Fact The current pension scheme cannot be 'interfered with' by NATS, only a change in the law will allow it.
Fact Staff in the current pension schemes rights and benefits are protected by law.
What appears to be the concerns are that this scheme will close to new employees and a new scheme started up for them and/or that current staff will be 'encouraged' to leave CAAPS.
My personal opinion is that I would need a huge amount of 'encouragement' to leave the Gold Plated Rolls Royce scheme which is CAAPS.
As to closing it to new staff, well its obvious to me from everything I've read that there are very very very few companies (except for MP's) offering the Roller that CAAPS is to new staff because pensions are vastly expensive. NATS as a company will be forced by the regulator to do something about the huge cost of its contributions to the pension scheme. By forced I mean that charges will be capped and/or reduced so that income is less and less income means that something somewhere has to be cut back because NATS does not have a huge pot of gold to dip into, it runs on revenue.
So something has to be done now because of the lead time for it to have an effect. Why not close the scheme to new recruits I ask myself? Some people say we have a responsibility to new recruits, well do we? Are we their parents? They would be joining this company with their eyes open fully aware of the Terms & Conditions of employment, including pensions. Its their choice not ours to attempt to make for them!
NATS would be foolish to attempt to introduce a replacement scheme which does not compete with other companies because they could not attract staff.
Just to reiterate - Current members of CAAPS are absolutely protected by law, their terms and conditions and benefits are protected by law, NATS cannot do a Maxwell. The discussion (IMHO) centres on whether the existing scheme closes to new entrants and what decision current members want to make on behalf of future employees, whether or not those future employees want current NATS staff to make decisions for them!
BD