Scheme funding levels improve by 22% in April

The lifeboat fund said total assets minus total liabilities of the defined benefit schemes included in its PPF7800 index have improved to a deficit of £188.5bn at the end of April 2009, from a deficit of £242bn at the end of March 2009.

It said this compares to a surplus of £27.1bn at the end of April last year.

The PPF estimated the total deficit of schemes in deficit in April 2009 was £204.8bn. At the end of March, it was £253.1bn. In April 2008, the aggregate deficit of all schemes in deficit stood at £55.9bn.

In April 2009, the PPF said the total surpluses of schemes in surplus rose to £16.4bn from £11.1bn at the end of March 2009. In April 2008, the total surplus of all schemes in surplus stood at £83bn.

According to the PPF, there was a 4% increase in assets due to rising UK and global equities in April. Meanwhile, higher gilt yields in general led to a fall in liabilities of 3.2%.

The PPF also said it had updated its PPF7800 index - which was now based on more up to date scheme data than used in earlier estimates.

It said the impact of the new scheme data is to improve funding by about £15bn compared with estimates based on the earlier data set.

The PPF said the new data set covers around 7,400 schemes somewhat lower than almost 7800 in the earlier updates.