Publication: Bye now, pay later - The management of early retirement in local government

Early retirement of council employees has become the norm, not the exception. This study of the Local Government Pension Scheme in Scotland has found that during local government reorganisation, 6,000 more staff than usual took early retirement; the cost of these extra retirements is about £190 million, which will be spread over several years to come and will reduce the savings councils expected to make from cutting the number of staff.

The Commission will be following up this report with local audits of most councils in Scotland, encouraging them to adopt the practices of the councils that have good procedures for controlling the level of early retirements.