Pensions hypocrite
Mandarin who wants us to work further into our old age retires… at 61, with £85k a year and a £245k lump sum!
THE civil servant responsible for increasing the state pension age to 67 has announced his own retirement – at the age of 61.
Sir Robert Devereux, who has a pension pot of £1.8million – the biggest in the civil service – will step down in January.
He will receive £85,000 a year and a lump sum of £245,000 when he retires as permanent secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions.
He is retiring as austerity and public sector pay restraint come under the spotlight, and amid controversy over moves to switch benefit claimants to the new universal credit, which he oversaw.
A Daily Mail investigation in August revealed that 30 Whitehall mandarins were sitting on taxpayerfunded pension pots of more than £1million each.
Sir Robert’s is the highest of all non-military civil servants employed by a central government department.
Former pensions minister Baroness Altmann said that while Sir Robert’s pot is valued by government actuaries at £1.8million, it would cost a private sector worker more than £3million for the same pension on the annuities market.
‘I do hope that he goes on to do some other work because I’m sure that a lot of people aged 61 are pretty fit and healthy,’ she said.
‘If only everyone could dream of the kind of pension he has guaranteed by the taxpayer. I hope everyone in the public sector feels appreciative of this.
‘For the general public, pension ages are being increased and people are working longer to get their pension. It’s important that the Government sets an example.’
Labour MP John Mann said: ‘This will not go down well with pensioners whose savings are evaporating. As ever, it is one rule for those at the top and another rule for everybody else.’
Fellow Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge said: ‘Most of the people his department serve cannot afford to retire at the age of 61 because of their low wages. His annual pension payment is about double what most of my constituents earn in a year.’
Alex Wild, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘This is an extraordinary sum and hard-pressed families will be furious to discover the size of their bill for Sir Robert’s pension.
‘Payouts of this size are a thing of the past in the private sector because they’re totally unaffordable, and at a time when the Government needs to make savings, every penny of public money should be spent on essential services, not gold-plated pensions.’
From 2019, the state pension age will start to increase for both men and women to reach 66 by 2020 and 67 by 2028. The Government is planning further rises, although these are under review.
Although the public sector moved to a career average scheme five years ago, civil servants ten years away from retirement age were told their generous final salary schemes would stand.
Sir Robert, 60, joined the DWP in 2011, having been permanent secretary at the Department of Transport since 2007.
The Oxford-educated mandarin has led reforms to welfare and pensions, including universal credit and the new state pension.
He was knighted in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to transport and welfare and for voluntary service.
In 2013, he was given a £20,000 bonus despite being criticised by the public accounts committee over the handling of the universal credit scheme.
In a statement yesterday, Sir Robert said he was ‘very proud’ of his colleagues who had introduced reforms that ‘radically improved’ customer service and ‘worked relentlessly’ to improve people’s lives.
Yesterday, they lined up to praise him as he prepares to step down on his 61st birthday.
The Work and Pensions Secretary David Gauke said that Sir Robert had been ‘instrumental in steering DWP through a period of great change’.
Sir Jeremy Heywood, the cabinet secretary and head of the civil service, said Sir Robert could be ‘truly proud’ of what he had achieved.
Sir Robert told Civil Service World magazine last year that his career highlight for 2016 was achieving ‘more milestones on the Government’s programme of welfare reform’.
The mandarin with the next largest pension pot is Sir Simon McDonald, permanent secretary of the Foreign Office, with £1.7million.
‘A thing of the past’