NOT before time, the government moves to curb the scandal of the droves of public sector staff retiring early on dubious ill-health grounds to draw fat pensions while those working for private firms and funding this arrant abuse to the tune of £1 billion a year in taxes have to slog on to the end of their often less-well-paid jobs.

Officially, what is taking place is a full-scale Treasury inquiry into why so many teachers, police, civil servants and town hall employees leave their jobs prematurely and why, even within the public sector, amazing variations occur - so that, for instance, white-collar workers like teachers or Civil Service clerks are four times more likely to retire early on medical grounds than servicemen.

There are, no doubt, obvious reasons why public sector workers with dangerous and physically-demanding jobs, such as firefighters, are leaving early at even higher rates because of sickness or incapacity - though the distinct variations between different police forces in the level of officers getting medical pensions does not fully comply with this rationale. But it is evident that, elsewhere, in the public sector an early-retirement culture enabled by spurious medical claims has become endemic. The existing figures show it; the contrast with the private sector shows it and the fact that the average public employee takes 25 per cent more time off sick than other workers also points to a less strict regime going with the job.

But cosy as this may be for its beneficiaries - and scandalous as it may be that this is overseen by the management structure and ultimately agreed by our public representatives - it nevertheless amounts to a systematic fleecing of the taxpayer and a reduction in resources for all kinds of vital services, from hospitals to schools.

And ever since the questionable factor of workplace stress - a spurious condition that has become a boom industry for counsellors, therapists and lawyers acting for compensation seekers - has been added to the equation all this has escalated to the extent that 25,000 public sector employees a year are retiring early on medical grounds at a cost of more than £35,000 each to the taxpayer.

Of course, many are genuine cases, but, unless an unknown pestilence afflicting only public employees exists, what far too many are getting is a ticket to parasitic middle-age leisure on the strength of a nod and a wink - when strict independent and perhaps even retrospective assessment of this deluge of dubious ill-health claims is long overdue.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.