Teachers rush for early retirement before pension reform

The government is in negotiations with teaching unions over reform to the Teachers Pension Scheme (TPS) as part of wider changes to public sector pensions. Proposed reforms, which initially sparked strike action from teaching unions, include later retirement ages, higher employee contributions and move from final salary to career average arrangements. According to figures from the Department for Education (DfE), in 2011 almost 9,000 teachers began drawing their pensions before their statutory retirement age. This is the highest number of early retirees in the TPS since 1997, the Da...