David Cameron has already let slip that he’d prefer these workers to make do with a vastly inferior defined contribution pension, and even the sainted Vince Cable maintains that public sector
pensions are “completely out of control”. But the claim that really gets the spittle flying from the lips of the detractors is that pensions make up a quarter of council taxes. Quelle horreur! Well no, actually.
Council tax accounts for only 24% of expenditure by town halls and the rest comes from business rates and Whitehall. The actual figure is a quarter of that, way down at 6%, which is comparable to the private sector.
The British North-American Committee has also had a go, declaring that public sector pension liabilities constitute 85% of GDP. Of course, this is nonsense, calculated by rolling up liabilities and describing them as a debt owed in a single year, and it was promptly rubbished by Straight Statistics, a pressure group that campaigns against the misuse of data.
Amazingly, the rest of us are not left with just 15% to live on while town hall dinner ladies live the life of Riley.
The problem isn’t public sector pensions. The real problem is the devastation of private sector provision and the abject failure of the three main political parties and the industry to offer any meaningful solution.
