Quote: The main reason that the company couldn't afford the scheme in its original form was an increase in life expectancy, a fall in long term investment returns and higher long term inflation. It is unlikely that these will ever return to their previous levels so plan on more of the same or possibly another round of changes to the scheme after 15 years.
So we were led to believe... IMO...
1. Yes there was an increase in life expectancy but it was not as large as we were led to believe and I do not think that enough options were investigated to fix this (the only) problem.
2. The fall in long term investment returns is to be expected in a market - this was not a problem - all markets have ups and downs in investment returns.
3. Higher long term inflation - this was not a problem - this figure is a 'snapshot' taken at the time of the last actuarial valuation - it is calculated from differences in values of long-term bonds (gilts). I recalculated the figure and found that it had decreased from 4.2% to 1.2% but, worryingly, could not find anyone in the TU that could verify my calculations were correct!