More than 60 per cent of companies worried about pensions

Published on Monday 23 May 2005 13:21

MORE than six in ten organisations are concerned that their pension scheme arrangements are not up to scratch.

According to a new pay and benefits survey by Mercer Human Resource Consulting, 63 per cent of businesses have said their biggest concern is to make sure their pension fund investment arrangements are cost-effective and operationally efficient.

Preparing for new pension tax limits next year, pension fund asset-allocation strategy and pension risk and governance were all voted very important by more than half of respondents, according to Mercer, which has operations in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Peter Bowers, worldwide partner at Mercer, said that pension scheme liabilities have come under intense scrutiny from finance directors over the last couple of years. "Because of this, we have seen a shift in focus," he said. "Pensions have moved from the HR agenda to become a finance issue, and this is reflected in the survey responses."

The need to develop efficient measures to link employee pay to performance was also identified as a crucial issue, while the desire to communicate the value of total rewards to employees was ranked very important by half of organisations.

The most salient issues for finance directors were maximising the cost and efficiency of pension fund investment and setting and adapting pension fund asset-allocation strategy. Managing pension debt and supervising closed defined benefit schemes were also deemed important.