Urban myths

Lots in the news about pensions, which inevitably brings up that old chestnut about Civil Service pensions being non-contributory. Nothing more guaranteed to raise the ire of Civil Servants or, in my case, ex-Civil Servants, because it's just not true. If you're an employer prepared to pay £x to an employee, but then requiring them to pay £y as their contribution to their pension, you can go about it in two ways - you can pay them £x and then deduct £y from their pay, or you can do what the Civil Service do, and simply pay them £x-y in the first place. So when Civil Service pay-rates are negotiated, they are done on the basis of being net of pension contributions. When I was working, I was able to demonstrate this, because I had a close friend of similar age, doing a similar job with similar responsibilities in the private sector. He was paid significantly more than me, but when his pension contributions were taken into account, our pay rates were not that dissimilar (he was still paid more than me, but then the Civil Service has never been a generous employer). Where he really scored over me was the perks which came as part of his job package, but that's another story. So Civil Servants do pay for their pensions - in fact they pay before they have received a penny.