{"id":552837,"date":"2026-07-16T14:51:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T14:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/552837\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T14:51:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T14:51:07","slug":"taxpayers-foot-record-56bn-public-sector-pensions-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/552837\/","title":{"rendered":"Taxpayers foot record \u00a356bn public sector pensions bill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Retired public sector workers were handed a record \u00a356bn in gold-plated pension payments in 2025-26, figures show.<\/p>\n<p>Payouts increased by more than \u00a31bn compared with the previous year, and costs have doubled since 2012, according to Treasury data.<\/p>\n<p>The \u00a356bn cost is equivalent to almost \u00a32,000 for each UK household. The bill is expected to rise by another \u00a32.6bn in the current tax year.<\/p>\n<p>More than 70,000 retired public sector workers received pensions of more than \u00a350,000 a year in 2025-26, with almost 4,000 receiving more than \u00a3100,000.<\/p>\n<p>Baroness Neville-Rolfe, a former minister, called the payouts \u201cunfunded and unsustainable\u201d, while analysts said taxes would have to rise <a class=\"ck-custom-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/money\/pensions\/state-pensions\/reforms-attack-on-public-sector-pensions-all-wrong\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">unless the payouts were reformed<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Public sector pensions were previously based on a worker\u2019s final salary, but are now calculated using their average wage. Payouts are guaranteed for life and rise with inflation every year.<\/p>\n<p>In 2011-12, the Government paid \u00a327.8bn to public sector retirees, most of whom spent their careers working in the NHS, as teachers, civil servants or members of the Armed Forces.<\/p>\n<p>However, the total bill reached \u00a355.6bn in 2025-26, according to Treasury figures published on Thursday \u2013 the equivalent of \u00a31,917 for each of Britain\u2019s 29 million households.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Retired public sector workers were handed a record \u00a356bn in gold-plated pension payments in 2025-26, figures show. Payouts&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[72,176,233928,61,60,214719,1087,202856,1558,174,175,233929,1611,1284,839,20526],"class_list":["post-552837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-hm-treasury","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-live-priority","tag-money","tag-nhs-national-health-service","tag-pensions","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-private-pensions","tag-retirement","tag-standard","tag-teachers","tag-uk-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}