From the comments to yesterday's post:
Former Tory: Depends where the money's going. Police people are vastly expensive individuals when you take in the cost of their generous pension scheme, which for some officers has allowed retirement on full defined benefits at 48 (entry 18 + 30 years service). The current schemes are slightly less generous but funding retirement for someone in their fifties with index linking, widow's benefits, etc etc is colossally expensive, requiring a pension fund significantly into seven figures. Or, indemnifying by the taxpayer.
From here:
Typical retirement income:
A 30 year old police officer on a salary of £30,000 will receive a pension of around £28,000 if he retires at age 60. If he takes the maximum tax free cash at retirement - £120,000 - this will reduce his annual pension to £18,000.
OK, let's ignore inflation increases and discounting and assume thirty years working plus twenty years in retirement. Total lifetime earnings/income = £1,460,000. Divide that by thirty active years = £49,000 a year. That is the real annual salary. As a financial adviser, FT really should be able to do this calculation.
If you think coppers are overpaid at £49,000 a year, then become a copper. That's clearly overpaid if you are just sitting in a cosy office investigating 'hate crimes' on Twitter, and probably 'about right' if you are doing a proper policing job on the streets with all the personal risks and unsociable working hours.
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