What a gloomy picture Jackie Ashley paints of old age (Comment, 14 December): many pensioners are doomed to end life wretched and lonely; we will be a burden to our loved ones and society. That may be true in some cases, but thankfully most of us will soldier on and be valued by those dear to us to the end.

Older people make a substantial positive contribution to society. We are carers for our grandchildren or an aged relative or friend. Without us many voluntary groups would grind to a halt. Many of us still work. Ashley rightly identifies lack of suitable housing and social isolation as major issues and asks what the government, local authorities etc are going to do about it.

Many pensioners have substantial assets. Up to 70% of us are owner-occupiers. Income-wise, we are the "golden generation" – most of us are far better off than our parents were at our age and much richer than our children are likely to be, given the pension crisis. Ashley cites examples of superb housing facilities for the elderly in countries such as the Netherlands and Germany. What she didn't mention is that many of them are mutual housing schemes where the properties are owned and managed by the older people themselves. Continental governments have been prepared to support this kind of self-help and mutual aid. Why not British governments?

Glyn Thomas

Barnet, Hertfordshire

• The only crisis aspects of ageing are the hundreds and thousands of personal crises faced by older people and their carers living in poverty, in loneliness, or without adequate care and support. These should be dealt with urgently.

But the long-term decline in the ratio of workers to pensioners has not, so far, presented any difficulty because productivity has continued to rise more than fast enough to compensate for it. Measures to extend working life would prevent a problem arising in the foreseeable future. Why the cost of decent living for older people "feels heavy" when the UK's state pension is way below those in other major European countries and its poverty rate is three times that of the Netherlands is a mystery.

And much of what Jackie Ashley calls for is already in hand: there is a national strategy, Age of Opportunity, and an excellent housing policy, Lifetime Homes – though both need major commitments of resources. And the UK research councils are investing heavily in trying to create the evidence base for policies in this field. This includes the key role of technology, from smart homes to wearable technology, in sustaining autonomy.

Professor Alan Walker

University of Sheffield

• Jackie Ashley is right to draw parallels between climate change and demographic change. Both require concerted, long-term action. Our ageing society provides the chance to rethink our roles as older citizens, with the chance to continue contributing in many different ways after "retirement". Older people increasingly will be carers of other older people, as we live longer with dementia and disabilities. The challenges are to bring housing and health into the equation, to create places that are good to grow old in; and to find the fairest way to pay for better care. A care duty on estates could bring in extra funding.   

Most people who will actually vote at the next election are likely to be aged 60 or over. They and their families and carers want quality care and support. Will politicians of all parties deliver?

Stephen Burke

Chief executive, Counsel and Care

• My house would accommodate a family, but I live alone. I have made various changes to it over the years so it would continue to suit me in my later years. I have no desire to move into a community of elderly people; I enjoy the sounds of neighbouring children and their parents. Am I supposed to feel guilty at having more space than I strictly need?

Margaret Gooch

Portsmouth

What a gloomy picture Jackie Ashley paints of old age (Comment, 14 December): many pensioners are doomed to end life wretched and lonely; we will be a burden to our loved ones and society. That may be true in some cases, but thankfully most of us will soldier on and be valued by those dear to us to the end.

Older people make a substantial positive contribution to society. We are carers for our grandchildren or an aged relative or friend. Without us many voluntary groups would grind to a halt. Many of us still work. Ashley rightly identifies lack of suitable housing and social isolation as major issues and asks what the government, local authorities etc are going to do about it.

Many pensioners have substantial assets. Up to 70% of us are owner-occupiers. Income-wise, we are the "golden generation" – most of us are far better off than our parents were at our age and much richer than our children are likely to be, given the pension crisis. Ashley cites examples of superb housing facilities for the elderly in countries such as the Netherlands and Germany. What she didn't mention is that many of them are mutual housing schemes where the properties are owned and managed by the older people themselves. Continental governments have been prepared to support this kind of self-help and mutual aid. Why not British governments?

Glyn Thomas

Barnet, Hertfordshire

• The only crisis aspects of ageing are the hundreds and thousands of personal crises faced by older people and their carers living in poverty, in loneliness, or without adequate care and support. These should be dealt with urgently.

But the long-term decline in the ratio of workers to pensioners has not, so far, presented any difficulty because productivity has continued to rise more than fast enough to compensate for it. Measures to extend working life would prevent a problem arising in the foreseeable future. Why the cost of decent living for older people "feels heavy" when the UK's state pension is way below those in other major European countries and its poverty rate is three times that of the Netherlands is a mystery.

And much of what Jackie Ashley calls for is already in hand: there is a national strategy, Age of Opportunity, and an excellent housing policy, Lifetime Homes – though both need major commitments of resources. And the UK research councils are investing heavily in trying to create the evidence base for policies in this field. This includes the key role of technology, from smart homes to wearable technology, in sustaining autonomy.

