Page 64 - Group Insurance and Retirement Benefit IC 83 E- Book

retirement should be provided by other means, if considered necessary. From that point

of view, he regarded the design of the National Health Service superannuation scheme as
a retrograde step in pension funds, in so far as it contained lump sum benefits. In any

case, the extraordinary gymnastics by which the lump sums were given with one hand
and taken away with the other were ludicrous. He would suggest to the authors of the

scheme that the lump sum should be abolished. They would then find themselves in a
position to increase the pension for widows and the pension for bachelors.

Much could be said about nearly every one of the advantages and disadvantages listed in

paragraphs 10 and 11 of the paper, but he would like to pick out one point in particular
for comment in the light of such experience as he possessed. In his opinion, control of

remuneration scales, dealt with in paragraph 11 (2), required the maximum emphasis; the

author's comment was, he felt, half-hearted. It was 40 years since the Departmental
Committee inquired into the affairs of the Railway Clearing House pension fund and

disclosed a position not merely of ' less vigilance ' but of open disregard of individual
responsibility in the operation of what would now be referred to as a joint contributory

scheme. Anyone who knew how scrupulously the scales had to be held between joint
authorities, or between an admitted and an administering authority, in a local government

superannuation fund could have foreseen the situation disclosed by that inquiry, the

conclusions of which were still worth studying. He would push the point further. He had
a vivid recollection of an interview between an actuary and a treasurer; the former of

whom maintained that the average level of remuneration had risen and the latter that he
had stuck to his salary scales and had not altered them. Close investigation produced the

solution : they were both right. In point of fact the treasurer had appointed many more
deputy heads of his department and many more high-salaried officers, with the result the

actuary had shown. The inference the speaker drew was that both salary scales and

establishment numbers would have to be controlled in order to avoid acts by constituent
authorities which would throw the central scheme into jeopardy.

He submitted that it would be an intolerable affront to a local authority to be told how

many employees of each category it should employ, and to have to seek permission from
some central authority to employ larger numbers. The Development of Public