[lettie]

I can't speak for council workers but I can speak for midwives and nurses and say that working until 65 or 70 would be completely impossible.

At present, nursing staff can still retire earlier, similar to the police and fire services. We won't be entitled to state pensions any earlier than anybody else, it will be our own pensions that we access from 60 ish, or so I believe. Pensions that some of us will have paid into for 40 years, in other words.......our money.

It has always been understood within nursing that as public sector workers we have had much worse pay and conditions than private sector workers. Early retirement was the only perk, in return for years of underpaid service. I know that if I'd have worked privately as a nurse, I would have earned more and had more perks of the job. However, I would have had to contribute much more to a private pension in order to get the same benefits, so ultimately it wasn't worth the extra money working in the private sector.

I do think that there are many jobs which would be detrimental to the health of the worker, if they were to do them beyond the age of 60. Being a desk jockey is not one of them. I can understand the care assistants protesting, it can be a heavy, nasty job wiping bums for a living, but council office workers........