Halt payments to public pensions

Published on Saturday 14 March 2009 18:59

YOUR Leader of March 8 suggests that because of a pensions 'black hole', local authority frontline services may have to be cut to pay for increased employer contributions by councils in Scotland to ensure the viability of their final salary pension schemes.

There is, of course, an alternative. Rather than punish the hard-pressed council tax payer, public sector workers should be told the pension they had been promised will no longer be available unless they increase their contributions, or, follow the example of many private sector workers and make additional provision themselves for their retirement, including an extension to their retirement age.

It is scandalous that, according to your article, 20% of all council tax contributions is directed towards the council pension 'pots'.

Why should council tax payers be penalised by a diminution in the services they receive from their local authority, simply because over-staffed councils are unwilling to face reality and deal with the ever-increasing shortfalls in their pension funds by scrapping final salary schemes for all employees?

Bob Irvine, Dundee