The Sunday Telegraph today reports:
?35 billion black hole in council pensions
Householders are paying up to ?140 a year in council tax to help fill a ?35 billion black hole in town hall pension funds. The extra money is to bail out pension schemes for local government workers, which have been criticised as ?gold-plated? and over-generous.
An investigation by this newspaper raised renewed criticism of the ?final salary? pensions offered to council employees. Such pensions have been almost eradicated in the private sector. The slump in share prices caused by the recession has hit pension fund investments hard and added to the scale of the problem.Council chiefs admit that the situation was made worse when some local authorities took ?pension holidays?, withholding contributions to their funds when the markets were strong.
In a Sunday Telegraph survey of local authorities across England, Scotland and Wales, 136 authorities covering 60 per cent of the population reported a total pension deficit of more than ?21 billion. Adjusting to reflect the national picture, the total size of the town hall pensions black hole is about ?35 billion. The scheme with the biggest deficit is run by Lancashire county council and is ?1.4 billion in the red. Birmingham city council?s scheme has a ?1 billion deficit.
According to the Telegraph, the deficit in the fund for Essex (which includes the county council and the district councils) was 782 million pounds in March 2007.
I’m afraid they’re recouping the money by providing less than adequate services for looked after children … which is why Essex is in the bottom eight authorities, along with Haringey, Birmingham and Peterborough.
Does this include pensions for ‘career’ councillors?
Definitely not for Rochford, not sure elsewhere.