More from the GMB...
1. The LGPS is a funded scheme like private sector defined benefit schemes and unlike the other public sector pension schemes. Together the 101 LGPS funds hold more than £120billion in investments and assets, enough to pay benefits for over 20 years
2. The LGPS has a positive cash flow, with income from investments and contributions exceeding expenditure on benefits by £4-5billion every year
3. Members contribute an average of 6.4% to the scheme with higher earners paying proportionately more
4. The employer contribution rate for current service is 13.6%. In the private sector the comparable employer contribution average is 15.6%. Many employers are paying a high overall contribution to the scheme because of past underfunding and contribution holidays
5. The LGPS is collectively the biggest pension fund in the country and fourth largest in the world making it a major shareholder in business and the UK economy
6. Four million people are members of the LGPS in England & Wales either as active, contributing members, pensioners or deferred members
7. In April 2008 (2009 in Scotland and Northern Ireland) reformed schemes were launched covering all existing and new LGPS members that changed the benefit structure and increased average member contributions to the scheme from 5.8% to 6.4%
8. In the last year income from employee contributions to the scheme has increased by 15%
9. More than 7,000 employers participate in the LGPS, many of which are private sector companies providing local public services
10. Not gold-plated, the average pension in payment from the LGPS is around £4,000 a year, for women the average is £2,600
* - Bryn has rightly picked up on my misuse of the word 'factoids' in the headline, so I've changed it.
2 comments:
Good stuff. But can I quibble about the use of the word "factoid" in the heading. What I think you mean is "fact".
I know it's probably too late to stop the shift in meaning but as Wikipedia explains "A factoid is a questionable or spurious—unverified, incorrect, or fabricated—statement formed and asserted as a fact, but with no veracity. The word appears in the Oxford English Dictionary as "something which becomes accepted as fact, although it may not be true." However, the word can sometimes mean, instead, an insignificant but true piece of information. In either formulation, factoids are potentially factual, just not self-evidently so.
Factoid was coined by Norman Mailer in his 1973 biography of Marilyn Monroe. Mailer described a factoid as "facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper",[2] and created the word by combining the word fact and the ending -oid to mean "similar but not the same". The Washington Times described Mailer's new word as referring to "something that looks like a fact, could be a fact, but in fact is not a fact".[3]
Factoids may give rise to, or arise from, common misconceptions and urban legends."
Hi Bryn
Point taken, especially as I often moan about misuse of words myself!
Tom
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