Professor Alan Walker

University of Sheffield

• Jackie Ashley is right to draw parallels between climate change and demographic change. Both require concerted, long-term action. Our ageing society provides the chance to rethink our roles as older citizens, with the chance to continue contributing in many different ways after "retirement". Older people increasingly will be carers of other older people, as we live longer with dementia and disabilities. The challenges are to bring housing and health into the equation, to create places that are good to grow old in; and to find the fairest way to pay for better care. A care duty on estates could bring in extra funding.   

Most people who will actually vote at the next election are likely to be aged 60 or over. They and their families and carers want quality care and support. Will politicians of all parties deliver?

Stephen Burke

Chief executive, Counsel and Care

• My house would accommodate a family, but I live alone. I have made various changes to it over the years so it would continue to suit me in my later years. I have no desire to move into a community of elderly people; I enjoy the sounds of neighbouring children and their parents. Am I supposed to feel guilty at having more space than I strictly need?

Margaret Gooch

Portsmouth

• Ministers want to save £500m from Civil Service pay reforms
• Unions to seek judicial review over plans to cut redundancy pay

Civil service unions vowed to press ahead with a strike ballot of almost half a million Whitehall staff after the Cabinet Office minister Tessa Jowell refused to back down over plans to cut redundancy pay and ban generous early retirement packages.

Unions said they would continue to prepare the groundwork for a ballot in the new year to fight proposals that reduced the potential payoffs expected by staff made redundant.

A meeting this week with Jowell and five civil service unions failed to reach agreement despite threats of strike action from the largest of them, the PCS. Unions agreed to hold a further meeting in January, but will continue to prepare for a ballot in case the government refuses to give ground. PCS legal advisers are investigating a separate challenge to the proposals in the courts under a judicial review.

The PCS union executive is expected to back a strike ballot after the re-election of general secretary Mark Serwotka . Serwotka received two thirds of the vote after he pursued a hardline campaign against government cuts to pensions and redundancy payments.

Ministers want to save £500m from reforms to the Civil Service Compensation Scheme (CSCS) over three years.

Under the scheme, workers who are made redundant will lose the right to enhanced early retirement packages. They will also see the maximum payout cut from three years' salary to two, and be forced to gain two years' service to qualify for redundancy against one year under the current rules. Privately, officials have argued the cuts are likely to be lighter than anything proposed by a Conservative government and it would be advantageous to agree a deal before the election.

However, Serwotka has been determined the government should protect existing staff and restrict cuts in benefits to new workers.

Unions argue redundancy terms, including early retirement at 50, are part of staff terms and conditions of employment. They plan a legal challenge to overturn government proposals.

Serwotka said: "Through this overwhelming show of support, members have shown that they want a union that will campaign and organise against the damaging consensus amongst the main political parties, which champions public sector cuts, pay freezes and privatisation.

"There are massive challenges facing PCS and its members in the year ahead."

Unite argued more than 20,000 of its members would be left tens of thousands of pounds out of pocket in cases of voluntary or compulsory redundancy.

Pressure on final salary schemes grows with the launch of the Public Sector Pensions Commission

Business leaders stepped up pressure on public-sector workers to accept cuts in retirement provision today following the launch of a commission to examine the cost of their final-salary pensions.

The Public Sector Pensions Commission, which mainly comprises representatives from rightwing thinktanks, is expected to provide a blueprint for reforms to the next government.

The Institute of Directors, which is sponsoring the commission, said it would be "an independent body comprised of experts in pensions policy to present solutions to the growing problem of unfunded public sector pensions". It added: "It is increasingly clear that, with ever-increasing longevity, reform is necessary to ensure that public-sector pensions remain financially sustainable for the long term."

Calls for reform have intensified recently. The Liberal Democrats Treasury spokesman, Vince Cable, has called for a review to detail options for reform. George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, has proposed benefit cuts for highly paid public-sector staff.

Ministers have spent the last four years negotiating with unions to cut costs in the main public-sector occupational schemes. In this month's pre-budget report, Alistair Darling, capped the taxpayer's commitment to provide extra funding.

Documents released alongside the pre-budget report showed the government faced unfunded pension liabilities of £770bn in March last year, up from £650bn in March 2006. But the chancellor said cost increases would be borne by workers after they exceeded an agreed ceiling.

The commission said it would look at whether it was reasonable for the taxpayer to support final-salary schemes in the public sector, when few such private-sector schemes are still open to new members.

The chairman of the commission, Peter Tompkins – a pensions adviser at PricewaterhouseCoopers – denied it wanted merely to justify cuts in public-sector pensions. He said he was not from any political party and it was likely the commission would recommend a range of options. He said: "Faced with much-increased costs, a new government will need to look hard at public-sector pensions policy early on after the election."

A Treasury spokesman said recent reforms made the commission unnecessary. "The total liabilities figure is not a measure of the affordability of public sector pensions," he said.

"The long-term public finance report, published alongside the pre-budget report, shows that the annual cost of public sector pensions will remain below 2% of GDP and therefore is affordable in the long term.

