Pensions concern

I NOTE with concern that the Scottish Public Pensions Agency was instructed by the UK government to postpone the valuation of NHS and Scottish teachers’ schemes until 2012 (p20 of the organisation’s annual report).

Many public servants are taking industrial action for the first time in a generation and are, as expected, being jeered by boorish proponents of the fiscal scorched earth morality of the Conservative and Liberal Deomocrat alliance as they attempt to cover the gambling debts of the City. It is essential that statistical analysis is available so that the debate can be transparent and imbued with a sense of fairness. The UK government is not allowing this to occur.

It is also worrying that schemes declared future proof in 2007, due to a willingness of workers and employers to negotiate and sacrifice, becomes such a basket case in 2010 that workers are having a 50 per cent increase in contributions dictated to them by employers who concurrently are being allowed to reduce their contribution. If the schemes are so deep in the red, surely this is a reckless move? These are the very workers who are on the front line of trying to improve what David Cameron so patronisingly describes as “Broken Britain”.

Paul Cochrane

Grants Way

Paisley, Renfrewshire