General Chat

Rollo I trust that is not a deliberate spelling error in your last post.

As an ex civil servant of many years (drawing a pension thank you) I won't join the rest of the discussion except to say that so far (13+ years, whichever private firm has been administering my pension I have personally had no problems.

It is fairly well known that over the past 50 years that productivity in manufacturing, farming, business services, transport and distribution etc has increased tenfold.

What is less well known is that productivity improvements in the public service have been zero at best.

:-(

RolloTheRed, I agree with you that the cost of delivery services in many area of the public sector is expensive, having said that, I personally have nothing but praise for the Pension Service because in all my dealings with them since I started to draw my state pension in 2008, I have found them to be very professional and helpful.

As much as I agree with your comment John, that a lot of embryonic ideas never get anywhere, alas I fear that with the level of cuts that the Chancellor George Osborne is demanding be saved from the welfare budget over the next two financial years, this idea may well have already started to grow roots.

Interesting that the articles says that the DWP said - all government departments were undertaking efficiency reviews and there were currently no plans to outsource the pensions service.

Over my lifetime it has often been shown that when, spokespersons for governments of all political persuasions, stick their head above the parapet and say "we currently have no plans to outsource something" it usually means they are seriously considering it - a bit like a prime minister saying that a minister has his full support :-D

Full article can be found here:-

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/feb/09/state-pension-service-privatisation-dwp-plans

The present system doesn't work in that the cost of delivery is far too high just as with a lot of the public sector.

One important factor in this is the cost of civil service pensions. Although employees nowadays ( and local govt always ) make a contribution towards their risk free indexed linked pensions it comes nowhere near financing them over 20 years and up. This has been a big part of decisions to sell of the railways, Royal Mail and so on.

There is no obvious reason why government services have to be carried out by government employees. The wealthy do not, by and large, make much use of state education, health service or pensions and don't seem to suffer from it unduly.

By contracting stuff out the potential for huge savings in the out-of-control pension budget is irresistible not to forget property costs. A future Labour govt would do much the same.

At least they are proposing to use one of the usual suspects. Pensioners should be happy that the back office won't be offloaded to IDS and a large work experience team.

Having just received my OAP, I totally agree, OFITG. DWP have been very efficient, you can get through on phone easily and they are extremely helpful. Probably an idea being floated, and a lot of embryonic ideas never get anywhere.

But we might need a Jack Jones to fight the cause. Any volunteers?

According to a report in one newspaper this morning, The Guardian, the government is considering saving money by privatising the delivery and administration of the state pension.

The newspaper says that they have seen a report indicating, that to meet the reduction to its budget by austerity cuts, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has initiated a review of how it issues the state pension statements each year, and the administration of payments of the state pension and other pensioner benefits, to individuals in the UK and other parts of the world.

Given their track record to date, what do you think of the idea that firms such as Capita, Serco, G4s, and others, being contracted to administer your state pension, especially if it ends up, that as a result of private companies quest for profits, you could find you are speaking to someone in India about a problem with your state pension?

If the system works - don't try and fix it