Anyone following the debate on the second reading of the Pension Schemes Bill in the House of Lords, and who agreed to down a shot every time someone mentioned "Gordon Brown's tax raid on pensions", would probably be tipsy by now.

Very good report about joint Prospect and FDA letter to civil service pension scheme manager about closing the unacceptable gender pension gap in that scheme: www.civilserviceworld.com/news/article...

The government is very keen to legislate to cap the benefit of contributing to a pension scheme via salary sacrifice (second reading 17 December): bills.parliament.uk/bills/4046

The big result was: 'Tax-free lump sum' - 1 V 'Speculation about cuts to the tax-free lump sum' - 0. Giving 'Tax-free lump sum' a win / loss record that the Harlem Globetrotters would be proud of. It's just 8 short weeks to the official start of the next 'tax-free lump sum speculation season'!

Big pension administration news that will impact hundreds of thousands of members. Here's hoping it goes well. www.civilserviceworld.com/professions/...

Would it be better to wait for the government to implement a policy before criticising them, rather than criticising them for doing something someone says they will do? (Totally fair to attack the potential policy, just not the government that's hasnt done it (yet). www.thetimes.com/article/9595...

How does this work in practice? How does HMRC distinguish between someone entering a salary sacrifice arrangement to reduce their salary to £x and someone renegotiating their contract to take a salary of £x? www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Do you want tax increases, spending cuts or more borrowing to pay for closing unfunded public service pension schemes? Because it requires one (or a combination) of those. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

I regret to inform you that Mr Record has been at it again. This time in the Telegraph (which seems to be treating the analysis as new despite it being in the Sunday Times last month). "The Treasury said it did not recognise the figures." That will be because Neil made them up.

Limit pay rises to nurses, fire fighters, refuse collectors and civil servants says man whose own pay, let's just check, yes, whose own pay doubled to more than £10 million! www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Evidence in graphical form that it really is a curse to live in interesting times.

There should be a rule about ignoring any article referring to public service pensions as Ponzi schemes. But, to be fair, it's usually not the journalists' fault. And this is not the worst of the genre: The endless cost of the public sector pension ‘Ponzi scheme’ www.thetimes.com/business-mon...

Make it stop already!

If you thought the speculation ahead of last year's budget was intense (and we had members thinking about opting out and taking their benefits beforehand), I suspect we're in for even worse this year.

Sign our petition calling on government to end the gender pension gap for public sector women ✍️

Anyone interested in the issue of the gender pension gap can join the hybrid event to launch Prospect's latest report on the issue tomorrow at 12.30pm through: prospect-org-uk.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

After a lot of hard work (mostly by other people) we are nearly ready to launch our latest report about the gender pension gap in the UK on 8 July at 12.30pm. If this is something you are interested in, please DM me for details to join online (even better if you can join us in London in person).

Happy Pension Scheme Bill day everyone!

If you wanted the pension system to invest £50bn more in the economy, wouldnt it be far easier for the government to achieve that through the LGPS, rather than through default DC funds? Or am I missing something really obvious?

Do we know whether the upcoming Pension (Schemes?) Bill will have any provisions responding to the Virgin Media case?

This does not sound like a minister who intends to give relief to the hundreds of thousands of PPF and FAS members who get no increases in respect of pension accrued before April 1997: questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-ques...

Is it overly pedantic / nerdy of me to have an issue with the DWP describing AE like this: "the employer contributes at least 3% of their salary to the pot too"? (www.gov.uk/government/n...) It's not 3% and it won't be until the DWP brings in contributions from the first £!

Just had an FOI response from HMRC that was so late (9 months +) that I had forgotten I had submitted it. And the response wasn't to provide the information requested, just to ask if I still needed it.

Homework assignment for clever pension people: how could you possibly calculate a rate of enhancement for late payment of final salary pensions to civil servants that would have no extra cost over the current rules (as suggested by Paul Johnson)? ifs.org.uk/articles/her...

