Anger over cost of council pensions

Each person in the Shropshire Council area is paying more than £74 every year towards the cost of council staff and member pensions, it was today claimed.

In the Telford & Wrekin Council area the figure is more than £67 per person, according to research published by the Taxpayers' Alliance, which is highlighting the number of councillors claiming council pensions.

Although they are volunteers, there are 4,548 councillors on the Local Government Pension Scheme. This figure is up by more than 1,000 since 2007/08.

In Shropshire, 26 councillors were in the pension scheme last year, the same number as in Telford & Wrekin.

Shropshire Council contributes £21.7 million towards pensions each year. Telford & Wrekin spends almost £11 million.

Councils paid £5.175 billion in contributions to employees' pensions in 2010/11, with the alliance claiming that the contributions worked out as £1 out of every £5 gathered in council tax.

Employees on the scheme contribute between 5.5 and 7.5 per cent of their salaries towards their pensions. According to figures released last year, the average annual pension paid out was £4,235. Matthew Sinclair, director of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said it was unacceptable that so much taxpayers' money was being spent on pensions.

But John Sedgebeer, of public sector union Unison, disputed the alliance's findings, saying the issue was not as simple as it was making out. And Keith Barrow, leader of Shropshire Council, said council tax was not the sole source of pension funding.

"It is also funded from Government gra-nts, redistributed business rates and other income," he added. He claimed pensions accounted for 4.5p of every £1 of council tax.

A Telford & Wrekin Council spokesman said the figures did not take into account regional differences in local government.

He added: "Councillors give up a great deal of time to carry out their duties and they are rightly remunerated for this."