Pensions - Articles - Pension deficits climb to GBP 40bn in November

 PwC’s Skyval Index, based on the Skyval platform used by pension funds, provides an aggregate health check of the UK’s c.5,800 DB pension funds. The current Skyval Index figures, based on the 'gilts plus' method widely used by scheme actuaries, are:

 Steven Dicker, PwC’s chief actuary, said: "Despite the increase in short-term interest rates by the Bank of England, long-term real interest rates, which are the main driver of the pension deficit number, moved slightly in the opposite direction. This resulted in a £60bn increase to liabilities over the month with assets growing modestly at £20bn, resulting in a net £40m increase in deficit.

 "The economic drivers of long-term interest rates are complex and they are further impacted by supply and demand factors including quantitative easing, which leads to month to month swings in the deficit calculation using the ‘gilts plus’ approach."