Deal or no deal

So this is the improved offer from the BBC side, which has bought off strike action next week.

Employee contributions to the new Career Average Benefits scheme will be set at 6% of salary, rather than the previously proposed 7% (but still a leap from the current 4%). Pensions in the CAB scheme will rise by either 4% (up from the previous offer of 2.5%) or the annual rise in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is the lower.  There's an understanding that, if inflation gets high, but investments do well, the Trustees might go above those limits on  revaluation.

In all of the new schemes, the BBC has further enshrined a nasty dinosaur, the comedic "Unpredictability Allowances" by offering to match Additional Voluntary Contributions based on UPA and overtime payments, up to a maximum cost of £5 million a year.

The unions have won something in their wish to wait and see how investments do under the Coalition.  There will be a review of the reforms (probably too late for many to change) when the official estimate of the pension fund deficit is published, due no later than June 2011.

 

The union side say they have also won "important new measures" to provide staff facing compulsory redundancy with time to identify alternative employment in the BBC.  NB: The NUJ in particular have up until now been unwilling to contemplate compulsory redundancies. On the 2010/11 pay review, the proposals restate the earlier offer  – a £475 flat rate increase applicable to all staff earning up to £37,726 – and confirm the intention to backdate payment to 1 August 2010.