ANYONE who harboured any illusion that the States was committed to significant reform of the gold-plated and unaffordable public sector pension scheme had only to look at the weekend’s announcement seeking an independent chair of what’s being called a special review into the arrangements to learn the truth.

No terms of reference have been announced and the panel is loaded with people who have a direct vested interest in the scheme – three representing staff and three representing the States.

Whoever is ill-advised enough to volunteer for mission impossible – there is no desire to change things whatsoever – is merely supposed to ensure the group’s activities are focused and progressed in a timely fashion.

So no matter how feeble any attempts at ‘reform’ are, the independent chair simply has to ensure that what amounts to a stitch-up of the taxpayer doesn’t take too long.

What the review really means is – as this newspaper has maintained from day one – that the Public Sector Remuneration Committee hasn’t the backbone to do the job itself and is hiding behind the pretence of an independent review.

It is no such thing. The review of States members’ pay is. That has been delegated to an independent panel that will make recommendations as it sees fit. Yet PSRC has ducked going down such a transparent route, and one that taxpayers could have confidence in.

Why? Because it and the over-influential unions know that any truly independent review would close the scheme immediately to new entrants and cap the currently open-ended benefits to existing members.

The UK’s own commission on public sector pensions showed that 94% of civil and public servants are on gold-plated, taxpayer-funded schemes while just 11% in the private sector have equivalent schemes.

The reason is that they are unaffordable because all the risk associated with a defined benefit scheme rests with the taxpayer while the employee puts in a fraction of what’s required.

The ultimate insult for islanders is that they are left picking up the tab for benefits that they could not afford for themselves but are forced to give to the featherbedded few.