Leaving on VERS 2? – The strike on May 10 applies to you

12,475 disenchanted MoD employees have applied for VERS 2.

Our union remains opposed to any redundancies in the Ministry of Defence and recognises that with workloads going through the roof and morale at rock bottom across every area in the Ministry of Defence, members have had enough and are leaving the department through every exit.

We would urge any PCS member who is leaving on VERS 2 to still take action on May 10, as the fight for fair pensions directly affects them now and in the future.

Losing a day’s reckonable service by taking strike action on May 10 will have an effect on members’ final payout when they do leave the department, but the difference in the payout will immediately be dwarfed by the loss of pension when you eventually reach your pension age.

Even those who leave in the next VERS 2 tranche and finish on 29 June will have paid three months extra pension contributions, which will be less than a day’s lost pay by taking industrial action on May 10.

The PCS pension calculator - http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/campaigns/pensions/pensionscalculator.cfm - breaks down exactly how much you stand to lose, whether you are taking VERS or are remaining in the department. More than 300,000 people have already viewed our union’s calculator.

The following example shows just how detrimental these changes will be:

Mrs X, 46, works in the MoD at Abbeywood. She currently earns £23,427 per year and has worked in the civil service for 26 years.

As a result of the government's plans, Mrs X will:

• Pay £702.81 more per year and £58.57 more per month
• Lose £19,891.66 from her current pension
• Stand to lose a huge £40,922.16 from her pension if she works until she is 66

Choose who you believe

The PCS calculator has been on our website since our campaign began and has been updated regularly as more information has become available as well as to reflect the impact of the continuing pay freeze on members.

Members will remember in November 2011 that the pensions calculator placed on the civil service website by the Cabinet Office was hurriedly removed as the calculator confirmed what we already knew - the civil servant in the example would have to work an extra four years under the new deal to get close to their previous pension. Their extra pension contributions were at least £704 a year from April 2015 onwards and the switch in indexation from RPI to CPI would cost them around £21,500 over a normal retirement.

That calculator then mysteriously disappeared from the Civil Service website. The Cabinet Office told our union that it has been taken down for “presentational reasons” and will be back up shortly.

Although you now have to jump through various hoops to get there, the Civil Service pension calculator is now online and using the same example as above – Mrs X from Abbeywood will “From April 2015 you might contribute 5.45% of pay - so around £85.12 per month after tax relief”

The civil service website calculator gives no details on

• How much extra this is from your current payment
• How much extra you are paying from April 2012, April 2013 or April 2014
• How much you will lose from your current pension
• How much you will lose if you retire at the current pension age of 65 instead of having to work till you are 68
• The continuing impact of the pay freeze on your take home pay.

The alternative

There is an alternative, as demonstrated by our union. The government should:

1. Create jobs to boost the economy
2. Invest in housing and transport
3. Collect the £120 billion in tax evaded, avoided and uncollected every year.

The Ministry of Defence should:

• Civilianise the 40,000 non-deployable military personnel.
• Remove consultants, contractors or agency staff
• Examine exorbitant PFI contracts to see whether they deliver value for money and cancel those which are ripping off the taxpayer
• Reduce external spending in our department – in September 2011, the MoD spent £770 million compared with £331 million in September 2011

Conclusion

Morale is at rock bottom across our department and many across the public sector. It is little wonder that public sector workers want to safeguard their pay, terms and conditions from Government attacks.

Our union believes the best way to get these is to put further pressure on this increasingly unpopular and isolated coalition government. Our union understands and recognises that taking strike action when you are poised to leave on VERS is a very difficult thing to do, but your future pension provision is at stake here.

Please stand with us on May 10 and please continue to support our union and the trade union movement in the remainder of your working life. You can become a member of our retired members section here: http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/about_pcs/associate_and_retired_members/index.cfm.

Paul Bemrose

PCS DSg deputy group secretary

For the latest PCS defence, please go to the following -

www.pcs.org.uk/dsg

www.defencecutscost.blogspot.com

Public Meeting Sunday 29 April – All Welcome!

Residents Action on Fylde Fracking is hosting a public meeting at St Cuthbert’s Church Hall, Lytham St Annes, on Sunday 29 April 2012 at 1.00 pm. All welcome. Further details of the programme wil be announced asap.

