Over £1bn paid into police pensions in three years

Recent Home Office figures show that the amount being paid to police authorities to bridge the gap in police officer pensions has more than doubled in the last three years, and may be set to climb higher.

More than £1.08 billion has been paid into the police pension schemes during the past three years, with a Home Office contribution to retirement pay hitting a total of £546 million in the 2008/09 financial year. This is a 60 per cent increase from the previous year, when £340 million was injected, and more than double the £199 million of 2006/07.

There are now more than 140,000 police officers in retirement.

It became clear three years ago that the bills were beginning to impact on force budgets, which led to the Home Office agreeing to a rescue plan to see the shortfall met by taxpayers.

The figures have led to criticism from the Taxpayer’s Alliance, which said that the amounts were “utterly unfair” at a time when many are seeing their private pensions cut.

Matthew Sinclair, research director at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “It is utterly unfair that taxpayers are having to pay even more to subsidise gold-plated public sector pensions.

“Final salary schemes are now extremely rare in the private sector, where companies have had to cancel them in the face of a tax raid and an ageing population. But they are still the norm for public sector workers.

“That isn’t affordable and people in the private sector are now paying more in taxes to fund public sector pensions than they are to provide for their own old age.

But Ian Rennie, General Secretary of the Police Federation of England and Wales, defended the pensions. “The police pension scheme (PPS) was introduced to take account of the difficult, demanding and often dangerous job that police officers do on behalf of society and unlike other public sector workers, police officers contribute 11 per cent of their salary towards their pension,” he said.

The Home Office insisted that despite these figures, overall costs have been reduced.

A spokesperson said: “Entitlement to a police pension has always been regarded as a key element of the remuneration of police officers to enable them to undertake their role with confidence, and in recognition of the demanding nature of police work.

“It must be recognised that police officers have to pay a high level of contributions for membership of these schemes.

“This government recognises the issue and has put measures in place to tackle factors such as the costs of increasing longevity.

“We have been reforming public service pensions, including measures such as introducing higher pension ages and cost-capping to limit employer costs, to ensure the continuing affordability of these schemes.

“The new police pension scheme, which sees member contribute nine per cent of their salary, was introduced in April 2006 for all new entrants, and costs about 20 per cent less than PPS, in recognition of the need for a more modern and more affordable scheme.”