Town hall 'gold' pensions cost every family £300

Published 16th Oct 2009

Families paid nearly £300 each last year to cover the soaring costs of gold-plated town hall pensions.

Final-salary payments for social workers, binmen, bureaucrats and other staff swallowed up more than a quarter of all the money collected in council tax.

Households forked out £5.4billion for town hall pensions - the same sum the Government spends subsidising the rail network.

The bill was up 7.8 per cent in a year as authorities saw their investment income fall.

The official figures released yesterday show that in the financial year ending in March, 1,685,000 council workers were in the local government pension scheme, a rise of 29,000.

They enjoy inflation-proofed pensions of a kind now virtually extinct in the private sector, where employees must rely on the vagaries of the stock market.

Caroline Spelman, Tory local government spokesman, said too much cash was going on pensions rather than on basic services.

Matthew Elliott of the TaxPayers' Alliance said:

'The Government is utterly failing to deal with this vital issue, and rather than admit these pensions are unsustainable and a black hole for taxpayers' money, just expect us to stump up ever more cash instead of confronting the unions. It's high time the axe fell on public sector pensions.'


A Whitehall spokesman said that Communities Secretary John Denham was committed to curbing the pay and pensions of top local government officials.

Source: ' Daily Mail '

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