Almost two-thirds of the UK's top pension funds have closed their final salary pension schemes to new members, a survey has revealed.

Although 99 per cent of the UK's top 350 pension funds offer a final salary scheme, 61 per cent are now closed to new staff, double the 30 per cent which were closed in 2002, according to JP Morgan Fleming.

The group found the trend to move away from final salary to less generous defined-contribution schemes remained strong, with 60 per cent of top schemes now offering a defined-contribution scheme.

However, 79 per cent of the 31 companies which still offered only a final salary scheme said they had no plans to introduce a defined-contribution one in the future.

But only 11 per cent of the 350 top final salary schemes said proposed legislation to simplify pension taxation and administration would encourage them to retain their final salary schemes.

Unlike final salary schemes which guarantee how much someone's pension will be worth on retirement, under defined-contribution ones companies only guarantee how much they will pay into a scheme and not what it will be worth, leaving individuals to shoulder the risk of stock market falls.

Around 40 per cent of final salary schemes said they had made significant changes to where they invested their funds during the past year, with 80 per cent reducing the amount of money they held in shares and the same proportion increasing their holdings in bonds.

The main reason given for the switch was the need to match their assets to their liabilities more closely.

Six out of ten final salary schemes had increased the amount employers paid into the fund while 27 per cent had raised employees' contributions. The research was based on responses to a survey of 155 companies.

Wednesday May 12, 2004