Sunday 1 February 2009

Public Sector Pensions - Again!

Apologies for posting on this subject yet again, but the Times is reporting that the costs of public sector pensions has increased by £11.2billion in one year - a 33 percent increase.

The most interesting quote in the story comes from Nick Silver, chief actuary at Callund Consulting, who said: “The cost of paying the pensions of current civil servants has gone up by £1 billion in a single year and it’s not obvious why - government accounts do not give a proper explanation of why.” (my emphasis) and “Civil servants do make contributions, but their contributions do not count for anything like the true cost of their pension – the bulk of which will be paid for by generations of future taxpayers,” 

And politicians of all parties, but especially Gordon Brown, berate banks for not having been 'open' with their accounts?

The words 'black', 'kettle' and 'pot' spring to mind.




1 comment:

Mark Wadsworth said...

Nick Silver has spent years trying to track down what the true cost is, and if it's not clear to him what they've done then we don't stand a chance.

Is it a real change or just a change in actuarial assumptions, and if so, are they accurate yet, and even if they are, how much of the change is due to a reduction in the discount rate applied, which might well reverse in future? etc etc.