Wednesday, January 28, 2009
[IWS] Watson Wyatt (UK): CIVIL SERVANTS 1/3 of LIFE in RETIREMENT EXPECTATION [27 January 2009]
IWS Documented News Service
_______________________________
Institute for Workplace Studies----------------- Professor Samuel B. Bacharach
School of Industrial & Labor Relations-------- Director, Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell University
16 East 34th Street, 4th floor---------------------- Stuart Basefsky
New York, NY 10016 -------------------------------Director, IWS News Bureau
________________________________________________________________________
Watson Wyatt (UK)
See
The Civil Superannuation Resource Accounts 2007/08
http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc0809/hc00/0060/0060.pdf
[full-text, 48 pages]
and
The Teachers' Pension Scheme (England and Wales) Resource Accounts 2007/08
http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc0809/hc00/0021/0021.asp
or
http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc0809/hc00/0021/0021.pdf
[full-text, 40 pages]
Press Release
Civil servants expected to spend one third of their lives in retirement [27 January 2009]
http://www.watsonwyatt.com/news/press.asp?ID=20465
UK January 27, 2009 In a new set of accounts for the civil service pension scheme, the Government has disclosed that it now assumes an average 40-year-old male civil servant will receive his pension for 29 years following retirement at age 60 two years longer than previously expected.
The accounts also value the new pension benefits earned in the year to March 2008 at an average of around £8,000 per civil servant. Accounts for the teachers' pension scheme, which were laid before Parliament last week, valued pension benefits earned in the year to March 2008 at an average of around £10,000 per teacher.
John Ball, head of defined benefit consulting at Watson Wyatt, said: "The Government thinks 40-year-old civil servants can look forward to spending one third of their lives in retirement. With an increasing number of private sector employers warning that the economic downturn will cause them to cut back their pension arrangements, this is something that most private sector employees can only dream of.
"Public sector employees know they get good pensions but might still be amazed at how much their retirement benefits are worth. The Government does not seem too keen to tell them: it delayed publication of these results by six months and put them online on the day Britain officially entered recession."
Notes to editors
The Civil Superannuation Resource Accounts 2007/08 are available at: http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc0809/hc00/0060/0060.pdf . They value the new benefits earned in 2007/08 at £4.58 billion. This works out at an average of just under £8,000 for each of the 577,000 active members.
Assumed life expectancy has increased sharply for male members of the civil service scheme. Assumed life expectancy for female members has risen less quickly and in some cases fallen slightly. Expected age at death is shown in the table below (based on page 31 of the resource accounts). These results are consistent with the tables used for the scheme's last actuarial valuation but had not previously been published in this format.
[TABLE]
The Teachers' Pension Scheme (England and Wales) Resource Accounts 2007/08 are available at http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc0809/hc00/0021/0021.asp . They value the new benefits earned in 2007/08 at £6.7 billion. The Government has previously said there were 649,000 active members of the teachers' scheme in March 2008 (Hansard, November 12, 2008, col. 1275W). So £6.7 billion works out at just over £10,000 per active member on average. Further details are in Watson Wyatt's press release of January 23, 2009, available at < http://www.watsonwyatt.com/news/press.asp?ID=20438>http://www.watsonwyatt.com/news/press.asp?ID=20438 .
Both sets of resource accounts first became available online on the afternoon of January 23. If they had been published one year after the last set, they would have been available in July.
______________________________
This information is provided to subscribers, friends, faculty, students and alumni of the School of Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR). It is a service of the Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS) in New York City. Stuart Basefsky is responsible for the selection of the contents which is intended to keep researchers, companies, workers, and governments aware of the latest information related to ILR disciplines as it becomes available for the purposes of research, understanding and debate. The content does not reflect the opinions or positions of Cornell University, the School of Industrial & Labor Relations, or that of Mr. Basefsky and should not be construed as such. The service is unique in that it provides the original source documentation, via links, behind the news and research of the day. Use of the information provided is unrestricted. However, it is requested that users acknowledge that the information was found via the IWS Documented News Service.
