robertj
Active member
Whether it's legal or not, it clearly hasn't affected Robert's eyesight.
Richard
Too true mr s lol
RNLI vs Daily Mail
- Thread starter Thistle
- Start date
Too true mr s lol
You view multiple RNLI station closures in peak season as insignificant local issues, how remarkable. The airline industry can be thankful you chose the IT industry otherwise I imagine that you would consider closing Gatwick airport on a Friday before a bank holiday as piffling local industrial turbulence.
The RNLI HQ elite have recreated a degree of industrial relations dysfunction not seen in this country since the 3 day week in the 1970's and dark days at British Leyland.
The presence of a saucy mug in a cupboard in the workplace does not constitute a criminal act. The mug only became a minor employment law issue when an RNLI manager chose to claim it was offensive after she was ferreting around inside a cupboard looking for something to complain about.
The key issue in this matter is why would the RNLI choose to provoke yet another industrial relations dispute over such a trivial issue and what a shame they chose Whitby.
One of the few compliments I have made about the RNLI in this forum was the superb state of cleanliness and preparedness I saw when nosing around the operations bay at RNLI Whitby.
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rotrax
Well-known member
And you can state as the truth that the RNLI Manager was looking for something to complain about? Pray tell how you know this for fact.
Or is it supposition on your part?
Heckler
Active member
You need to read what I have written "And who is the judge of that?" From the other side of the argument you are wrong! So it is quite valid for me to ask!
robertj
Active member
This is why my good friend resigned alongside the coxswain at another station.
Lon nan Gruagach
Active member
Are there really still such dinosaurs alive and wandering free round polite society?
I would have thought that such disgusting attitudes would have died out by now. Even last century I was astounded that a colleague I had the displeasure to work with couldn't understand thar referring to women as "grumble" is not ok. And here we are, 20 years later, and some people still refuse to understand that publishing hard core pornography, using it in a discriminatory, offensive manner in the work place is some how anything other than gross misconduct.
I suggest that such people, regardless of ability have no place in society, never mind a public facing service.
Edit: death wish insult deleted.
I would have thought that such disgusting attitudes would have died out by now. Even last century I was astounded that a colleague I had the displeasure to work with couldn't understand thar referring to women as "grumble" is not ok. And here we are, 20 years later, and some people still refuse to understand that publishing hard core pornography, using it in a discriminatory, offensive manner in the work place is some how anything other than gross misconduct.
I suggest that such people, regardless of ability have no place in society, never mind a public facing service.
Edit: death wish insult deleted.
So saucy sexual imagery that is unlikely to have caused an Edwardian vicar's wife to blush in 1910 is deemed reprehensible by you but genocide is flourishing and justified for those who irk sensitive liberals.
This thread highlights something more troubling because it is so prevalent in the UK. You clearly align yourself with those who tactically exploit modern morale dilemmas in the workplace to persecute those they cannot persecute legally via other means.
Do you realize how close your phraseology is to that used by the Nazis to justify the Holocaust? The term "Liberal Fascist" was invented for people like you.
Blue Sunray
Well-known member
Whilst I admire your sentiments a perusal of these fora very quickly provides a disappointing answer to your question.
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Angele
Active member
You are correct.
Here in the UK, the only defined benefit plans that can be unfunded are certain public sector ones - the most obvious being the one for the Civil Service. In that case, pension payments are paid out of current taxation.
All other schemes must be funded. The following relates only to defined benefit (final salary or career average salary) schemes here in the UK in which the entire investment risk - that investment returns over time will be adequate - is borne by the employer. Some other countries (Netherlands being one, I believe) have the concept of "shared aspiration" in which a fund of a specific size is targeted for an individual's retirement, and both the employer and the employee share the investment risk during that individual's working life to meet that objective. I've never come across such a scheme in the UK (but not to say they don't exist).
If a defined benefit scheme is still open to future accrual, that means that the employer/employee together are required to contribute an amount each year that will meet, OVER TIME, the expected future pension payments the accrue. The key point here is that this is done over time, not year by year. Every scheme is required to do a thorough actuarial valuation of assets and liabilities at least once every three years, which may result in the future contribution rates (by the employer) being tweaked up or down.
In addition, if a scheme is in deficit (i.e. the present value of the liabilities exceeds the value of the assets on the valuation date) then the employer is required to make additional deficit reduction contributions to eliminate the shortfall over a reasonable period of time - typically not more than 10 years. (If a scheme is totally closed to future accrual, then the only contributions would be the deficit reduction ones coming from the employer).
