Written question asked by Mark Hoban (Conservative) on Monday, 6 March 2006, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 9 March 2006. It was answered by Lord Browne of Ladyton (Labour) on Thursday, 9 March 2006 on behalf of the Treasury.

Public Service Pensions

Question: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on (a) the cause of the Prior Year Adjustment made in the 2004–05 accounts of the unfunded occupational public service pension schemes and (b) the impact of the adjustment upon the cash cost of these schemes.

Answer: The Note deposited in the Library on 2 March showed that one component of the increase in liabilities reported in accounts of unfunded public service pension schemes as of 31 March 2005 was the impact of prior year adjustments amounting to approximately £6 billion in total across all the accounts of all the schemes. This is the total effect of incorporating new data on membership and entitlements which, had it been available earlier, would have led to the liabilities being reported as higher by this amount in previous estimates. The new data and the new total liability calculated from it does not have a material effect on the projections of cash payments to be made by these schemes as a proportion of GDP in future, as shown in the latest Long Term Public Finance Report published in December 2005.

Secondary information