Taxpayers face £2trn unfunded pensions liability - papers

In a document released on its website only a few hours before the Chancellor's Pre-Budget Report, the Office for National Statistics laid out the definitive cost taxpayers will have to bear for both the state old age pension and public sector pensions.

The total public sector pension's bill is now £810bn, a figure confirmed later in the day in the Pre-Budget Report. The majority of the state employees are on generous final salary schemes unattainable elsewhere in the UK reports The Telegraph. See story...

A litany of organisational failures compounded by outdated systems means that HM Revenue & Customs will fail to collect £11.2bn in taxes according to The Times.

A report from the Commons Public Accounts Committee, that will be published today, shows that 40% of £27.7bn of the tax that was uncollected by March 31 is unlikely ever to reach the public purse. That figure was 23% only three years ago. See story...

Women are being forced to delay their retirement to later than ever before, according to official figures revealed today reports The Daily Mail.

The average woman is having to keep working for an extra 20 months compared to the mid-Eighties. Average female retirement age is now 62 years and four months, compared to 60 years and eight months in 1984. See story...

Markets in Dubai continued to slide this morning, despite government efforts late last night to inject some good news into the market by scrapping a proposed merger of four state-owned real estate groups, according to The Times.

The Dubai Financial Market fell 4.49% in early trading at the end of a dismal week of collapsing prices on the Emirate's main index. See story...

Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy have put aside their differences to make a joint demand for a global tax on bankers' bonuses this year, reports The Guardian.

The pair have penned a comment piece, published in today's Wall Street Journal (WSJ), in which they call on other world leaders to impose tougher limits on remuneration in the financial sector. See story...