Anthony Hilton: Worrying division over pension schemes' future

I attended an interesting pensions meeting on Tuesday evening – though I am sure many of you will think that is an oxymoron – but it was thoroughly depressing. Most big companies have already, or will shortly, close their final salary pension scheme, and the discussion was about what they could put in its place.

This was where the meeting split – the big quoted companies talked about "trying to do the right thing" – by which they meant being relatively generous in the way they match the contributions of employees into private pensions. But to the others in the room it was all about cost and how they could minimise the number of people in the scheme and for whom they had to pay contributions.

a.hilton@independent.co.uk