KMPG's £60m pensions 'black hole'

ACCOUNTANCY firm KPMG has a multimillion pound hole in its pension fund. The firm has so far refused to plug the £60m gap, leaving members facing benefit cuts of up to 20%.

The £300m fund caters for ordinary workers, not highly-paid partners.

News of the problems at KPMG came as pension fund actuaries said they were planning to provide new figures giving a snapshot picture of how employees would fare if their schemes were wound up. The new 'discontinuance valuation' will show the financial position of a pension fund if the employer goes bust, or pulls the plug on its scheme.

Peter Tomkins of the Institute of Actuaries said: 'We want to provide these figures so that employees and trade unions can exert moral pressure on companies to keep their pensions promises.' Pensions experts said around half of all company schemes were showing deficits under new accounting rules. Electronics chain Dixons is the latest. Its fund has a deficit of £53.3m.

Separately, the Financial Services Authority said 1.7m consumers will receive £11.8bn compensation for pensions mis-selling.