A number of States members attended a Waitrose reception this week ahead of the supermarket’s very successful opening on Thursday and were very taken to hear details of the company’s pension arrangements.

Staff benefit from a final salary scheme – similarly to the gold-plated version available to public sector employees here – but with one important difference. It’s free. No contributions are required from staff. The company funds it all.

‘There we are’, the deputies’ expressions revealed, ‘the States of Guernsey one isn’t so out of step after all’. And the subtext was, ‘…so we don’t have to do anything to it after all…’

There is, however, one fundamental difference. What Waitrose, part of the John Lewis Partnership, does with its money is its own affair. It is owned by its 76,500 partners – the staff – and they can choose to remunerate themselves as they see fit.

But if they want to remain competitive and stay in business, they have to temper that freedom with restraint.

Where that, too, differs from the public sector is that there is no such restraint. Because the guaranteed benefits offered to public sector employees are completely open-ended, the local taxpayer has to keep a blank cheque available at all times to top up the scheme because it is simply unaffordable.

At the end of 2009, the States superannuation fund had a deficit of £302m. – a third of a billion – representing a potential liability to each taxpayer of £7,000. That really is the 6,000 States employees’ tails wagging the 42,000 taxpayer dogs.

What government accounts also show for the same year is that not only does the public sector reward itself with pensions no one else can afford, it also pays itself above the island average.

There is no validity any more in the claim that the pension is to reward underpaid civil servants, with even their representatives acknowledging that they receive market-competitive salaries.

The case for reform of this drain on islanders is compelling and long-standing, as the Hutton review has made plain.

Equally clear, however, is that the States – both elected and employed – are resisting fiercely for their own ends.