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When the public-sector unions agreed to a pay freeze, this resulted in a specific demographic group who are disproportionately penalised by this decision viz those who take or are given retirement within or at the end of this fallow period.

The final salary from which final salary pensions are calculated will be diminished and the resulting pension will be subsequently diminished for life.

The anomaly will exist where, to delay retirement by, for example, two years will result in a lower pension because the extra years will be more than cancelled out by inflation. These people will suffer a lifetime legacy of this temporary policy of the very unions they joined to stand up for their interests.

Each of the public sector unions should be insisting on an index-linked protection for those caught in this trap. Any pension calculation should be index-linked from the start of the pay freeze period.

Robert Ferguson

New Gilston

Leven, Fife