Leadership is needed for the future of DB

This includes the employers who sponsor such schemes and – critically – the millions of Britons who benefit from them.

DB schemes have suffered from the impact of a number of pressures over the years – whether economic, regulatory or demographic – which have combined to undermine employers’ ability and willingness to sustain them, and members’ trust in them to deliver the benefits they promise.

Since its inception in 2006, the Pension Protection Fund has taken between 800 and 850 schemes, of which more than 600 have been since the start of 2011 – many of them a symptom of financial and other pressures since 2008.

Despite the headlines, throughout the DB sector there remains a commitment to ensuring members benefits are paid when they fall due.

Maintaining open and closed DB schemes in an effective and sustainable way – which supports economic growth through investment, enables employers to manage costs and continues to provide members with a secure and valued retirement income – is a key concern.

The recent publication of a call for evidence by the Pensions and Lifetime Savings DB Taskforce is a timely and welcome development, which reflects our determination as an industry to address these challenges.

The key, as the taskforce’s chair Ashok Gupta has said, is to achieve greater clarity over the precise nature of the challenges faced by the industry, and on the back of that analysis to formulate a coherent and sustainable response.

With more than 16 million people in the UK relying to varying degrees on DB schemes to support them in retirement, this is a hugely significant exercise and I hope it yields some important points and potential ideas for the future.

For example, Universities Superannuation Scheme’s salary threshold plans, whereby £55k a year goes to its DB section and anything above that goes into defined contribution, is a good illustration of a different kind of thinking. While this may not be for everyone, what is important is the thought leadership behind it.

The will is unquestionably there. The task facing us now is to accurately identify the challenges, and in response devise and implement effective strategies to ensure sustainable DB pensions for all the beneficiaries.

Susan Martin is chief executive at the Local Pensions Partnership