IN last week's Review (February 13, 2009) Mike Meredith-Edwards quite rightly raises the issue of council pensions, a subject that I have also raised on several occasions in letters to this paper, to district councillors, and even to our MP, Mark Harper.

Public sector costs are soaring, both at a state level, and local level, yet it is a subject that arouses very little response from the taxpaying electorate. Why is this so?

25 per cent of council tax is forced onto the taxpayer specifically to cover the increasing expenditure required for the council workers' pension funds. Surely this amount is big enough to get everyone distressed?

Now here's the bad news, sucker taxpayers, the cost of covering public sector pension funds, with a current "pot" value of £1,300 billion (does that worry everyone?) is projected to grow by 40 per cent between now and 2028. Attempting to hide this bill, Mr Brown and Whitehall are increasingly funding pension costs from council tax, which is also paid by retirees, millions of whom are struggling on denuded private sector pensions, and state pensions trailing behind actual living cost increases.

Listen, everyone, your council taxes are going up, regardless of what you think should take place, and by the biggest single element of your tax bill, pension fund support. Forget about cost of living increases, the public sector pension bills are out of control, and action is desperately needed now to correct this situation, if you want to keep your houses and your businesses.

I have just completed the on-line survey for our council in Coleford, and nowhere did I see any reference to reductions in our council tax commitments for the council employee's pension costs.

Marion Winship needs to be seriously addressing this specific item in her review relative to the (planned) increases in our council taxes.

Councils in the past, particularly under Labour, have encountered no difficulty in achieving a steady trickle of increased staff and payroll costs, so it should be just as easy to reverse the flow to decrease the headcount and payroll costs. Previous increases of headcount have not necessarily been related to increases in services, so one would think it should be a simple matter to reduce the human activity in Coleford without having a major impact on essential services.

So far, the current review process seems to be unable to improve efficiency, reduce silly paperwork and human activity, without having to slice off complete sections or departments. Experts in the business world know that paperwork and bureaucracy has grown out of control in the public sector, even Brown's own reviews last year proved this was so and identified billions of pounds worth of prospective cuts.

Come on, Marion, get your knife sharpened, and let us see a real effort to improve the efficiency in Coleford, and reduce our council taxes.

As a postscript, I nearly fell on the floor in apoplexy this week, when I heard that the Chief of Police in our county stated that he will have to reduce "bobbies on the beat" because council taxpayers won't cough up another £1 to cover his costs. I have always been sympathetic towards the police, they have had a lousy deal from the Labour government over this past decade or so. But surely the council taxpayer didn't create his problems. Surely they stem from Whitehall?

My advice to the Chief of Police would be to read the above about our councils, and take action to cut out the very silly paperwork and practices the poor "bobby on the beat" has to put up with, instead of protecting us poorer taxpayers. I have talked to police officers across the country, and am always amazed at the stupid hoops they have to jump through to keep useless politicians like Jacqui Smith (and county councillors) happy.

Come on, taxpayers, let us take action to ensure that the politicians know that we have had enough, and are running out of money. – Ralph Perry, Lyd­ney.