St Cuthberts Church, Church Road, Lytham, Lytham St Annes, Lancashire FY8 5PX. http://stopfyldefracking.org.uk/public-meeting-sunday-29-april-all-welcome/

Desk Drop Helpers Sought

I am on the hunt for desk droppers to help me on 2nd or 3rd May. Please can you let me know if you are available on either of these days and how long you could spare. It doesn’t take long (less than 30mins) to do the building if there are a few of us. It needs to be in our ‘own time’ due to the content and lunchtime seems to have been the most popular time in the past. (Please call Rachel Wallace-Dand on extension 62858 if you can help)

If you aren’t sure what the desk drop is for, please check the PCS website, on a completely different topic here’s a useful link for you ;)
http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/news_and_events/pcs_comment/index.cfm/id/A0A17653-77CF-4975-8FD72BFD6605C1A3

All In This Together? Think again.

In the decade 2001 to 2011 the value of British housing rose by a record 84% even accounting for the depression in housing values following the financial crisis of 2008.

Therefore a house purchased in 2001 for £100,000 would on average be valued 2011 at £184,000.

However, if your property is at the upper end of the market something remarkable has happened and can be illustrated by the case of Nigella Lawson and Charles Saatchi who recently sold a property purchased conveniently in 2001.

Charles 'snapped up' his apartment in 2001 for £3.8million (two years before they were a couple).

They have just sold their apartment to a property developer, having discounted it £11 million pounds less than their original asking price yet have still made a profit of £21 million! (Yes it had been valued at £36 million!)

Therefore, despite the worst financial crisis since the great depression, the most expensive properties in this country have risen in value be over 550% in the last decade... thats about six and a half times more than 'regular' property prices.

A market so boutant can only indicate that there is a huge pool of cash at the top end of the market driving prices ever higher.

The only conclusion we can draw form this is that the rich are increasing their collective wealth exponetially... and it is only us who are paying for the crisis though job, pension and pay cuts.

Osborne will regret tax 'shock' – maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow …

The chancellor's surprise is about as convincing as Captain Renault's explanation for shutting down Rick's bar in Casablanca (says The Guardian Economic Blog)

Has George Osborne turned into Claude Rains? I only ask because the notion that the chancellor is shocked by the tax avoidance of the rich is about as convincing as Captain Renault's explanation for shutting down Rick's American bar in Casablanca.

In one of the best scenes from the film, Rains says he is "shocked, shocked" to find gambling going on in the establishment, only to be handed his winnings by a member of Humphrey Bogart's staff.

It comes as a revelation to Osborne, apparently, that wealthy people in the UK are exploiting loopholes so that they pay little or no tax at all. Some are using especially aggressive avoidance mechanisms that mean they are paying only 10% of their income in tax, half that paid by the average Briton. Incredible. Who would have imagined that people got up to such things?

Osborne is not short of a few bob himself. He has plenty of prosperous friends and is supposed to know a thing or two about the UK economy. If he is genuinely surprised by the tax arrangements of the well-heeled in the UK, he has either been living in a cave for the past 20 years or is unfit for his current post.

In truth, though, it beggars belief that the scales have fallen from his eyes since arriving at the Treasury. One of Britain's (few) areas of comparative advantage in the global economy is the ingenuity of the big accountancy firms in finding ways round the tax system. A few years back the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA) even identified aggressive tax planning as one of five examples of striking innovation. Tax avoidance is big business in the UK. We do a lot of it. We market our expertise abroad.

When Francis Maude, Osborne's cabinet colleague, said at the weekend that the coalition wanted to turn the UK into a tax haven it was a political gaffe but an accurate assessment of the state of the nation.

So stunned is Osborne by the horror stories uncovered by HM Revenue and Customs that he is now pledging action. We will see whether he really is prepared to take on the massed ranks of the UK accountancy industry, to target offshore tax havens and to arouse the ire of the donors who bankroll the Conservative party.

Perhaps this is going to be the start of a beautiful friendship between a Conservative government and the taxpayer. But don't bank on a happy ending. This is not Hollywood.