Letter: Full picture on pension reforms

RE YOUR article "Public sector pension changes could have been much worse" (Business, 19 June). I think it is you who should have done your homework before criticising public sector workers.

You will find that most people affected understand fully the proposed reforms and that is why they are upset and annoyed.

"So if your earnings rise by no more than inflation throughout your working life, the pension you get is unlikely to be lower as a result of the reforms." How many people do you know who have started work at age 24 and 41 years later have never had promotion, a pay increment or moved to a better paid job?

Pay awards in the private sector were running at 2.2 per cent in November, up from the 2 per cent rises seen in most of the past year, and IDS (an independent research organisation) predicts pay rises may average 3 per cent this year. This at a time when Scottish teachers will have their pay frozen until 2013 when inflation is predicted to rise to above the current 4.7 per cent.

Also, pension contributions for teachers will rise from a current flat rate of 6.4 per cent of salary to an average of between 9.5 and 9.8 per cent by 2014-15. This represents a rise in contributions of 50 per cent and will cost teachers earning 35,000 an extra 100 per month. Contribution increases were unnecessary as the National Audit Office has calculated that public sector pension schemes, including the teachers' one, were already generating 14 per cent in savings to the Treasury on the basis of reforms already made.

Bryan A Watson, Alford