Analysis: Cuts on this scale could provoke an angry backlash

THE one key issue from all this is that many people have been paying into these local government pensions for decades and have done all that has been asked of them.

These are people who have worked for at least 40 years and hoped that, at the end of this time, they would have a period where they would have some form of financial security through their pensions.

However, the suggestion from all this is that when people get to 60 or 65, they won’t get anything like the level of pensions they had expected and paid into.

It’s generally accepted there is a problem with the financing of local government pensions, although whether the true picture is as bad as that painted in the report is another question.

If we look at the city of Aberdeen – a council that has faced great financial difficulties with all sorts of austerity measures affecting services – we can see an example of a place that would really be affected by some of the issues mentioned in the report. There has already been a lot of public discontent over cuts in the city of Aberdeen and in many other parts of Scotland. But to now have all of these people’s pensions in jeopardy or facing reductions is not something that people are just going to meekly accept and we could see real political consequences coming from all this.

We’re beginning to see some of this unrest in countries such as Germany and France, where smaller and anti-establishment parties have the chance of doing well in the presidential elections this year.

That sort of backlash could come here if we see pensions entitlement on this scale at risk.

• Trevor Salmon is a lecturer in politics and local government at Aberdeen University.