Pension Envy
Recommend on Google+
The Civil Service is under attack again, this time from sections of the media and independent commentators. Their target is the security of pensions that public-sector workers currently enjoy. I suppose this is not surprising really in the current economic climate where envious glances are cast at anyone who still seems to be relatively untouched by the recession.
The main point of consternation is over the level of support given by taxpayers towards these pensions. The alternatives, however, appear to be somewhat flawed; for example, the current method of pension provision in the private-sector is certainly not a model to aspire to. It is difficult to understand why public workers should have their pensions funded by profits in the financial markets rather than by taxation; I mean, this hasn’t exactly worked has it? There seems to be demands for public servants to share in the misery that is hitting others.
The Civil Service as a whole has been a target for successive governments eager to reduce costs for decades and the recent level of opprobrium aimed at these public servants is nothing new. The Wilson government of the 1960s, with its implementation of the Fulton Report, attempted to reform certain aspects of the Civil Service which, according to the report, had remained unchanged since its establishment after the Northcote-Trevelyan Report of 1855.
It was under the premiership of Margaret Thatcher, however, that the Civil Service in particular, and the public-sector in general was really placed under the microscope and various further reports under, initially, Derek Rayner, and then Robin Ibbs, culminated in a reduction of jobs from 732,000 to under 600,000 in three years. Thatcher was infamous in Whitehall and elsewhere for her dislike of index-linked pensions for civil service employees and the watchwords of the time were efficiency, cost-effectiveness and objective-setting. Targets in government departments are definitely not a recent phenomenon.
Blair’s governments carried this pattern on with the introduction of the Service First reforms and more job cuts. Civil Service membership now stands at around 250,000, a vast reduction since the early 1980s.
As we move towards an election next year Gordon Brown has recently stated that public sector reform is high on his agenda and David Cameron has declared that he wants to put Civil Service pensions on a ‘defined contribution footing’, which means self-funding and not via the taxpayer. How this is to happen is anybody’s guess. Boris Johnson has also waded in with an article in The Daily Telegraph last month in which he wrote that he was annoyed at ‘civil servants sitting pretty at your expense’.
As you can see, civil servants and other public-sector workers are, and have not been, flavour of the month with successive governments of all ideological persuasions. Whatever the outcome of the latest government attempts at reforms and the ire aimed at pensions for public servants, I think it can be safely assumed that the recent article in The Economist which claimed that ‘retired civil servants are going to be waving from their yachts at their private sector friends sitting in their deck chairs’ will be found to be false, particularly when salaries in the Civil Service average just over £20,000. Only £6,000 more than Sir Fred Goodwin earns from his pension in a week.
blog comments powered by Disqus
Modern Conservatism - In Thought And Action [7 Jan 2012]
AS parties: divide over energy prices [19 Oct 2011]
Political reincarnations continued [3 Oct 2011]
How Conservative Members Rate Coalition Cabinet Ministers [12 Sep 2010]
Tabloids and Governments [6 Sep 2010]
Labour leadership campaign - who are you closest to? [1 Sep 2010]
Lord Ashcroft and the Troubled Times of David Cameron [6 Mar 2010]
Michael Foot: RIP [4 Mar 2010]
Political Parties - Conservatives backtracking and Lib Dems not hanging [19 Feb 2010]
Student Challenge - make their own Cameron poster [21 Jan 2010]
The Internet on the Great Hoon Non-Plot [6 Jan 2010]
Mayor Boris takes a dip [4 Jun 2009]
Essential viewing [1 Mar 2008]
POLITICS TEACHER RESOURCE NEWSLETTER
Join over 1,600 Politics Teachers who receive the regular tutor2u Politics Teacher Resource Newsletter by email.
