As a member nominated rep on a pension scheme I can understand why the Chair of the Post Office Pension scheme trustees “
supported” the partial privatisation (or “partnership” according to Lord Mandelson) of the Post Office.
Since in return the Government would guarantee the scheme. So it is a “
no brainer” for trustees since their absolute legal duty is to beneficiaries. If the government offered to guarantee any trust based pension scheme then you can understand why they would support this. Regardless of what the trustees themselves may feel about privatisation (or “
partnership”).
I think that the Government should step in and guarantee the existing scheme. A major reason for any deficit is the contribution holidays taken under the Tories in the past by the Post Office when it was very clearly a public sector organisation. The scheme itself has been radically changed to make it much cheaper but there are rather daft accounting rules for such long term public sector schemes which base liability deficits on the barmy assumption on what would happen if everyone retired or died - tomorrow. The oft quoted £8-9 billion “
deficit” is just a nonsensical and meaningless calculation. It is accepted that the Scheme does have funding problems but not to the extent suggested.
Leaving aside the pension question then of course the government should fund major investment into Post Office modernisation. Such “
quantitative easing” is what the economy is crying out for. Investments in intensive capital programmes which actually improve efficiencies in the economy while also pumping money into it are desperately needed to avoid the threat of depression and deflation.
This is not a fight the Government should be having at this time with some of their core supporters. It is a distraction and potentially an own goal. There are other more important issues to pick fights over.
Whatever happened to joined up thinking?
