The civil service union is urging Tynwald to reject calls to close the public sector pension schemes to new staff.

Treasury member Bill Shimmins has tabled an amendment to a motion on the legacy funding gap, due to be debated by politicians next week.

A Cabinet Office report has ruled out a series of options to tackle the spiralling funding gap - the shortfall between contribution income and benefit expenditure - which is expected to rise from the current £36.67m to £131.21m by 2059-60.

It claims closing the current schemes to new members will need an extra £2.3bn of funding over the next 50 years.

Instead, it recommends bringing in a voluntary defined contribution (DC) scheme for new staff.

But Mr Shimmins believes the current unfunded schemes should be closed to all new members who should automatically go onto the new DC scheme - insisting this is the ’fairest solution to all’.

However, Mick Hewer, negotiations officer for the Prospect union, warned it would wreck progress made on pension reform - and actually make the situation worse.

He said: ’If passed, this proposed amendment would wreck the significant progress that has been made in relation to public sector pension reform over the last number of years.

’Public sector workers have voted for a series of increases in member contributions and reductions in benefits in order to make their pension schemes fair and affordable.’

Mr Hewer said many Prospect members will have seen increases in member contributions of 8.75% of pay by the time the reforms are completed, while their benefits have also been significantly reduced.

Cost sharing arrangements to ensure the schemes remain sustainable in the future are also about to be agreed, he added.

Mr Hewer said: ’The motion to Tynwald next week is about dealing with the legacy funding gap that has arisen over many years.

’This are no easy solutions to this issue, but Tynwald must certainly not do anything to make it worse and that is exactly what closing these schemes to new entrants would do.

’This measure would immediately deprive Treasury of the member contributions of new entrants, money would also have to be found to make employer contributions to the new defined contribution schemes, the combined effect would greatly worsen the legacy funding gap for many decades.’