Should public sector workers retire at 60?

Yes, says Glen Gears, Unison area secretary of the ambulance service.

IT is certainly right that health service workers should be able to retire on a full pension at 60, as they were told they would be able to do when they joined up.

When I joined the ambulance service in 1992, my friends in the private sector were all earning more than me. The only benefit I had, compared to them, was my pension. I signed up to be able to retire when I was 60. Now some people want to change that. How is that fair?

One of the big issues, where NHS staff are concerned, is that they are working in the front line. Do you really want people who are 67 dealing with life and death situations? Do you want 67-year-old paramedics turning up at road accidents, or struggling to help sick patients down stairs?

It is stressful work. The job of an ambulance paramedic is so stressful, in fact, that national figures show that our life expectancy isn't great. We tend to die quite young.

Then there are nurses. Very often there are only two nurses on a ward at night.

In my view it isn't right that we should expect this of people in their mid-60s. Many older people do have the benefit of experience and wisdom, it is true: but as you get older, physically you are less strong and able, and your decision-making does slow down.

I wouldn't want my family being looked after by a nurse or paramedic in their mid-60s.

When it comes to civil servants, it is true that many of them appear to be sitting behind comfortable desks. But they are dealing with members of the public, and very often with members of the public who are angry or upset. Working in a benefit office is not a cushy job. Day after day these people are getting harangued. I wouldn't want to be in my 60s still having to cope with that.

It's not as though our pensions are a gift. We are having to fund them. We pay into our pensions all our working lives - we pay a big chunk out of our salary to be able to retire at 60.

I accept that many private sector workers too work in very stressful, demanding jobs. So they should be able to retire at 60 too. There may be some people that want to continue to work, but if you want to retire at 60 you should be able to.

People say the nation can't afford that. Well, I agree that to some extent people have to take individual responsibility for themselves. The state pension should always be there for those who, for whatever reason, weren't able to make provision for themselves.

The rest of us have to take responsibility and think about our pensions. But if we do that, we should be able to retire at 60.

For those of us in the public sector, that is something we signed up to, and something we have been paying into our pensions for all our working lives.

You cannot just change it like that.

No, says York financial adviser Gerry Gray, of Grosvenor Financial Consultants.

IT is quite clearly unfair that public sector workers should continue to be able to retire on good pensions at 60 when those in the private sector cannot.

Private sector pension schemes are no longer as good as they were. The number of final salary pension schemes has more than halved, and is expected to decline even further in the next few years. It simply is not fair that private sector workers with less favourable pension schemes should have to pay tax to support public sector workers who want to retire earlier.

I do agree that there has to be some recognition of the promises that have been made to public sector workers on retirement age.

Change should be introduced gradually. You can't expect those who are near retirement age to suddenly be told they have to retire five years later. Those in the public sector who are over 50, therefore, should be allowed to retire at 60. Those who are in their 40s should be allowed to retire at 65. For those in their 30s and under, the age for retirement should be 67, or whatever it is that the Government sets as the state retirement age for the rest of us.

At the end of the day, there has to be equality.

I don't think the argument that there are those doing jobs in the health service that you could not expect someone in their 60s to be able to do holds water. There are less onerous jobs that nurses or ambulance paramedics could do as they neared retirement age - for ambulance staff jobs in the control room, for example, where their experience would be of real benefit.

The bottom line is that society is changing, and I believe that many of us are going to have to work longer as a result. We are all living longer, for a start.

When the 65 retirement age was brought in, life expectancy was in the mid-70s. Now it is in the mid-80s. It just makes sense that we should have to work a bit longer.

Then there is the question of affordability of pensions. The number of people who have retired is steadily rising in proportion to the number of people still in work. That is both because we are living longer, and because the birth rate is falling.

We used to talk about 2.4 children: now it is 1.7. So the number of people working, and hence supporting those who have retired, is getting proportionally less.

A pension is not an insurance scheme. Pension payments are used to pay for those who have already retired, not to pay for our own future retirement. And as a result of an ageing population, we now have fewer people paying in and more people drawing out.

Because of this, I cannot understand why Trade Secretary Alan Johnson gave in to the public sector unions so quickly over retirement at 60, especially knowing that Lord Turner's Pensions Commission review is about to come out.

The Government could have said they did not want to discuss the issue of retirement age until the Turner report came out, but would then sit down to talk. That would have made more sense.

Interviews by Stephen Lewis

Pension pitfalls

THE Government has been warned it faces "co-ordinated resistance" from unions and Labour MPs if it tries to tear up a deal on pensions for public sector workers.

Downing Street insisted last night it was sticking to an agreement which would allow education and health workers as well as civil servants to retire at 60.

But business leaders piled pressure on ministers to renegotiate the agreement, especially as a commission on pensions is expected to recommend tomorrow that the official retirement age for all workers should be extended to 67.

Chancellor Gordon Brown fuelled fresh doubts among some union officials when he said there was still a lot of work to be done on the deal. He told the CBI's national conference yesterday that the public sector agreement should form part of the debate which will follow publication tomorrow of the Turner Commission report.

CBI president John Sutherland told the conference the Government should treat all workers equally and fairly.

"It cannot expect private sector employees to work until 67 to finance the pensions and early retirement of public sector employees who retire on inflation-proofed final salary pensions at 60."

Mr Brown was quizzed about the public sector deal by business leaders at the conference. He said he believed a national debate about pensions would begin in earnest after tomorrow's report is published.

Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, said: "As far as we are concerned, the agreement is a done deal.

"Any suggestion of renegotiating would reopen the possibility of industrial action across the public sector."

Well over a third of people believe that public sector workers under 50 should have their retirement age raised to 65, a YouGov survey for the Daily Telegraph revealed.

The figure rises to nearly 48 per cent among private sector workers, who must work until they are 65.

Not all public sector workers have the right to retire at 60 under the deal struck with Trade Secretary Alan Johnson last month. The deal covers teachers, NHS workers and civil servants and all those now in a job will be able to retire at 60. It does not cover new entrants to these profesions, however, who will have to work to 65 to get an index-linked pension.

The deal also does not include local government employees, who technically have to work to 65 to qualify for their full pension. In reality, however, under a complex rule whereby if their age plus their total number of years in the pension scheme adds up to 85, many council wokers can retire on a full pension at 60. According to Unison, local government employers want to change this, meaning council workers would have to work to 65.

It also does not cover new entrants to teaching, the NHS or the civil service, who will also have to work to 65 to get an index linked pension.

The police and the Fire Brigade are covered by separate deals.

Updated: 09:05 Tuesday, November 29, 2005