Government underestimates public sector pension liability by £610bn
The TaxPayers’ Alliance can today reveal that the true scale of the liability facing taxpayers for unfunded public sector pension schemes stands at an eye-watering £1.7tr. This dwarfs official estimates of £1.1tr, and these numbers are in addition to the official National Debt.
The official National Debt is around £1.2tr. But that doesn’t include liabilities for public sector pensions, which are kept off the books. Unlike private sector and local government pension plans, no funds are saved to meet the expected pension payments when they become due. The bill is simply left for future taxpayers to pay.
Politicians must urgently confront the enormous debt mountain that has built up thanks to overly-generous but completely unfunded public sector pensions, the campaign group says. Failure to give taxpayers a better deal will leave our children and grandchildren with a frightening bill to pay for today’s public sector staff.
The Government’s estimate of the size of this shortfall is also not calculated in the same way as the private sector must calculate its liabilities. Both the Government and the private sector reduce the expected payments in future years by a discount rate, to account for the fact that money held now to pay for a commitment in the future should grow.
But these discount rates are not the same. Instead of using the market discount rates, the Government uses a more generous rate determined by a committee.
Pensions liabilities and finance expert Neil Record has calculated that:
The real liability for unfunded public sector pensions is £1.7tr
That is £610bn larger than the Government admits
The real public sector pension liability has grown by over £1tr since 2003-04
The full research can be read here
Jonathan Isaby, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “The scale of the public sector pension liability is enormous, much scarier than the Government lets on. The situation has rapidly deteriorated over the last decade and will only get worse with an ageing population, meaning our debt mountain will continue to grow. Generous final salary schemes in the public sector are too expensive, unsustainable and need urgent reform so that we don’t leave future generations of taxpayers to pay our bills.”
TPA spokesmen are available for live and pre-recorded broadcast interviews via 07795 084 113 (no texts).
