Shared Responsibility
Turin - The proposal to share the risk of increased life expectancy was dropped. So we have been saved from this risk of shared responsibility. It is worth noting this also means we won't get a reduction in payments if the prospects for the scheme ever improve in the future. A case of no risk no gain to us, but I think we've got the better end of the deal on this.
If the stock market goes against us and the deficit gets bigger, I'm sure we will be reminded of shared responsibility.
Apparently the pensions regulator would have imposed a settlement at the end of March if the trustees hadn't reached an agreement. If that was the case, the regulator's first duty is to people currently drawing a pension, so we could have been worse off. Unfortunately we will never know how good or bad it would have been, so we cannot make a clear judgement if we would have been better or worse off.
CB