Manx Government Pension Policy Criticised

This news just published by the Celtic League:

NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE

MANX GOVERNMENT PENSION POLICY CRITICISED

Government ineptitude over the handling of public sector pensions was criticised at the recent monthly meeting of Mec Vannin, the Manx Nationalist Party.

In a wide ranging discussion it was advanced that successive Manx governments in years when the Manx economy was buoyant had failed to ensure pension security for public sector schemes. It was noted that it was a little known fact, publicly, that a number of these schemes had failed pension stress tests in the early 1990s

It was also noted that despite the avowed intent of the government to create a ‘prosperous and caring society’ in the boom years from the early 1980s they had failed to encourage, via fiscal incentives, a broader roll-out of private sector schemes in workplaces across the Island.

The view was advanced that because the present government scheme is not secured via an investment fund and is completely funded by the payment of current contributors any government moves which effectively force workers to consider resigning from or attempting to take their benefits out of the scheme could be catastrophic in the medium to long term.

It was felt that the government should undertake constructive dialogue with stakeholders before any further changes are made.

The following motion was adopted:

“Mec Vannin views with concern the manner in which public sector workers are being treated over their occupational pension schemes.

The Party in no way underestimates the difficulties currently facing government in respect of ongoing fiscal problems however it is less than 3 years since revised pension arrangements via the Government Unified Pension Scheme (GUS) was imposed on PS workers.

The GUS scheme was introduced following the commissioning of an expensive report by external ‘experts’ which was supposed to settle the pension reform issue for the foreseeable future.

The decision of government to once again revisit the issue must undermine the value that public sector workers can place on commitments given at the time the GUS was introduced.

Many of those due to reach pension age in the next few years will have contributed to these schemes for almost forty years it is tawdry therefore of government to seek to amend pension provision without agreeing to honour the commitments already entered into.”

J B Moffatt (Mr)
Director of Information

27/11/14

(Please note that replies to correspondence received by the League and posted on CL News are usually scanned hard copies. Obviously every effort is made to ensure the scanning process is accurate but sometimes errors do occur.)

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