The Coalition has declared war on overpaid civil servants, as part of a Conservative manifesto pledge to publish the salaries of high earners in the public sector.  They published a big list of people who earn over £150,000 per annum (the list has been repackaged by ConservativeHome - thanks!)

Eventually, the plan is to use every legal means necessary to make civil servants earning more than the Prime Minister the exception rather than the rule.  However, this does raise an interesting question - will this mess up their much-cherished defined benefit pension plans?

Well, dear reader, you don't need to shed any tears for our overpaid tax-guzzling brethren.  They're already well taken care of, thanks to a little provision in the civil service pension plan rules which allows them to look back up to thirteen years[p.21] to cherry pick the best years of their career to use as their 'pensionable earnings'.  So any mandarin forced to take a pay cut today will have plenty of time to quit their jobs in time to cash in on their overinflated pensions, largely paid for by the likes of you and me.

Still, in due course, as those civil servants on the older pension schemes retire and younger civil servants are admitted only into the career-averaging scheme, the costs of providing them with pensions should come down.  Slowly.

People who read this post also read:

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Filed under: Current issues, Politics with tags civil service, conservatives, defined benefit, pensions