This parliamentary question about the cost of moving civil servants to a defined contribution pension scheme may not be answered due to cost. But "way more than we could afford" would be accurate. questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-ques...

Administration - the most difficult job in pensions. The NAO looking at the administration of the civil service pension scheme again: www.nao.org.uk/work-in-prog...

Thanks to covid (or whatever was circulating last week) I've only gotten around to reading the PPF's latest 3 year strategy: www.ppf.co.uk/strategy

Interesting thoughts in themselves, but strange to hear them expressed by a regulator?

Today is Trans Day of Visibility, a day to celebrate trans and non-binary people and to raise awareness about the discrimination they continue to face. We believe that everyone should be treated with dignity and respect at work.

I keep thinking someone has counted wrong because 20 years ago was 1995 and there's no way the PPF has been operating that long. Middle-age can be very confusing. But at a time when too many things don't work out like we hoped, it's always worth celebrating huge successes like the PPF.

After a little delay, we finally got moving with this thing. The first post -- a short intro -- is up now. substack.com/home/post/p-...

The period between the last budget and the spring statement was remarkable for its lack of speculation about pension tax relief. The period until the next budget looks like it could be a return to previous form. The collective memory of pension professionals seems to be about 6 months.

So many @prospectunion.bsky.social members doing so much science in Harwell (plus 9 dedicated Prospect reps doing two full days of pension training!).

Given the government seems minded to bring forward legislation that would give the PPF Board the confidence it needs to reduce the levy to zero, it should also bring forward legislation that would allow the Board to increase pre-97 rights. www.pensionsage.com/pa/govt-face...

Can master trusts help narrow the gender pensions gap? Not really.

Government "actively considering" next steps in relation to Virgin Media V NTL Pension Trustees judgment, and will provide an update "in due course". Glad that's been cleared up! questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-ques...

Very good report on the Work and Pension Committee's evidence session on pensioner poverty this morning. (Including evidence about the gender pension gap and other issues from Prospect's senior deputy general secretary.) www.ftadviser.com/pensions/202...

Our Senior Deputy General Secretary Sue Ferns giving evidence to the Work and Pensions committee on the gender pension gap.

A dry HMRC newsletter out today contains a bombshell announcement! For years we have complained about how HMRC takes 'emergency tax' out of pension withdrawals and then makes people them claim back the excess. Today they've announced they're making major improvements to greatly improve matters!

The advantage of having a pension minister who knows about pension policy. (Though it's unclear why they departed from this logic with the WFP.)

The UK seems stuck in a long-term cycle of forgetting, and then re-learning the hard way, that means-testing is bad policy. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

The next step will be allocating funds to bet on the 3.30 at Haydock Park.

Another article about rebalancing public sector pay / pensions that ignores the minor issue of ... how to pay for it within the fiscal rules! It's also wrong to suggest TUs are the main obstacle, it's always HMT that blocks it (see previous sentence for why). www.telegraph.co.uk/money/pensio...

I think this will be very useful / interesting to trade union pension / workers capital people in the UK (most of whom seem to have migrated across here now, I'm glad to see).

Interesting looking headline: www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Managed to miss this important update from the PPF earlier in the month: www.ppf.co.uk/press-releas...

It would be interesting to see stats on the propensity of sponsors to allow higher increases than scheme rules require. My sense is that it has fallen off a cliff over the last 10 years or so (even though schemes are probably more likely to be in surplus now). www.theguardian.com/money/2024/d...

Fascinating that when the liabilities fall significantly, commentators are quick to point out that: "However, it is important to realise that the future obligations to pay pensions to public sector employees haven’t changed – it is how those obligations are converted into current values."

This seems grim. Hardly the most important issue, but I wonder what the pension implications are. It's hard to be definitive, but the way the article describes the situation it seems likely these app users would be classified as workers and eligible for AE (subject to age / earnings criteria).