USS pension costs tip universities into multibillion-pound losses

"Don't panic and reinstate our benefits " given that the pension is now in surplus.

The pension issue has been known for a very long time now. Universities have to pick up the tab from the extensive employer contribution holidays they awarded themselves at the end of the 90's and into the noughties. They took a massive benefit then and must stump up the consequences. Employees who signed up with decades of service also signed up to final salary schemes with c6% contribution rates. Saying that is unsustainable and penalising long serving employees is plainly a legacy of broken promises (and employment contracts). Add into that a decade of reduced real terms pay and HE employers have a lot to answer for. Employers have also failed to ensure that the pension fund managers have performed adequately. Aging working populations are easily forecastable and reckless portfolios (previously heavily linked to stockmarket investments) were a literal house of cards. The pension fund managers seem to happily take their commission but seem pretty detached from the consequences of dire performance. Yet, employers are now complaining about the burden of fulfilling even the broken promises, largely caused by their indifference and mismanagement of the employee benefits they promoted to recruit their longer serving staff.

USS needs to get its house in order. A mythical shortfall created by flawed calculations is at the root of a lot of the unrest between unions and universities as degradations of pension provision were foisted on academics against their will based on this. Instead of squabbling, UCU and UUK should be uniting in holding USS to account. Their management of our pensions has been woefully inadequate.

Yes, agree with this. The dispute between staff and employers has obscured the extent of USS's mismanagement of the fund, the flawed valuation in the middle of Covid being a case in point.