THE disclosure this month that four in ten town hall types, 25 per cent of teachers and more than a fifth of civil servants are retiring early on health grounds, compared to just six per cent from the armed forces, will no doubt convince taxpayers, funding their generous pensions to the tune of £1 billion a year, that they are being fleeced.

But while it is all well and good for the Treasury to launch an inquiry into these glaring differences, should there not be some crackdown on those sanctioning this systematic skive in the public sector at the expense of workers in private enterprise who have to soldier on to their real retirement date or, otherwise, suffer severe financial penalties? After all, these bankrolled "too sick to carry on" retirees - many of whom return to the public sector trough as "consultants" or, in the case of education, as supply teachers on at least £100 a day - have been accepted as no longer fit to work by their bosses.

Surely, any inquiry into this immense scandal ought to include questioning of these people and a requirement that they justify each and every early retirement they have agreed.

And if they cannot, then they and the recipients of the handsome terms that see so many of our golf courses cluttered up mid-week with the superannuated "sick" should be financially penalised and made to pay back their early pensions to the rest of us still working.

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