Public sector pensions in disarray
As many across the UK take time out to consider their own pension arrangements it has been revealed that the UK taxpayer will be taking on a significantly increased burden in the medium to longer term. Figures buried in the back of this week's budget showed a £2.3 billion shortfall in public sector pension payments which was covered by the Treasury using taxpayer's money. This was for the year 2007/08 with the figure set to rise to a staggering £4.1 billion this year.
All in all, the cost of maintaining gold plated pension schemes, alternatively known as defined benefit schemes, will rise to a staggering £4.6 billion a year in 2010/11 and is set to increase year-on-year for the foreseeable future. All in all the UK taxpayer will have pumped in an extra £14.1 billion between 2006 and 2011 in order to maintain defined benefit pension payments for those working in the public sector.
As more and more non-public sector workers in the UK struggled to maintain their pension fund contributions it appears that the fat cats of the public sector are licking their lips. How ironic that we saw Gordon Brown introduced new pension regulations which will see billions of pounds a year taken from taxpayers pension schemes while public sector arrangements maintain their status quo.
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