§ Mr. CarringtonTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what arrangements are being made for donations to public service charities following the understatement of the retail prices index and its implications for centrally administered public service pensions.
§ Mr. BrookeThe total saving attributable to the retail prices index error in the superannuation schemes for civil servants, teachers, NHS staff, members of the armed forces and overseas pensioners is about £7.2 million.
This sum is being paid in donations to charities supporting needy or retired personnel in those services by the responsible Departments. The office of the Minister for the Civil Service has already made payments of about £0.4 million to Civil Service charities in the financial year 1987–88. The remaining donations to Civil Service and other public service charities will be made in this financial year and next.
The charities will include:
Civil Service
- Civil Service Retirement Fellowship
- Civil Service Benevolent Fund
- Civil Service Sports Council
- Civil Service Club
- Civil Service Pensioners' Alliance
- Post Office and Civil Service Sanatorium Society
- Occupational Pension Advisory Service
Teachers (England and Wales)
- Teachers' Benevolent Fund
- Church Schoolmasters' and Schoolmistresses' Benevolent Institution
Scottish Teachers
- Educational Institute of Scotland Benevolent Fund
- Scottish Secondary Teachers' Benevolent Fund
Armed Forces
- King George's Fund for Sailors
- Army Benevolent Fund
- RAF Benevolent Fund
Overseas Service Pensioners
- Overseas Pensioners' Benevolent Society
- Staines Trust
- Sudan Government Pensioners' Supplementation Fund
Fuller information will be available on request from the Departments concerned once their detailed arrangements are complete.
For National Health Service staff, there is at present no national charity on the scale desirable for so large a public service. The Government are therefore taking this opportunity of consulting staff and management interests on the possibility of establishing a National Health Service benevolent fund which would be registered as a charity, managed on voluntary lines, and given a substantial initial endowment from public funds.