There's a bit of mixing up between the first and second round of benchmarking.
The first round of benchmarking which was effectively a free for all did not consider pensions, or pretty much anything else such as job security. This was the round for which the economist Jim O'Leary quit the benchmarking body due presumably due it being a farce and for which they destroyed all the documents explaining the salary increases afterwards. (History will be unkind to this and the people involved)
The second round did consider pensions but even then only in an advantageous way for the public sector, i.e they only compared to private sector workers getting a pension and even then only to the more generous of the private sector schemes.
The first round of benchmarking which was effectively a free for all did not consider pensions, or pretty much anything else such as job security. This was the round for which the economist Jim O'Leary quit the benchmarking body due presumably due it being a farce and for which they destroyed all the documents explaining the salary increases afterwards. (History will be unkind to this and the people involved)
The second round did consider pensions but even then only in an advantageous way for the public sector, i.e they only compared to private sector workers getting a pension and even then only to the more generous of the private sector schemes.