USS once offered a pension on a par with those promised to civil servants, teachers, and local government workers: inflation-protected annual income from retirement to death, worth 1/80th of final salary for every year in which one had paid into the scheme, plus a lump sum of three times the…

Plus responses to arguments against the motion — [UPDATE 4 May: Motion 23 carried by a vote of 85 in favour, 57 against.] In Section I of this blog, I present a case in favour of Motion 23, on which delegates to UCU’s Special Higher Education Sector Conference on USS are now voting. …

(i) A new valuation would not be necessary; (ii) 2020 valuation assumptions and funding principles could justify such changes in light of post-valuation experience — I. Background According to USS’s monitoring of their 2020 valuation in the light of changing financial market indicators, as of 28 Feb 2022 it would cost only 25.6% (17.7% employer, 7.9% member, assuming 65:35 cost-sharing) to fund UUK’s severely reduced pension provision. This is down from the 31.4% rate (21.6% employer, 9.8%…

A 22% loss at retirement age becomes a 27% loss, and a 29% loss at age 86 becomes a 37% loss — USS has just updated its 2020 valuation assumptions to 31 January 2022. As of that date, it is forecasting CPI inflation of 2.8% per annum over the long term. USS also assumes that, under UUK’s 2.5% inflation cap, such inflation would give rise, on average, to a 0.8% shortfall in…

A formal mechanism to achieve UCU’s third proposal — The third of UCU’s three proposals on which employers are now consulting is as follows: 3. That employers agree to pay a maximum 25.2% and members a maximum of 9.8% from 1 April 2023 so as to secure current benefits or, if not possible, the best achievable…. UUK has raised…

Point by point responses to his objections to UCU’s proposals — Below is a rebuttal of UUK CEO Alistair Jarvis’s 31 January reply to UCU General Secretary Jo Grady’s 26 January letter in which she presents UCU’s proposals for USS. Excerpts from Jarvis’s letter underneath the headlines are followed by replies: 1. The case for a 2022 valuation: A moderately prudent, evidence-based 2022 valuation is clearly in the…

“how are the interests of the employers you represent … served by a consultation webpage which is so unprofessional in its level of inaccuracy?” — [UPDATES 14 & 16 February: (i) In an implicit admission of the veracity of my claims below, UUK removed their consultation webpage yesterday afternoon and replaced it with a completely different, and far more accurate, version. Click here and read upwards for more details. …

Employer contributions would not rise beyond 25.2% from April 2023 and member contributions would return to 9.8% — [See “UUK’s escalating misrepresentation of UCU’s proposals (Pt II)” for a follow up to this post.] What follows is a slightly redacted email I’ve sent to UUK and USS, addressed to Stuart McLean, Head of UUK Pensions From: Otsuka,MH Sent: 10 February 2022 17:30 To: Stuart McLean; Judith Fish…

The responses reveal a clear preference for paying higher contributions to retain current benefits over UUK’s proposed cuts — USS has just released their report on the responses to the statutory consultation on UUK’s proposed changes to pensions. It reveals strong majority member support of UCU’s preferred approach involving the payment of higher contributions to retain current benefits. As USS’s covering note to the report says: