10 years ago and i have never regretted it..

[ging125]

Unfortunately the NHS is the same!! We are allowed to strike but cant because we are health professionals!! Its really frustrating. The thing is they are expecting people to live longer. However they are basing this on the current generation of retirees. This group had a healthy life style for the majority of their years and current drug and medical treatment his increased this generaltions life span. However the following generations have become more and more unhealthy! Kids on computers and eating rubbish! My guess is that the life span will continue to stay the same as it is currently even with advances in technology. The new treatment will increase the life span but due to unhealthy lifestyle it wont go much beyond 80!

[Laird Lugton]

Unfortunately the NHS is the same!! We are allowed to strike but cant because we are health professionals!! Its really frustrating. The thing is they are expecting people to live longer. However they are basing this on the current generation of retirees. This group had a healthy life style for the majority of their years and current drug and medical treatment his increased this generaltions life span. However the following generations have become more and more unhealthy! Kids on computers and eating rubbish! My guess is that the life span will continue to stay the same as it is currently even with advances in technology. The new treatment will increase the life span but due to unhealthy lifestyle it wont go much beyond 80!

 

I suspect working to your 70's will reduce the lifespan further which means less pension will need to be paid. A neat solution to the problem......

[henry d]

I suspect working to your 70's will reduce the lifespan further which means less pension will need to be paid. A neat solution to the problem......

 

Yep, same for the firefighters.

 

Another thing to factor in is the capability to do your job, that way the employers can just sack you. 60yr old firefighter/police officer of either age being as capable as a 20yr old.......bye bye, shut the door on your way out. Getting a job aged 60 to cover you until you reach the age you can claim your pension, possibly 68-70, it isn`t a nice thought, but hey the politicians who did it will be offshore somewhere spending theirs.

 

Another solution, that would possibly bankrupt us all would be for all public sector to ask for their contributions back right now.......... yeah the money the govenment hasn`t invested at all.

Edited September 15, 2012 by henry d

[UKPoacher]

This has been the point I have been trying to get over,

 

It's everybody that's affected.

 

But the police/firemen/forces/teachers as well if you like, all come on here saying they are the ones suffering, as if nobody else is.

 

I'm done on this topic now as I feel nobody is getting anywhere. (hooray some will say)

 

:Shaun)

 

But it's not everyone. Politicians and bankers seem immune to any cuts to their salaries and pensions.

 

You seem to have a chip on your shoulder about police pensions. Police pay & conditions were set by the Government and designed to attract suitable applicants and ensure that after all the money spent on training they kept them. These terms are enshrined in law for what good that is. Just because you made different decisions and suffered unfortunate circumstances doesn't mean that it is OK to shaft anyone in a better position than you.

 

Back to the original query; I now understand what Mungler is talking about. The change to a contract enshrined in law? The difficulties I forsee is that you have to establish whether to sue the Government or the individual officer's Forces.

[lxtav]

I have a vested intrest in this and am going to have to work an extra 8 years which I am not happy about as when I took the job I accepted all the restrictions placed on me as I knew I would be getting a good pension as a rewards for this. However the one thing that is really annoying me is the lies and spin that the government has been putting on everything to justify their arguments and just ignoring all the other research and ideas as stupid and they know everything. For example

 

The Gov has stated that police and public sector pensions need reform as they were outdated - The police pensions were reformed in 2006 making them less generous and on track to be cost neutral to the tax payer in about 15-20 years time (same as firefighters).

 

The Gov said public sector pension are unaffordable - The percentage of the countryies GDP that public sector pensions use up is due to drop over the coming years despite the pensions bill going up so how are they unaffordable as they will be paying less in real terms not more.

 

The Gov picked and choose what bits of the public sector pensions to talk about when asked to justify their argument they were unaffordable using the lump sums from the police pensions where 13% is paid in by employees but the contribution rates of some civil servants at 1.5- 3.5%. You cannot pick and choose bits from schemes that are totally different and then use them as a evidence to justify an argument. It is like taking the price of a Mini and the fuel consuption of a Ferrari to justify an argument that all cars are cheap and very inefficent to justify an argument to raise petrol prices to tackle global warming.

 

This was all done in an effort to black list anyone who gets or is going to get a public sector pension with everyone else as greedy and out of touch with the facts of the current financial situation(did the same with NHS reform saying the critics didn't care about patients and were basically heartless). Instead of thinking about the public sector pensions being two generous maybe it's the other way round and its the private sector pensions that are the problem being too low as the pension pots have been getting raided by the gov and the companies for their own ends over the years.

 

I generally don't trust a word a politician says but especially not this lot who appear to me to be totally out of touch with reality and of the mindset that we know whats best for you lower classes so don't moan and do as you are told. You have them being told that it is impossible for the police (In England and Wales as the Scottish Gov actually likes the police) to take 20% cuts and not cut frontline policing or have an increse in the crime rate. Despite the Gov saying they were all talking rubbish you now have crime down south increasing and frontline policing being cut (but it is the fault of the Chief Constables not the Gov apparently) where as in Scotland where the cuts have been less crime is falling and there are more cops than before. The NHS is another example as Doctors, nurses and basically everyone bar the MP's state the health reforms are a bad idea and will all but destroy the NHS and again no your talking rubbish we know best.

 

I tended to broadly agree when this lot were voted in (or not) that we had to cut back and that everyone had to do their bit but I don't agree with the hatchet job on the economy and pig headedness to listen to reason about possible problems that their ideas may bring.

[shaun4860]

But it's not everyone. Politicians and bankers seem immune to any cuts to their salaries and pensions.

 

You seem to have a chip on your shoulder about police pensions.

 

I did point this out earlier

 

Not at all, my gripe is that the police/firemen/forces/teacher and other public sector workers seem to think they are the only ones suffering and should be a special case and not included in the recession

 

EVERYONES SUFFERING except Politicians and Bankers

 

I had said earlier that I agreed nothing should have been changed, BUT times have changed and everyone is having to cut their cloth accordingly