Page 63 - Group Insurance and Retirement Benefit IC 83 E- Book

Mr W. F. Marples said that there was so much food for thought and there were so many

opportunities for argument in the paper that he wished the author had devoted a little
more time and space to the leisurely development of his arguments, instead of following

the modern practice and putting more in the appendices than in the paper itself. 26 The
Development of Public Superannuation Schemes In the first place, there was the curious

reflection on the designers of the 1922 Act to be found in paragraph 4 of the paper. It was
possible that those gentlemen had had a clearer idea of the purpose of the adjustment of

the Civil Service scheme than many people had at that present time. The Civil Service

scheme was non-contributory and therefore did not provide the usual returns on death and
withdrawal which were of help and value to a widow. The alteration was designed to

make some provision for the widow, and also for the member on retirement to provide

himself with a house and furnishings not hitherto acquired owing to the exigencies of the
service. Those objects had since been met by other means. There were the extended

provisions for allocations for widow's benefits, and more recently the contributory
scheme for widows' pensions.

The means of providing houses and furnishings through income had multiplied vary
greatly since 1909. The original reason for introducing the lump sum payment had

therefore disappeared, but the lump sum had been perpetuated, human nature being what

it is.
His own view was that the reason for the existence of a pension fund was to pay

pensions. That view was supported by the published writings of various actuaries.
Reference might be made, for instance, to George King's famous paper (J.I.A. Vol. xxxix,

p. 129), and to the address of Mr R. C. Simmons to the Association of Superannuation
Funds in 1946. It was a corollary that the subsidiary benefits should be reduced to the

minimum in order to produce the maximum pension. Unfortunately, those views did not

appear to command the agreement of the non-actuarial designers of schemes, who tended
to overload a pension fund with lump sums, injury allowances, and provisions for death

benefit in the most exaggerated form. He would affirm, however, that a pension fund was

designed to provide a continuation of income to members who were no longer able to
work, or to their dependents after their death. Thus, pensions and widows' annuities were

legitimate products of a pension scheme. An exaggerated lump sum payment on death or