Warning over public sector pensions

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Research by the TaxPayers' Alliance found there are 8,500 retired NHS employees with retirement benefits of £1 million.

The organisation has previously found there are another 3,700 retired civil servants with pension pots of the same size.

An estimate for the Institute for Economic Affairs suggested the bill for unfunded public sector pension liabilities stood at £1,025 billion - more than £40,000 for each household.

Corin Taylor, research director at the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "Urgent change is needed to reduce the bill to taxpayers - for a start, the pension age for existing public sector employees should be raised to the state pension age as soon as possible."

The figures were based on data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from the NHS Business Services Authority Pensions Division.

It said there are 8,449 NHS pensioners who are currently receiving an annual pension of at least £33,000.

The TaxPayers' Alliance said an annual pension of £33,000 net of lump sum was equivalent to a pot, from which an equivalent annuity could be purchased, of about £1 million.

The figures were approved by Terry Arthur, a fellow of the Institute of Actuaries.

The findings follow disquiet over the difference in quality between the final salary pensions enjoyed by many public sector employees compared to the less generous schemes available to most other workers.