The London Pension Fund Authority Green Paper referred to conditional indexing of pensions increases and the wider implications of this in relation to pensioner representation (voting) on the Local Government Pension Scheme investment panels (‘Local government pension reform “requires independent commission”,’ April 19 2010).
Opposition to Unison’s campaign for substantial representation on the LGPS ‘trustee’ panels has been based on the premise that contributors don’t ‘own’ a part of the fund, but have a ‘promise’ from employers to pay benefits in due course.
The green paper introduced the concept of conditional indexation of pensions increases for consideration by the proposed independent commission. This might be triggered by a fall in funding levels below 80%.
Leaving aside the historical reasons for most scheme deficits (contribution holidays and Gordon Brown’s tax steal), to penalise pensioners for poor investment/actuarial performance without representation on schemes is even more indefensible.
