Defined Benefit

The College of Law Pension and Assurance Scheme has completed its fourth buy-in for £28m worth of liabilities with Aviva, as it moves closer to full buyout.

The combined accounting surplus of Royal Mail's two defined benefit (DB) pension plans grew by 12% in the year to 26 March 2017, the company's annual report has revealed.

Tata Steel has agreed the "key commercial terms" of a regulated apportionment arrangement with the British Steel Pension Scheme (BSPS) in a deal that could be worth in excess of £550m.

The funding gap of the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) has improved by £9.2bn since 2013 but last year's difficult market conditions reduced returns to just 0.1%.

The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has warned sponsors against prioritising dividend payments over contributions where there is a significant scheme deficit.

Schemes should stop debating whether to use the Retail Prices Index (RPI) or the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) and move to an entirely new measure, the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) has said.

The industry is at risk of being side-tracked by short-term funding data and high-profile defined benefit (DB) failures, the Pension Protection Fund's (PPF) chief executive has warned.

Almost a third (30%) of pension professionals support employers having more power to renegotiate benefits or reduce accrued rights, research from the Pensions Management Institute (PMI) has shown.

The combined deficit of the UK's defined benefit (DB) schemes grew by 30% over the last 12 months, according to the Pension Protection Fund (PPF).

Deficits could fall by hundreds of billions of pounds if the six-year stall in life expectancy improvements becomes a long-term trend. However, there is a risk of taking too much notice of short-term changes, writes Stephanie Baxter.