New figures from the TaxPayers’ Alliance have revealed that £1 in every £5 of council tax is being spent on council pensions with 4,548 councillors currently members of the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS), an increase of over 1,000 since 2007-08.

In addition, statistics show that in London there are 589 councillors on the LGPS, the highest number across all UK regions. Birmingham spent the most on employer pension contributions in 2010-11 with a total of over £112 million up from £110 million in 2009-10.

The English councils with the highest number of councillors enrolled in the LGPS are Leeds City Council and Dorset County Council.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance director Matthew Sinclair said: “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. These gold-plated 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“These figures show the urgent need to reform the outdated Local Government Pension Scheme and to tackle the growing trend of councillors joining.”

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