From a brief look, the pension fund investments seem to be doing OK but there is still a huge deficit -around £400M - between the assets and liabilities (ie pensions which the council are legally obiged to pay) ://www.hounslow.gov.uk/pension_fund_annual_report_2014.pdf
This is not uncommon amongst pension schemes with 'defined benefits' because pensioners are living a lot longer than the schemes originally expected. If you add miserable interest rates and poor stock market performance, plus some technical issues to do with inflation that I don't really understand it means many schemes (including the private sector one to which I belong) are in serious deficit and are paying down the deficit over many years (in Hounslow's case this seems to be 17), with occasional lump sum contributions. |