I have spent most of my professional life involved in pension-fund management. At one time, I was the National Association of Pension Funds representative for the biggest pension-fund manager in Europe.

Pensions are complex; much actuarial witchcraft is involved. Most people do not understand them, or, indeed, take any interest in them until they come within sight of retirement.

It is difficult to explain the perils of public-sector pensions without over-simplifying. Excuse me if I stray from a balance. In 1997, Gordon Brown appeared on the Today programme explaining to Sue MacGregor how the removal of the tax credit on pension-fund dividends was "good for industry, and good for pensioners".

I listened to this astonishing nonsense, accepted, of course, as holy writ by the card-carrying members of New Labour in the BBC. The following Saturday, the Financial Times blithely reported that it "would not affect those people in final-salary schemes".

Bloom was on the telephone in no time, explaining to the author of the piece how the schemes worked. She clearly had no idea. At a stroke, the removal of this credit took £5bn per year out of private pension funds.

Most schemes are reviewed on a triennial basis; to suggest that this sort of money could be taken out of the funds and it not affect future pensions and those in payment, was one of the greatest scandals of post-war politics – deceit on a scale unknown even by the scoundrels of modern day politics. It was the beginning of the end for private final-salary schemes.

Public-sector final-salary schemes have remained sacrosanct. They are funded by you, the taxpayer. The stock market valuations matter not to Gordon Brown. He will retire on a pension most of us can only dream of.

The public sector has exploded under New Labour, though, to be frank, it was not much better under the Conservatives.

One of the great post-war myths that has been allowed to grow over the years is that public-sector employees have always been paid very modestly for the work they do and that the gold-plated pension was some reasonable recompense. Yet senior council officials, teachers and policemen now earn very competitive salaries indeed. They are, outside the City of London, among the highest-paid members of society.

The proportion of public-sector workers is higher than ever before, higher even than when the world map was coloured red from East to West. We are a nation of health and safety inspectors; the current cost is heavy enough to bear, but Mr Jobsworth has to be paid indexed-linked income for an average of 20 years after he finishes. Where on earth is the money expected to come from?

Current pension liabilities, not including future service in the public sector, are £3,762bn. Even if we could magically wave away inflation, the debt would be £1,406bn. Under international accounting standards, it would be illegal for any corporation not to show this as a debt in the books. Government is not bound by this and, therefore, can keep the debt a secret.

It is a terrifying secret. A huge burden on your children and grandchildren. No effort at all is being made to deal with it. Every day that passes by, the debt ratchets up by millions of pounds.

Let me give just a few examples. Your council chief executive is on the usual bloated salary of £200,000 pa (what do they do, incidentally?). Just assuming that he or she worked for the council for 20 years and lives to 75, then that will cost your rate-paying children more than £2.5m in pension costs. Add all the Chief Constables, other council executives and their thousands of cohorts across the country – and, yes, we useless idiot politicians – and it is obvious the whole thing is out of control.

We need to stop public-sector pension accrual now, account honestly for the system and put all public-sector workers in the same position as private-sector workers. Existing obligations to date, of course, should be met. But time is running out.

As Churchill used to annotate on wartime briefing documents: "Action this day".