The ‘alarming’ cost of the generous pensions is exposed in the most authoritative study yet into the growing problem of paying for state workers’ retirements.

It shows taxpayers were saddled with a bill of £14.9billion in 2008-09 – up 33 per cent in a decade.
At this level, the average worker paid £516 – more than they are paying into their own pension. That is, if they have one.

Most private sector workers do not have a pension and may have to work into their seventies or even eighties because they cannot afford to stop working.

the figure does not include the pensions paid to all retired state workers, only the four largest schemes – teachers, the NHS, civil servants and the Armed Forces.

The report, from the National Audit Office, also predicts that the cost of paying pensions to the retired state workforce, excluding local government workers and MPs, will be £79.1billion in 2059-60 – up by more than 200 per cent on the £25.4billion for 2009-10.

Tory MP Edward Leigh, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, called the figures ‘ frightening’ and said a national debate about public sector pensions for new entrants was urgently needed.

The average pension paid to a retired public sector worker last year was £7,388, according to the report.

By comparison, the average private sector worker does not get a penny because they do not have a company pension. Just 42 per cent of men and 31 per cent of women have one.