Letter: Pension rights

Who said teachers inhabit a world of their own and are out of touch with reality? Well whoever it was, Iain Hall, (Letters, 22 May), who I assume was a teacher, reinforces that view. He fails to grasp the simple mechanics of index-linking, and I suspect he also fails to appreciate just how privileged he is to have such a pension.

He blames the Treasury and/or the government for not increasing his pension this year. His pension will increase each April in line with the Retail Price Index as at September the previous year, and as the RPI was -1.4 last September, ie negative, in theory his pension should have reduced by 1.4 per cent.

The sad reality is, following Gordon Brown's raid on pension funds, that there are fewer and fewer companies providing similar schemes for their employees and it is only public sector pensions that provide the same level of benefits enjoyed by Mr Hall, but for how much longer?

ALASTAIR McMILLAN

Turner Avenue

Balerno, Edinburgh