"Reforms introduced by the government– including changes to the age at which pensions are paid, and cost capping and sharing – will ensure substantial savings in the future and £1bn a year of savings from 2012-2013 were included in the pre-budget report as these reforms begin to take effect."

Teachers face picking up the tab for higher pension costs

Britain's schools are set to be the first battleground in the chancellor's squeeze on public-sector pensions, with teachers on salaries of £30,000 facing demands to pay an extra £300 a year to plug widening deficits

Last week, Alistair Darling told Britain's 5.8m public-sector workers that pay rises would be capped at just 1% and that their generous pension benefits could not last much longer. He said: "Public pensions need to be broadly in line with those offered in the private sector. So, by 2012 contributions by the state to public-service pensions for teachers, local government, NHS and the civil service will be capped – saving around £1bn a year." Public-sector workers earning more than £100,000 a year will be the hardest hit, and are expected to pay the most in additional contributions.

Teachers are likely to be the first in the firing line as their scheme is the first to be revalued. Currently, employers contribute 14.1% of salary to the pension scheme and teacher contributions are set at 6.4%.

Darling said in the pre-budget report that he would set a ceiling on employer contributions of 14%, in effect leaving teachers to pick up the bill for any future cost increases.

Pension costs are rising fast as people live longer and life expectancy for white-collar workers, including teachers, is nearly 88 years.

Life expectancy

A £9.5bn loss in 2007 in the teachers' scheme was due to an increase in life expectancy that experts said should be included in a revaluation in the next few months, and could lead to one percentage point rise in contributions to 7.4%, cutting £300 from the take-home pay of a teacher.

John Ball, head of final-salary pensions at the advisers Watson Wyatt, who has reviewed the published details of the scheme, said: "Finding more money for pension contributions won't be easy when pay is being squeezed but teachers would still only pay a fraction of the real cost of providing pension benefits."

Critics of "gold-plated" public-sector schemes argue that taxpayers are already paying the lion's share of the £1tn in liabilities (the teachers' fund has £176bn in liabilities), and costs need to be trimmed back as life expectancy figures surge higher and baby boomers rapidly head for retirement.

It is the unfunded public-sector schemes, such as the civil service and NHS schemes, which worry the Treasury most. It fears the open chequebook nature of the guarantees, at a time when the government's deficit is already at record highs.

But Dr Andrew Dearden, who represents doctors in the giant NHS pension scheme, said concerns over unfunded schemes were entirely misplaced. "NHS workers paid £7bn into the scheme last year. The amount paid out to retired members was £3bn. We have been in positive balance for more than five years.

"There is no funding issue for the NHS scheme. We think we will reach equilibrium on payments in and out over the next five to 10 years. There is no black hole – if anything, we are lending money to the government at the moment."

Naomi Cooke, of the GMB union, said the average payout from the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) is just £4,000 a year, while Dearden said former NHS workers were typically picking up just £3,500.

Both were puzzled by Darling's statement that he would impose a cap on taxpayer contributions by 2012 – because caps are already in place. Dearden said: "We already have a cap – it was agreed two years ago, and additional future costs will fall on members." The 2007 NHS pension scheme review agreed that the government, as employer, would not have to pay more than 14% of salary into the scheme over the longer term.

Reformed benefits

A similar deal was hammered out for the LGPS, which unlike the other public-sector schemes is advanced funded by member contributions. Cooke said: "The new LGPS scheme introduced in 2008 reformed benefits and contribution rates, and has been set up to be sustainable over the longer term."

Contribution rates for some public-sector workers have already risen. Since 2008 local government workers have paid an average of 6.4% of their salary into the scheme, up from 5.8% previously. The LGPS has been restructured so that higher earners pay more – with anyone earning above £78,700 paying 7.5%.

These rates are not far off the amounts paid by private-sector workers. The difference is the contribution made by the employer. In most private schemes, companies pay in about 6%-8% of salary, but in public-sector schemes the government is paying at least 14% of salary, and in some schemes – such as the police and judiciary – far more.

An employee earning above £78,700 would need to pay around 40% to 50% of their salary in pension contributions to achieve a retirement income worth two-thirds of their salary in a private sector investment-related scheme. However, the two-thirds guarantee is the standard in public and private sector final salary-related pension plans.

The scale of public-sector pensions schemes is colossal. The NHS scheme has 1.4m members and according to Dearden, is the fourth biggest in the world – behind only the Chinese army, Indian Railways and Wal-Mart. The LGPS has £120bn under management and is in effect an umbrella organisation of about 100 funds operated by local authorities across the country.

Unions say attempts by the government to rewrite contribution agreements hammered out as recently as 2008 could result in widespread industrial action. Many public-sector employees see their pension as compensation for lower wages than in the private sector, and believe that if benefits were withdrawn it will be a breach of contract.

Cutting public-sector pensions could also backfire, as lower-paid workers (75% of the members of the NHS scheme are female, and a third are part-time workers) would simply become dependent on state benefits at retirement.