The vast majority of public sector workers still pay into taxpayer-funded “gold-plated” pensions which have nearly vanished in the private sector, figures show. Some 81.9pc of workers employed by the state enjoy lucrative “defined benefit” schemes that pay a proportion of their salary in retirement – often inflation-linked for the rest of their life. By contrast, just 7pc of private sector employees receive this benefit, Telegraph analysis of Office of National Statistics data shows. This is despite the public sector pensions bill now standing at more than £2.6 trillion – larger than the size of the UK economy. Yet defined benefit schemes are close to extinction in the private sector as they have become too expensive for employers to maintain. Instead, most private sector workers and employers pay pension contributions each month into “defined contribution” schemes, with the size of retirement pots dependent on how well investments perform. The proportion of private sector employees paying into a defined benefit scheme fell from 8.8pc in 2016 to 7pc in 2021, the latest year for which data is available. In the public sector, the figure has stayed roughly the same during that period, at over 80pc. It comes after Lord O’Donnell, the...