Pensions – are we seeing dissent?

The announcement by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) to accept a revised package that it believes ‘represents the best that can be achieved by negotiation’ begs the question whether or not the same will happen in health.

However the decision by the ATL to jump the gun and accept has to be seen in context. ATL is not the majority shareholder in the Teachers Pension Scheme, in fact it represents 20% of the overall membership and, to date, it is clear that the other teaching unions are of the opinion that the negotiations are not yet over and there is still some work to be done.

The Government, that is the Department of Education, has already said that the Heads of Agreement, that is yet to be finalised, are ‘a fair deal which strikes the balance-guaranteeing teachers a good future pension but keeping long term costs firmly under control’.

The question is –why has the ATL decided, at this stage in proceedings when discussions are ongoing, to throw in the towel?

The analogy in health is the current ballot by the RCN on the Heads of Agreement where, once again, the final document is still being discussed. In this case, if the RCN decides to accept the Heads of Agreement irrespective of any final proposal, then it is in the same position as the ATL. The principal difference is that the RCN is a majority shareholder in health and could, if it were to announce early acceptance, undermine the bargaining power of all the other health unions, including the SoR.

Even stranger is the early acceptance by the ATL to a pension reform package that will be at a cost to its members, which the Institute of Fiscal studies (IFS) has stated will make ‘little or no difference’ to the long term costs of public sector schemes because revised proposals to improve conditions for the low paid cancel out any benefit that changes may have originally achieved.

In this respect, it would make more sense to argue that the intervention by the Government to use pension entitlement to balance the books is poorly conceived, ill judged and will not be effective.

A more sensible approach to contain costs would, therefore, be to encourage and develop the public sector to be more productive as a public service and more effective at addressing inequality and at improving the health and education of the nation.

Warren Town
SCoR Director of Industrial Relations