Retirement anomaly

Raising the retirement age for schoolteachers to 65 will also affect university lecturers. Staff from the former polytechnics are members of the Teachers' Superannuation Scheme and will be affected by any regulation changes.

This is not applicable to Scottish pre-1992 universities. More importantly, the older "traditional" universities' staff are in the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) with the normal retirement age of 60. Unless special provision is made for university teachers to retire at 60 in the proposed Teacher Scheme Regulation, a great anomaly will be created. The USS is not under government control, but its trustees may be leaned on to fall in line with ministerial thinking.

H. C. S. Ferguson
Pollokshields, Glasgow