Unless a fund follows a very conservative investment strategy, it is unlikely that returns will grow exactly in line with the expectation used in a fund's actuarial valuation, and so the deficit (or surplus) of the fund will be different come the next valuation. The employer's deficit contribution rates are then adjusted with a view to there being at least enough money in the fund to pay the last pension payment for the last surviving member of the scheme.
The unfunded liability is simply another word for the deficit (assets minus actuarial valuation of liabilities) at any point in time.
Heckler
Active member
"Hard core pornography" have you seen the evidence or are you just taking at face value some PC persons spin?
This is what it all boils down to. Dont forget we see and hear stuff on mainstream BBC TV nowadays that kids can see. If people of your ilk are so concerned about using so called "safeguarding children" issues as a club to beat us in to submission to follow PC rules, why dont you do a bit of complaining to them?
There is a pattern starting to show with wholesale defections by crew and it is they that are laying their lives on the line.
Tranona
Well-known member
Well explained Angele. I hope Sybarite reads this and your earlier post as hopefully it will educate him and stop him posting at least some of his nonsense observations about the RNLI accounts in respect of pensions. He clearly has little idea of the structures of defined benefits pensions, the complexity of managing them under current rules, nor their relationship with the management of the organisation.
Angele
Active member
That change in the deficit from 2015 to 2016 is, almost certainly, predominantly or entirely down to movements in the discount rate used to value the liabilities. A valuation of a pension fund's liabilities will come up with a single number. In reality, the liability is a stream of monthly pension payments extending decades into the future until the last member of the scheme dies. So what the actuary/accountants do is to use a discount rate (or, more likely, a series of time-based discount rates) to apply to the forecast pension payments in each year to come up with a present value for that year's payments. Total those up across all years and the result is the liability number that goes into the accounts.
In the case of the RNLI, we know that the scheme closed in 2007. So, the youngest member of the scheme could now be in their late twenties, and so the last pension payment to be made by the fund is probably in at least 60 years. We know that annual pension payments are running at around £10m p.a. currently, but we do not know the profile of future payments. So let's take a guess. Say the £10m grows at 1.5% p.a. reflecting a maturing membership profile for the next 30 years. It then stays static for the subsequent 15 years, before declining at a constant annual amount to zero by year 60.
The RNLI's accounts tell us that the discount rates to value the liability used in 2015 and 2016 were respectively 3.8% and 2.6%. If I take my assumed profile of pension payments and apply the 3.8% p.a. discount rate to them I get a value for the liabilities of £297m - conveniently close to the value of £306m in the RNLI's accounts for 2015. If I then take the same profile of payments, but instead discount them at 2.6% (the rate used in 2016) I get £378 million. That is an increase of £72 million just as a result of changing the discount rate.
Between 2015 and 2016 the value of the RNLI's pension fund liability (not the deficit, but the liability) increased by nearly £94m. Bearing in mind my profile of estimated future pension payments is just a guess, I can quite easily see how most - maybe even all of this - can be explained simply by movements in discount rates. (If the actual profile of payments is more back ended, or extends further into the future, than I have assumed then the sensitivity to changes in discount rates would be even bigger). There are also other factors at work. If the RNLI's pension payments are linked to inflation (which they almost certainly are) and inflation during 2016 was higher than the assumption for 2015, then the liabilities would also increase as a result.
To add, the "sponsoring employer" of the fund of which I am a trustee, has experienced a similar profile in the value of its liabilities to the RNLI. A large increase in the value of the liability in 2016 as the discount rate fell dramatically. (I can't speak for 2017 yet, as the employer's accounts for that year have yet to be published, but discount rates did increase very slightly in 2017, so you would anticipate a modest reduction in the value of the liability).
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Angele
Active member
:encouragement:
Uricanejack
Well-known member
Juan Twothree
Well-known member
As I've said before, the mugs themselves weren't the issue. The two crew were asked to take them home, but decided not to; it was what went on afterwards, targeting RNLI staff in a very unpleasant and personal way, that caused the problems..
You say there has been a pattern of wholesale defections by crew. Really? I'm aware of two stations where that has happened, and in one of those cases many of the crew rejoined when they realised they'd backed the wrong horse. I'm not familiar with the precise details at the other.
Crew members leave all the time, for a whole variety of reasons - unfortunately that's just a part of modern life. These days people change their jobs, move away from the area, or their family circumstances change. Only this week, my station has had two crew stand down; one because he's reached the maximum age for an ILB (55), and the other because he's got a new job and can't now commit the time. But there is no interruption to the service, we take in and train new crew on a regular basis, ready to fill the gaps that will inevitably arise.
