The Union were right "An open letter"

[borders]

what amazes me is how gullible people are, not necessarily on here as there are some great minds such as Fishtank , Dingo, TBT to mention a few but generally. heads in the Sun newspaper sub-consciously being brainwashed and manipulated by lies and drivel and of course FOOTBALL the modern day Religion. meanwhile the people at the top have their hands in our back pockets robbing us blind. ask yourself how does some people become Billionaires ? its not by doing 20 hours docket every week.
it isn't the first time , the Miners pension fund has suffered at the hands of Tory and Labour Governments http://www.minersadvice.co.uk/pensiontheft.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
now is not the time to be DOCILE .......

[nataddick]

Agree with your thoughts Dingo about the 'con'. I think the 'open letter' captures the mood at the moment.

However, a few technical points to note that are referred to in the latest set of preliminary accounts that might be of interest. I worked in pension for L&G many moons ago and will be retiring in the not too distant future and I am keen to find out what is going on and fight for our rights!

1. The first one concerns the final salary link. Here is an extract from page 33

You will see that although the final salary link is based on service up to 31 March 2008 - the government have taken this on based on salary at 1 April 2012 - almost 4 years later - only one year has gone by since then ! The RMSPS therefore uses 2 dates for the final salary link which is causing confusion.

8. Employee benefits – pensions (continued)
The transfer left the RMPP fully funded on an actuarial basis. This means that using long-term actuarial assumptions agreed at that date it was predicted the Company would have to make no further deficit cash contributions.
The total (Royal Mail Group and Post Office Limited) liabilities transferred of £37.6 billion comprise:
i) all liabilities relating to deferred members or pensioners on 1 April 2012; and
ii) for the liabilities of active members currently employed on 1 April 2012:
– benefits accrued under the final salary arrangements to 31 March 2008 (based on number of years in scheme and respective salary at 1 April 2012). The RMSPS rules increase this final salary benefit by RPI1 each year for active membership; and
– benefits accrued under the career average salary arrangements from 1 April 2008 to 31 March 2012, assuming an RPI1 future increase.
The total assets (Royal Mail Group and Post Office Limited) transferred were £28.5 billion, leaving £2.2 billion with the RMPP Trustee to match the liabilities (Royal Mail Group and Post Office Limited) relating to the final salary benefit for active members (as at 1 April 2012) that the Government did not take on. These remaining liabilities relate to the difference in increases to the final salary benefit that the RMSPS scheme provides for (at RPI) and the RMPP Trustee assumes (at RPI + 1%2).
Therefore, the Royal Mail Group and Post Office Limited retained the liability for each year of future service under the career average salary arrangements and the following risk for active members only:
i) liability for salary growth above RPI (increases up to 1% above RPI are covered by the £2.2 billion funding described above)
ii) changes in future long-term economic assumptions (e.g. interest rates, RPI/CPI)
iii) changes in future long-term demographic assumptions (e.g. mortality)
iv) changes in market assumptions (returns on assets, gilt yields, etc.)
v) all existing aspects relating to the RMSEPP scheme (the Company closed this plan to future accruals on 31 December 2012).
All other financial information other than in this note relates to the amounts that have been sectionalised to Royal Mail Group.

2. You will see from i) above that the liability for salary growth above RPI (increases up to 1% above RPI are covered by the £2.2 billion funding - so why are they capping the proposal at RPI only and not plus 1%.The 5% cap already exists.

3.The RMPP was supposedly fully funded, mentioned above and repeated on per page 15 of the preliminary accounts, so why are the costs going to increase by £300m p.a. in addition to the regular employer contibution of £400m

Pension plans
On 1 April 2012 – after the granting of State Aid approval by the European Commission on 21 March 2012 – almost all of the pension liabilities and pension assets of the Royal Mail Pension Plan (RMPP), built up until 31 March 2012, were transferred to HM Government. On this date, the RMPP was also sectionalised, with Royal Mail Group Limited and Post Office Limited each responsible for their own liabilities in future. This arrangement left the RMPP fully funded on an actuarial basis in respect of historic liabilities at this date.
Royal Mail Group’s ongoing pension costs, mainly relating to approximately 112,000 active members in RMPP, will continue to be material (with associated cash costs being similar to the charges to the income statement). There is no difference between the reported and adjusted basis.

4.We have received repeated reassurances that our benefits would not be adversely affected by the pension solution as provided by the Postal Services Act 2011 and yet here we are so soon after having to cope with further detrimental changes which must have been known about at the time of the transfer, if not before. There must have been both actuarial and accounting valuations conducted by the Government and Royal - it is how they knew to leave £2billion in the new RMPP.

[redman]

I was astonished when there was very little protest from the CWU and my union the CWU when they raised retirement age and scrapped the old pension, now its all happening again. My union CMA/Unite will make little fuss as the CMA part is toothless.

[fishtank]

Since 2008 we have stood by and watched the final salary scheme close and move to career average and NRA moved to 62 in 2008 then 65 in 2010.

When the final salary scheme closed I thought it was wrong and we should have put up more of a fight but the argument Royal Mail used was that the "feedback" they had received from members would be that it would be acceptable IF a "fair and attractive alternative pension scheme is made available to new entrants" that's the words they used.

They conned us and introduced the Defined Contribution plan which is piss poor and about as far away from fair and attractive as you can get.

Now they appear to want us to trade the only thing we have left from our original scheme,a scheme a lot of us signed up to in good faith...for improvements to a scheme that they promised would be a great deal more than it was to start with.

They lied to us over the Defined Contribution plan and now they want us to pay for that lie.
They can go f**k themselves and so can anybody at CWU HQ who might think this is an acceptable trade off.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

[Red Robbo]

Can anyone tell me are the CWU Pension Trustees looking after the benefit of the CWU members or the Pension Fund itself ??

[Kidders]

Forget the semantics this is about making the pension fund attractive to private investment ! It will lead to a massive surplus in the pension fund and will be even more attractive to investors ! I reported this more than 2 months ago this was on the cards and this is the classic 3 card trick before privatisation they could have declared this before announcing profits they choose to announce it less than a week after ! Have you woken up to the con yet ! Even wake up and fight or we will all get stitched up ! There is no other alternative !

I am smelling the Coffee...................anyone else ?