Forum for former BBC staff

Forum for former BBC staff
http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl >> Pensions >> It's started - government wants to replace RPI http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1487701766 Message started by Dickie Mint on Feb 21^st, 2017, 6:30pm

Title: It's started - government wants to replace RPI
Post by Dickie Mint on Feb 21^st, 2017, 6:30pm

It's started - government wants to replace Pension schemes RPI increases with CPI.
Seen on BT News today.

"The government has published a Green Paper proposing major changes to final salary, or defined benefit (DB), pension schemes.

It sets out proposals that would allow firms to up-rate these pensions using the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rather than the Retail Prices Index (RPI) each year.

The paper asks: “Should the government consider a statutory override to allow schemes to move to a different index, provided that protection against inflation is maintained?”

Historically, CPI has been lower than RPI in 22 of the 27 years leading up to 2015."

Title: Re: It's started - government wants to replace RPI
Post by Delboy on Feb 22^nd, 2017, 12:28am

It will be interesting to see what happens, the BBC could come unstuck if they tried to implement this due to their recent PIE exercise.
Members could quite rightly claim that they were mis-sold PIE as their non-converted portion of their pension would no longer receive RPI as quoted in their documentation, thus making it invalid.

Title: Re: It's started - government wants to replace RPI
Post by chris west on Feb 22^nd, 2017, 9:54am

I'd be interested to hear a legal opinion on the proposal. As far as I can see, the linking to the RPI is at the basis of the whole pension contract.

Title: Re: It's started - government wants to replace RPI
Post by JonW on Feb 22^nd, 2017, 3:47pm

Hard to believe it would be possible to change to CPI for pensions already being paid but, those newly retiring who knows ?

Title: Re: It's started - government wants to replace RPI
Post by Delboy on Feb 22^nd, 2017, 4:43pm

Absolutely, they were able to substantially increase the penalty for taking the pension early a few years back and I'm sure this is no different.
However, anything affecting existing pensioners is a whole other ballgame.

Title: Re: It's started - government wants to replace RPI
Post by WG on Mar 7^th, 2017, 10:44am

Do the Trustees have something useful to say or add to this?

Whilst already anticipating their usual "we have no plans at present " comments, a hint there may be a further PIE exercise in 5 years time would be a most interesting option for existing pensioners?