Taxpayers have taken over the burden of paying town hall workers’ gold-plated pensions

Taxpayers have taken over the burden of paying town hall workers’ gold-plated pensions, figures revealed yesterday.

For the first time, more than half the cost of premium pensions for council staff is coming from the public purse.

It means local government managers and union bosses can no longer make the claim that council staff themselves pay most of the bill for their pensions.

Tax and council tax payers, who are often hard pressed to fund their own retirements, are now paying not only for the salaries of town hall workers, but also the bulk of their generous pensions and ‘golden goodbye’ lump sums.

The Department for Communities and Local Government figures show how much local councils paid into the Local Government Pension Fund in ‘employer contributions’ to ensure it meets its liabilities.

The employer contributions are paid on top of employee contributions and the fund’s own investment profits.

In 2009-10 the employer contribution paid by councils went up by £359million – a rise of 6.6 per cent, well ahead of inflation – to reach £5.759billion.

The figure is equivalent to well over a quarter of all council tax payments and amounts to 51 per cent of the £11.163bn cost of town hall pensions.