The Findel Group Pension Fund has appointed Barnett Waddingham to provide actuarial, investment and administration services.

The amount employers are paying into schemes hit record levels last year as defined benefit deficits continued to warrant cash injections, research from Towers Watson shows.

Pensions minister Steve Webb has said the abolition of contracting out, brought forward to 2016, does not mean defined ambition proposals must be finished earlier.

Complex scheme structures do not cause higher administration costs, research from CEM Benchmarking shows.

The Government is to consult on offering an individual protection regime for when then annual allowance is cut to £1.25m in 2014.

Chancellor George Osborne has announced the increase in the personal tax allowance to £10,000 will be brought forward to 2014.

Mercer has merged its defined contribution and workplace savings offering into a new DC group, which is to be led by Brian Henderson.

Liability assumptions have wiped out higher than expected asset returns and a de-risking exercise for the Johnston Press Pension Plan, its final year accounts show.

Taha Lokhandwala examines the potential impact of the government’s review of pre-pack administrations

Supermarket giant Morrisons has seen its two defined benefit schemes swing from surplus into deficit after lower returns on assets, its final results show.