This is taken from Investment and Pensions Europe:

BBC to review contributions after valuation

IPE.com 13/Jul/05: UK – The BBC, the state-owned broadcaster, is to review employer and employee pension contributions once the results of an actuarial valuation of its £6bn (€8.7bn) scheme are known.

The defined benefit BBC Pension Scheme has a net deficit of £422m under the FRS17 accounting standard, down from £432m a year before – although the BBC says it remains overfunded on an actuarial basis.

“In 2003 it was agreed with the trustees that employer contributions will rise to 6% by 2006 with employee contributions rising to 6% by 2007,” the corporation said in its 2004/5 annual report.

“The position will be reviewed again in 2005/2006, once the results of the new actuarial valuation by Watson Wyatt are known.” The BBC added it “remains committed” to keeping its main DB scheme.

And it revealed that “a variety of arrangements” have been made for senior executives who had joined the corporation late in the careers and whose earnings exceed Inland Revenue limits.

These included funded and unfunded arrangements outside the BBC Pension Scheme, the report said.

Meanwhile, broadcasting union Bectu has expressed “shock” about BBC managers’ pay revealed in the report.

BBC director general Mark Thompson told staff he has decided to waive his bonus as a "personal decision".

But Bectu’s Gerry Morrissey said other managers were "feathering their own nests".

He said: “Staff are not going to accept job cuts, especially compulsory redundancies, easily while the bosses who planned them in the first place are giving themselves fat-cat bonuses."