More distortions from the Mail

Once again the same tired old distortions are filling the pages of the Daily Mail’ – pumped out by the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG).

Their claim is that every family pays £400 for council workers’ pension. This would be about a quarter of the average council tax bill, and would be a lot of money – if it were indeed true. But it’s not. In reality, the amount council taxpayers pay for local government pensions is just £58 per year, or just over £1 a week. A small price to pay for workers who dedicate their working lives to serving their local communities.

The DCLG figures assume that the only money councils receive is from council tax. They know their own department better – which is why such blatant distortion of the facts is totally unacceptable. Just 22% of council funding comes from council taxes. The rest – 78% – comes from other sources, including business rates, fees, charges, and central government funding – this brings the figure down to just over £1 a week.

These attacks are designed to stand up coalition ministers’ claims that public sector pensions are unaffordable. Again, this is wrong. It’s a political choice, not an economic necessity to make damaging changes to the schemes – public sector pensions are sustainable and affordable for the long term. Reforms made three years ago have already cut the cost to the taxpayer as a proportion of GDP. In the health scheme, it has already been agreed that longevity costs will be borne by employees. The switch from using RPI to using CPI to calculate the yearly uplift in state and public sector pensions, to cover the rising cost of living, cuts the cost even more.

The schemes that UNISON members save into are far from crisis. The local government pension funds are worth £140 billion – these are a huge boost to the private sector. The same council workers’ scheme could pay out all its pensions liabilities for twenty years without a single penny more in contributions. It’s a similar story for the health scheme, which has £2 billion more coming in than going out every year – and that money goes straight to the Treasury.

These attacks on pensions are directed at some of the lowest paid workers in our society. Two thirds of council workers earn less than £21,000, and when they retire their pensions will not be ‘lucrative’ as the Mail likes to claim. The average pension in local government is around £4,000, for women £2,800 – or £56 a week. Recent proposals to change the accrual rates, even though contribution rates will go up, will cut the value of these low pensions even more. The median for women in the NHS is £3,500 – still hardly gold plated.

The right wing think tanks and media – like the Daily Mail – do the government’s dirty work for them, softening up the public to believe that we can’t afford decent pensions, or saying that the lack of pensions in the private sector is a reason to spark a race to the bottom. This lays the groundwork for the pay more, work longer get less approach, which is nothing more than a £4bn tax on public sector workers to pay down the deficit, when what we really need is a decent pensions deal for all – public and private sector.

UNISON has been clear from the start – we want to reach a negotiated settlement, but government ministers have so far failed to get into serious talks. We are balloting our 1.1 million members in the schemes for industrial action over the detrimental changes to their pensions – voting ends on November 3. We are urging members to Vote Yes.

There is still time to reach that deal, avoiding the biggest industrial action in a generation. But government ministers must get into serious talks, and time is running out.

Chris Tansley is the Vice-President of Unison