2 ms·
FWIW on your (5) there's nothing unsustainable about the most recent iteration of the pension scheme. The problems are an interesting (if infuriating) combinati
by pmyteh 4y ago
FWIW on your (5) there's nothing unsustainable about the most recent iteration of the pension scheme. The problems are an interesting (if infuriating) combination of the employers wanting to kill the defined benefit scheme to save money, the government's regulatory framework being designed to protect pensionholders in closed defined benefit schemes and not to run functional private DB schemes (which are nearly all gone), the Trustee company being untrustworthy, and the governance arrangements being poor. The only people really committed to the scheme continuing are its members, for whom it's theoretically run but in practice have very little control over it.
If you want an illustration of the magnitude of the problem the might resonate with HNers: the USS Trustee is aiming to achieve CPI+0% investment returns for the next 40 years. With long-run equity returns being what they are, that's borderline criminal. (It's certainly not the investment strategy that universities will be adopting for their own endowments).
The honest truth is that the USS was highly solvent on a going concern basis before the recent changes (which already involved prospective cuts of 30% to accruals only a few years ago). It only generates a deficit if you model closing the scheme tomorrow and shunting the entire fund into gilts in order to eliminate all investment risk. But even if you do that, the scheme can still pay: it's explicitly backed by the combined assets of every scheme member, which includes all the richest universities and (hilariously) the government.
Oh, and the present cuts will take it down to less than half the pension of our colleagues in the newer post-92 universities who are in the Teachers' Pension Scheme. What price a formal government guarantee?
- e40 4y agoI'm not exactly sure what the GP was talking about, but if the pension benefits are guaranteed and greater than the return on funds invested in the pension, then the only way the pension plan could be sustainable would be in some growth scenarios. In many growth scenarios, though, it wouldn't be. This a problem with many public sector pension plans. Many cities across this country have pension plans that guarantee pensioners income that cannot be paid from the plan without screwing over future retirees. Clearly this issue has to be evaluated system by system.
- pmyteh 4y agoOh yes, absolutely. This particular scheme is very heavily pre-funded (currently to ~30% of salary, which is why many employers want it dead) and is sustainable as long as your investment strategy isn't 'putting the money under the mattress'. Yes, residual investment risk falls on the universities collectively (by deliberate scheme design) but it's certainly not one of the over-promised schemes of the kind you note. In fact, it's status as a nominally private-sector scheme subjects it to heavy regulation specifically to ensure that the government doesn't get left holding the bag. If you want far more detail than is sane, there was a 'Joint Expert Panel' set up by the employers organisation and the union to provide a way forward after the industrial action caused by the last attempt to abolish the scheme. Their report analyses USS in detail (rather than pension schemes in general) and is at https://web.archive.org/web/20220506092908/https://ussjep.org.uk/files/2019/12/JEP2-Final-Report.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20220506092908/https://ussjep.or...
- kd913 4y agoI am not particularly talking about the most recent iteration of the pension scheme which I can imagine being a lot more cut down and closer to traditional private pension schemes. Largely talking about my experience seeing my parents'(30 year professors) pension who are in the Teacher's pension scheme along with other pension schemes. From my perspective, I was blown away by the figures they were being given. With my points in regards to a potential drop in grants, and funding from students. I fail to see how the figures I saw will be sustainable going forward.
- pmyteh 4y agoYeah, those days were ended years ago. The present generation of senior management are doing very nicely though: their historically-acquired final salary entitlements with a generous accrual rate coupled with recent insane inflation in senior management salaries mean they're going to make out like bandits. My own projected pension is £13,180 a year, based on about 30 years' worth of (mostly future) combined employer/employee contributions of 30% of a salary of a little less than £40k/yr. Big bucks it is not.