The National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) have reported an annual fall from 28% to 23% in the number of final salary pension schemes that are open to new members in the private sector. They have called on the government to take action that will help companies reduce the black hole in their pension funds. Joanne Segars who is the CEO at NAPF said that businesses were looking to the government to assist them in being able to sustain workplace pension contributions through measures such as creating more long-dated and index-linked gilts.
Final Salary pensions have been closing at a number of high profile companies in the past 18 months, but the fall in those paying into a FSP has slowed in the past 12 months. These include mobile phone company Vodafone, who closed their scheme to 4,000 workers recently. This follows similar decisions from Tate and Lyle as well as Trinity Mirror group, Dairy Crest, BP and Barclays. The deficit that has been building means that these companies can no longer afford to maintain their schemes, not least because of the aging population.
