So what is the pension for a 4*, who by definition will retire having probably served for 40 odd years....... £67,000 perhaps?
Considering that it was recently announced that a number of military officers earn more than the Prime Minister, i.e. over £150,000ish, I suppose it is not surprising that some are getting over £67,000 as a pension. No doubt there are still some ex-5*s in that figure of 70 as well.....
I'm not surprised that the number of people drawing military pensions has gone up by 63,000 odd in the last ten years. The RAF shrunk by about 10,000 in that time, the RN by about 5,000 (I think), I'm not sure about the Army. It was also a period (at least before the credit crunch) where retention was a major issue and a large number of people left.
As for an average pension of £7,722, that means that by definition a very large proportion, probably more than half given the skewing effect of some pensions at £67,000 (e.g. what is the average of 1,2, 3, 4 and 100?), are lower than £7,700. I don't consider a pension of sub £7,000 to be a particularly excessive reward for a military career.