If, as has been ludicrously suggested, the RNLI is on some sort of mission to replace long standing crew with modern "PC" clones, there would be far easier and more effective ways to do it than sacking them for imagined politically-incorrect offences.
Simply lowering the age limit would sort it out in one fell swoop, or alternatively just wait a few years for natural turnover to take its course.
But such a plan only exists in the fertile imaginations of some of the posters on here.
Tranona
Well-known member
The important point that Sybarite seems to fail to understand is that there is no connection between the pension fund, its size, assets or liabilities (however calculated) and expenditure on boats. Even the amount going in each year to reduce the deficit is largely out of the control of management and again is unconnected with the purchase of boats - or indeed on any other operational expense.
What he fails to understand is that the financial constraint placed on the management is the income it can generate , largely from its donors and that payments into the pension fund, either the closed DB scheme or for employees in the current scheme are contractural and legal obligations. It is management's responsibility to ensure that benefits to employees through pension schemes and contributions are fair, competitive and consistent with best practice and there is no suggestion that they are not.
There is a lot of confusion about the fact that RNLI is a "charity". It is only designated as such because that is the mechanism for operating in a favourable tax climate, primarily because donations are tax deductable as is certain expenditure. Otherwise as an operational business it is no different from any other in terms of management with an objective of getting the best value out of its expenditure. It does not have a "profit" or return on investment objective so much of the analysis that Sybarite tries to carry out is irrelevant as it ignores the context in which it operates.
The other issue that seems to cause confusion, particularly here, is salaries. If this operation was run in a different legal or corporate framework the salaries paid to management would be little different, being benchmarked against other services such a fire brigade, police, armed services etc. This confusion arises I suggest because people think of charities in a way that is very different from reality and seem to expect people to work for less than the market rate because it is "charitable" work - whatever that means. It is emphatically not. Why should a project manager, or a boat builder, or any other skilled worker be paid less for building lifeboats than going across the road to Sunseeker? You can apply that to any level of management - they are doing comparable jobs to people in other organisations, public or privately owned so should expect comparable pay.
What he fails to understand is that the financial constraint placed on the management is the income it can generate , largely from its donors and that payments into the pension fund, either the closed DB scheme or for employees in the current scheme are contractural and legal obligations. It is management's responsibility to ensure that benefits to employees through pension schemes and contributions are fair, competitive and consistent with best practice and there is no suggestion that they are not.
There is a lot of confusion about the fact that RNLI is a "charity". It is only designated as such because that is the mechanism for operating in a favourable tax climate, primarily because donations are tax deductable as is certain expenditure. Otherwise as an operational business it is no different from any other in terms of management with an objective of getting the best value out of its expenditure. It does not have a "profit" or return on investment objective so much of the analysis that Sybarite tries to carry out is irrelevant as it ignores the context in which it operates.
The other issue that seems to cause confusion, particularly here, is salaries. If this operation was run in a different legal or corporate framework the salaries paid to management would be little different, being benchmarked against other services such a fire brigade, police, armed services etc. This confusion arises I suggest because people think of charities in a way that is very different from reality and seem to expect people to work for less than the market rate because it is "charitable" work - whatever that means. It is emphatically not. Why should a project manager, or a boat builder, or any other skilled worker be paid less for building lifeboats than going across the road to Sunseeker? You can apply that to any level of management - they are doing comparable jobs to people in other organisations, public or privately owned so should expect comparable pay.
Blue Sunray
Well-known member
:encouragement: :encouragement: :encouragement:
Clear, concise, factual and unemotional.
Heckler
Active member
If the issue was after the mugs then why did the "Admiral retired" or whatever he is/was then raise the stakes by banging on about extreme pornography? Raising the stakes so to speak from the original pornography. I still smell spin doctors and not very clever ones!
It is possible the extreme pornography relates to some form of lampooning of the provocative salaried middle manager and was triggered by the original saucy mugs complaint or more probably by a litany of abusive management practices originating from Poole HQ.
Sane people can indulge in such stupidity follow prolonged provocation. I have seen £130,000 p/a top of their game software developers reduced to childish behaviour following years of incompetent project management. It is a form of outlet for the frustrations that have built up and can occur when simply walking into work each morning triggers some form of clinical psychological distress. In the final resort people just want out hence my other comment about career suicide by saucy mug or social media post.