The government has released the latest figures on how much money has been paid out through its public sector pensions scheme.

As of March 31, 7,826 people were receiving government pensions, with a total of £113.6 million paid out in the past financial year.

This outstrips the government’s income during that year, which amounted to £75.7 million in contributions.

In 2016 by comparison, the sum of public sector pensions was £91.1 million.

In September of last year, the total public sector pension liability reached a record £4.8 billion – in 2013, this figure stood at £2.1bn

Advocate Ian Kermode, whose Freedom of Information request revealed these figures, commented: ‘Of course, it is accepted that the recipients are legally entitled to such pension payments.

‘However, the glaring ethical issue is the continued inequity of taxes paid by those not employed by government to in effect be partly subsidising the occupational pensions of public sector workers?

‘The shameful failure of successive Manx administrations to properly deal with the Public Sector Pension legacy means continual unfairness and over £30 million per annum being diverted away and haemorrhaging from other worthy and justifiable public spending/projects.

‘How many of the island’s crumbling roads could be repaired or dilapidated school buildings replaced using £30 million per year?’

He continued: ‘The obvious suspicion being that the lack of candour and ongoing failure to satisfactorily address this black hole in public finances is due to the vested interests of a self-serving political class.

‘Whilst new entrants to Public Sector Occupational Pension Schemes may now be making appropriate monthly pension contributions from their salary, many already retired civil servants did not make sufficient contributions to properly and sustainably fund their pensions.

‘The recent spate of hasty retirements by a number of departmental chief executives will no doubt only aggravate this running sore.’

Mr Kermode stressed that the issue of PSOPs was ‘of course entirely separate’ to that of Universal State Retirement pensions.

The figure of 7,826 pensioners in 2021/22 included: 6,298 under the government unified scheme, 10 under the judicial scheme, 293 police pensions, 1,174 teacher pensions and 51 manual worker pensions.