Chancellor Alistair Darling slipped another gem in to his pre-budget report which will further hasten the demise of already beleaguered final salary pension schemes as reported in Times Online. How is any lay person expected to keep up with all this? The level of complexity which needs to be understood is just mind boggling. Having just returned from a trustee meeting covering revisions to actuarial assumptions, trivial commutations and anti-forestalling it was all I could do to keep the attendees from throwing themselves out of a 3rd floor window – and for once I don’t think that was down to my presentational style!! You’ve got to think that high earning directors who have effectively been persuaded to keep their schemes running to ensure their own benefits will shortly have absolutely no reason to do so.
