Page 34 - Group Insurance and Retirement Benefit IC 83 E- Book

(6) Local-Act authorities would strongly resist any proposals involving the abolition of

their special privileges.
(7) Abolition of local-Act schemes would lead to options to retain former rights and

consequential increase in complexity.
(8) Administrative saving might be relatively small—there would still be extensive local

work in collecting and recording contributions, and possibly in decentralized payment of
pensions. With the passing of hospital services from local government, inter-authority

transfers will in any event be relatively few.

(9) Centralization might lead to administrative delays in paying benefits.
(10) Gain in fluidity of staff (by easing of financial strain) may prove to be

overestimated. Where there is a twelvemonth's break in service the contributor can

hardly, except in special circumstances claim to make his career in local government.
12. Considered purely from a theoretical viewpoint, argument (2) against a single fund,

viz. the effect of local conditions and practices, may well be held to constitute an
insuperable objection against unification, or, indeed, against any regrouping, of funds.

There is, however, a practical point at the present time. There are now some 480 separate
local authority funds, each with a minimum membership, under the 1937 Act, of 100

contributors. The recent large-scale transfers to the National Health Service and to Gas

and Electricity Boards will reduce a number of funds below the minimum membership,
and some regrouping is essential. Thus the present time would be opportune for the

inception of a single fund.
The Development of Public Superannuation Schemes 7 (As a preliminary all existing

funds would require to be valued, and the aggregate emerging liability paid into the
central fund.)

A compromise solution might be the regrouping into regional funds, but this suffers from

the demerits common to all compromises.
13. The former considerations are related to the local government service, but the

arguments for a unified scheme (irrespective of unified finance) are capable of far wider

application. Broadly speaking, all the schemes outlined in Appendix I, based on a 40-year
service life, offer benefits which are approximately equivalent in value, and there are

roughly similar risks in the corresponding branches of public service, i.e. Civil Service,