Page 69 - Group Insurance and Retirement Benefit IC 83 E- Book

development of public superannuation schemes. He felt that the valuable paper which the

author had presented should have been discussed, not by the Institute of Actuaries, but by
an institute of administrators of pension funds, which would doubtless come into being if

that unplanned development continued.
He would take as an example one of the most recent major developments, the extension

of widows' pensions to members of the Civil Service, the National Health Service and
various public boards. He wondered whether the author had emphasized strongly enough

the differences between the various schemes, and particularly between the widows'

benefits described in the appendices to the paper. For instance, in the National Health
Service scheme there was automatic provision for a pension of one-third of the former

contributor's actual or accrued pension at date of death, a benefit secured by the reduction

in the lump sum payable on death or retirement from 3/80ths to 1/80th of the average
remuneration over the last three years' service for each year of contributory service. The

benefit was compulsory for all married men, and there were no children's benefits
payable. On the other hand, the scheme brought into force by the Superannuation Act,

1949, for civil servants granted a widows' pension of one-third of the former contributor's
actual or accrued pension, with a minimum of £26 a year, but there were in addition

certain children's benefits dependent on the number of children, which might increase the

total pension payable by another one-third, or £26 a year. Unlike the National Health
Service scheme, existing civil servants might contract out of it, and the cost was shared

between the Exchequer and the member, the latter paying 1¼ % of salary or suffering a
reduction in the lump sum payable on death or retirement of 1/80th of the average salary

over the last 3 years of service for each year of pensionable service. He felt that a
particularly regrettable feature of that Act—although it was easy to see why it had been

incorporated—was that there was one clause debarring the contributor from obtaining

relief of income tax in respect of his contributions, despite the provisions of the Income
Tax Act, 1918, and the Finance Act, 1921, thus adding one further complication to

income tax law.

He referred also to the National Coal Board scheme and to the scheme for the British
Electricity Authority staff, under which were included certain family benefits. A member

who wished to have those family benefits paid a contribution of 1 % of his salary, and his