Civil service pensions

My former employer, the government, is treating us, the new generation of retired civil servants, in an unjust and humiliating way. It is failing us on two counts:

First, our pension has been fixed at the maximum of a scale nine salary. This falls very short of the two-thirds salary target for the higher scales. Apart from the insensitivity to the higher status of the employee concerned, it does not reflect the fact that National Insurance contributions and taxes paid had been higher, according to the salary received.

Achievement should have been recognised and rewarded when establishing our pension. As it is, we are feeling demoted.

The second outrageous mistake was to allow two different pension schemes to run concurrently. Some workers, through no extra merit on their part, qualify for a Treasury pension (i.e. a golden handshake and a monthly pension). The Treasury pension, together with the Social Services pension, makes up a significantly higher pension income than the established rate we receive.

This has created two distinct classes of pensioners and has eradicated any sense of social justice. We, employees of the same grade, have worked for the same number of years, paid the same amount in NI contributions and taxes and worked for the same employer, we should get the same amount in pension money as the Treasury pensioners.

These injustices are depriving us, worthy ex-civil servants, of our dignity. It has also sowed dissent among former friends and colleagues.

The government is duty-bound - to resolve these anomalies. It is ridiculous that the new generation of pensioners, who would have paid more costly NI contributions, would be receiving much less than their predecessors in pension money.