Pension policy

As the assault on public employees’ pensions gathers pace, (your report, 12 December) it is worth reflecting that very many private company pensions were defined benefit until quite recently, but now they are mostly being cut back to defined contributions – even Unilever is reportedly discontinuing its final salary system.

There seems to be a race to the bottom to slash everyone’s retirement incomes, and it is not right to assert now that public service workers have gold-plated retirements just because the cut back in private pensions seems to leave them better placed.

The snag with defined contributions is that they can depend on the stock market at the time of retirement – just tough if there is a crash as you retire – as is the case with personal plans.

Career average calculations may be relatively better for the lower paid who may earn most when they are younger, but do not match final salary for so many more.

There is probably nothing much wrong with increased contributions to your scheme, particularly as you may be working past 70 and retired for 20 more years after that but let’s not pretend that the retired are going to be no worse off than now – whether public or private unless they’re CEOs. If only the state pension had not been allowed to become miserly.

Joe Darby

Martins Mill

Cullicudden, Dingwall