something to bear in mind

[stephen500]

Once you have sat down by the fire with your favourite drink and the 'pension' proposal booklet, consider the following point that occured to me last night.

Note that the examples given of your pension taken before 60 and at 65 make assumptions.

The two that stand out are illustrations of salary with 1% and -1% pay rises.

Particually note the minus 1% and then reflect on this years agreement going out to ballot.

For 2007 the 5.4% is payable from Oct 2007 and therefore in reality is clearly below 5.4% and although inflation currently stands at 1.8%, excluding mortgages, it isn plain to all that with the contiuning rise of petrol prices that inflation will revert back to an upward trend.

So what am i saying?

Well that RM with paying below inflation pay awards will see our pensions at least at the lower scale of the illustrations in the booklet and perhaps even worse.

note: section a/b 1% above inflation pay increases
retire at 60 after changes:
Age 50 at 2008
30 years service
pension: £9,354. Minus 1% inflation: £7813
lump sum £ £28,061 Minus 1% inflation £23,438.

So you can plainly see the effect on pension of below inflation pay rises on your pension, and this is on top of the losses by moving from final salary to care![b]
Do you see RM paying above inflation pay increases?[/b]

[strangler]

Absolutely. Cat in hells chance of them doing that.