- Conference
- 2009 Police Staff Service Group Conference
- Date
- 10 June 2009
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
Conference notes that Eric Pickles, former Shadow Local Government Minister and David Cameron, Leader of the Conservative Party, have both publicly stated that a Conservative Government would end the final salary LGPS. Furthermore, discussions about setting an inferior Defined Contribution Scheme to replace the LGPS have taken place across political groupings within the Local Government Association.
The Tories argue that it is ‘adding insult to injury by making hard working families pay towards the soaring cost of public sector pensions and that ‘the LGPS is neither sustainable nor fair when compared to pensions in the private sector’.
Conference refutes these ill informed and inaccurate views that endanger the future living standards of millions of low paid public service workers.
The costs of pension provision have risen because of the ageing workforce and past pension ‘holidays’, not generous benefits. The LGPS has never been ‘gold plated’ and the average pension in payment is barely enough to take many members – especially women – above the threshold for means tested benefits.
The LGPS allows one and half million workers to do what the Government wants them to do – save towards their retirement. Negative propaganda about the LGPS also ignores the fact that it is funded and generates income.
Providing an adequate pension is not cheap, but the problem is not that police staff have an over-generous pension. It is the scandal of the closure of final salary schemes in the private sector and the increasing number of workers who can now only join near-to-useless Defined Contribution Schemes. This will mean poverty for millions and an untenable burden on taxpayers required to support those without decent pensions in old age.
Conference notes that UNISON-commissioned research by the New Policy Institute showed that if the predominately low paid workforce in the LGPS did not save for their retirement, the financial burden on the state and the tax payer would run into billions.
Conference believes that those who say that the LGPS is not sustainable are wrong. The new LGPS schemes from 2008 in England and Wales and 2009 in Scotland, reduce overall costs and UNISON is currently discussing a means by which any increase in cost in the future in England and Wales will be met fairly to keep the LGPS sustainable.
This Conference believes that the aim of any Government should not be to bring those already in defined benefit pension schemes below the poverty line and dependent on state benefits on retirement. It should be to ensure that as many people as possible save for their retirement through the LGPS and other public sector pension schemes and live above the poverty line in old age.
Conference instructs the Service Group Executive to work with other Service Groups to defend the Local Government Pension Scheme against attacks by the Conservative Party.