Those in the top management levels of public bodies, including quangos, often have non-typical remuneration packages which have been negotiated as a one-off.
Taking a boost to your pension instead of an annual bonus is a very canny approach: not only is it tax-efficient, but even a small increase to your annual pension is equivalent to a very large increase in the value of your pension pot.
A survey of national quangos for The Sunday Times revealed more than 100 civil servants to have amassed pensions worth more than £1m – that’s more than £100m of payouts for only a small handful of workers.
The £3bn annual ‘black hole’ in public sector pensions is fast becoming a major issue (see my previous briefing on Lord Hutton’s pension review), and this figure has been forecast to rise to £7bn by 2015/16.
Full text of this article is on the Sunday Times website here, or read on.