Stuart Basefsky
Director, IWS News Bureau
Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell/ILR School
16 E. 34th Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10016
Telephone: (607) 255-2703
Fax: (607) 255-9641
E-mail: smb6@cornell.edu
****************************************
_______________________________
Institute for Workplace Studies----------------- Professor Samuel B. Bacharach
School of Industrial & Labor Relations-------- Director, Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell University
16 East 34th Street, 4th floor---------------------- Stuart Basefsky
New York, NY 10016 -------------------------------Director, IWS News Bureau
________________________________________________________________________
Watson Wyatt (UK)
See
The Civil Superannuation Resource Accounts 2007/08
http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc0809/hc00/0060/0060.pdf
[full-text, 48 pages]
and
The Teachers' Pension Scheme (England and Wales) Resource Accounts 2007/08
http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc0809/hc00/0021/0021.asp
or
http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc0809/hc00/0021/0021.pdf
[full-text, 40 pages]
Press Release
Civil servants expected to spend one third of their lives in retirement [27 January 2009]
http://www.watsonwyatt.com/news/press.asp?ID=20465
UK January 27, 2009 In a new set of accounts for the civil service pension scheme, the Government has disclosed that it now assumes an average 40-year-old male civil servant will receive his pension for 29 years following retirement at age 60 two years longer than previously expected.
The accounts also value the new pension benefits earned in the year to March 2008 at an average of around £8,000 per civil servant. Accounts for the teachers' pension scheme, which were laid before Parliament last week, valued pension benefits earned in the year to March 2008 at an average of around £10,000 per teacher.
John Ball, head of defined benefit consulting at Watson Wyatt, said: "The Government thinks 40-year-old civil servants can look forward to spending one third of their lives in retirement. With an increasing number of private sector employers warning that the economic downturn will cause them to cut back their pension arrangements, this is something that most private sector employees can only dream of.
"Public sector employees know they get good pensions but might still be amazed at how much their retirement benefits are worth. The Government does not seem too keen to tell them: it delayed publication of these results by six months and put them online on the day Britain officially entered recession."
Notes to editors
The Civil Superannuation Resource Accounts 2007/08 are available at: http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc0809/hc00/0060/0060.pdf . They value the new benefits earned in 2007/08 at £4.58 billion. This works out at an average of just under £8,000 for each of the 577,000 active members.
Assumed life expectancy has increased sharply for male members of the civil service scheme. Assumed life expectancy for female members has risen less quickly and in some cases fallen slightly. Expected age at death is shown in the table below (based on page 31 of the resource accounts). These results are consistent with the tables used for the scheme's last actuarial valuation but had not previously been published in this format.
[TABLE]
The Teachers' Pension Scheme (England and Wales) Resource Accounts 2007/08 are available at http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc0809/hc00/0021/0021.asp . They value the new benefits earned in 2007/08 at £6.7 billion. The Government has previously said there were 649,000 active members of the teachers' scheme in March 2008 (Hansard, November 12, 2008, col. 1275W). So £6.7 billion works out at just over £10,000 per active member on average. Further details are in Watson Wyatt's press release of January 23, 2009, available at < http://www.watsonwyatt.com/news/press.asp?ID=20438>http://www.watsonwyatt.com/news/press.asp?ID=20438 .
Both sets of resource accounts first became available online on the afternoon of January 23. If they had been published one year after the last set, they would have been available in July.
______________________________
This information is provided to subscribers, friends, faculty, students and alumni of the School of Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR). It is a service of the Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS) in New York City. Stuart Basefsky is responsible for the selection of the contents which is intended to keep researchers, companies, workers, and governments aware of the latest information related to ILR disciplines as it becomes available for the purposes of research, understanding and debate. The content does not reflect the opinions or positions of Cornell University, the School of Industrial & Labor Relations, or that of Mr. Basefsky and should not be construed as such. The service is unique in that it provides the original source documentation, via links, behind the news and research of the day. Use of the information provided is unrestricted. However, it is requested that users acknowledge that the information was found via the IWS Documented News Service.
Stuart Basefsky
Director, IWS News Bureau
Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell/ILR School
16 E. 34th Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10016
Telephone: (607) 255-2703
Fax: (607) 255-9641
E-mail: smb6@cornell.edu
****************************************
# posted by SBasefsky : 5:42 AM
