Pensions (Hansard, 15 May 2002)

§ Mr. Flight

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many final salary schemes have closed in each year since May 1997; how many people have been

	1997–98	1998–99	1999–2000	2000–01	2001–02
Schemes closed	542	113	116	157	103
schemes frozen	1,095	49	57	98	37
Schemes starting to wind up	11	19	632	306	228
Schemes completed winding up	800	917	681	576	278
Total schemes closed, frozen, starting to wind up or completed winding up	2,448	1,098	1,486	1,137	646

Notes:

1. The information is based on data held by the Pension Schemes Registry (PSR). It relates to final salary schemes only. There is a large minority of schemes on the Register where the scheme type is unknown, there are also some schemes offering a mixture of salary related and money purchase benefits. None of these schemes are included in the table.

2. Closed schemes do not admit new active members, but allow existing members to continue to accrue benefits. Frozen schemes do not allow any future accruals. Schemes starting to wind up are also frozen. Schemes that have completed wind up have no members—all assets are realised and all liabilities are discharged.

3. The information relates to schemes, not employers. Some employers operate several schemes. Closure of a scheme may be due to a bulk transfer of members to another scheme.

4. The PSR system holds information on the most recent change in scheme status and the effective date of the change. Because of the way the data is held a later change will overwrite an earlier change, so data for earlier years become increasingly inaccurate. Trustees are required to report changes within 12 months so there is likely to be a lag before the data reflects what is happening currently.