THE pensions bill for Britain’s council workers will leap to £3.75 billion this year as councils struggle to plug a £30 billion black hole in the local authority pension fund, The Times has learnt.

The cost of the increase will fall almost entirely on householders, whose council tax bills will have to rise to cover the extra £246 million that councils must find.

News of the soaring cost of Britain’s public-sector pension bill has been sent to John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, by local government officials, but is yet to be made public.

If the entire cost of paying for council workers, including environmental health officers, social workers, park wardens and some fire officers, is passed on to council taxpayers, annual council tax bills could increase by 1.5 per cent just to cover the cost of local authority pensions alone.

Opposition politicians said last night that the amount of tax needed to fund the local authority pension deficit would continue to soar as long as the Government avoided vital reforms.

David Willetts, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, said: “Labour has presided over an absolutely preposterous situation in which people with modest incomes and no pensions are paying ever-higher council tax to provide good pensions for other people. The Government claimed that it was starting to tackle the problem but gave up as soon as it faced union opposition.”

Steve Webb, the Lib Dem pensions spokesman, said: “Local authority pensions have been one of the major drivers of the above-inflation increases in council tax we’ve had in recent years.” Last month councils in England and Wales revealed a combined pension fund deficit of £30 billion, up £6.3 billion from 2001.

Authorities contribute on average 19 per cent of employees’ wages to the pension scheme, although some pay in as much as 22.5 per cent. Even with these increased contributions, and assuming that the situation does not worsen, it will take them 21 years on average to make up their pension deficits.

In March Mr Prescott backed down on plans to raise the minimum retirement age for local authority workers from 50 to 55, after strike threats by five unions.

If Labour returns to power after the election, talks between the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office, councils and unions over pensions will begin within weeks.

Last year council tax payers contributed £17.5 billion to local authority coffers. About 20 per cent of that money, £3.5 billion, will have gone towards pensions liabilities. Sources said that every £160 million rise in the pensions bill was roughly equivalent to a 1 per cent increase in council tax.

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Local Government Association were unable to comment yesterday.