Public sector pensions - an election issue?

Do you want to see 'an independent commission on public sector pension provosion' in our HR manifesto wishlist?

Bonuses and benefits have been huge stories in the past year, and now we are offically in campaigning pereiod for the 2010 general election any newsworthy issue can become an election issue.

In HR we might feel we have a corporate padding from the hurly burly of party politics, despite being invaded regularly by employment law. For those in the public sector politics seems far from remote - and for good reason - publicly funded bodies affect us all as we all pay for them.

The public sector pensions are an issue partly because they have traditionally been very generous, and also because some of them are 'unfunded' - meaning there is no 'pot' of money being saved up, it is essentially a cost which is borne after retirement by the public purse - instead of paying a wage to that employee, it's a pension. But with a large number of retirees coming up it's a big cost burden, right when public sector is required to make bigger cuts.