The equivalent of £1 of every £5 in council tax goes toward local authority pension contributions, the Taxpayers’ Alliance has claimed.
Research by the pressure group also found an increasing number of councillors signing up to the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS).
Director of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, Matthew Sinclair, said the rise in pensions contributions are ‘unacceptable’, as employer contributions have hit more than £5bn in 2010-11. The number of councillors signed up to the ‘gold-plated’ pension scheme has risen by more than a thousand since 2007-08 and now stands at 4,548.
Birmingham City Council topped the league with £112m pension contributions, while the highest cost per head of population was Falkirk Council, at £314.24.
‘It’s unacceptable that ordinary families and pensioners, who have seen Council Tax bills almost double in the last decade, have so much of their money spent on council pensions,’ Mr Sinclair said.
‘These retirement deals have all but disappeared in the private sector and it simply isn't sustainable to keep the system as it is. These figures show the urgent need to reform the outdated Local Government Pension Scheme and to tackle the growing trend of councillors joining.’
Top ten councils with the highest contributions
| Birmingham | £112,091,052 |
| Worcestershire | £92,792,000 |
| Dorset | £72,500,000 |
| Lancashire | £70,845,000 |
| Hampshire | £68,377,765 |
| Essex | £57,362,000 |
| Fife | £56,400,500 |
| Durham | £54,293,827 |
| Kent | £52,383,693 |
| Falkirk | £52,305,87 |
Top ten councils with the highest number of councillors
| Highland | 57 |
| Dorset | 56 |
| Leeds | 56 |
| Staffordshire | 55 |
| Surrey | 55 |
| Birmingham | 54 |
| Bradford | 54 |
| Warwickshire | 54 |
| North Lanarkshire | 53 |
| Powys | 51 |
The Guardian newspaper reports that unions are to meet today to discuss further industrial action over pensions reforms. However, any action would not be on the scale of last year’s walkout now that Unison and the GMB had decided to continue talks with ministers.
