---

Occupational Pensions

We will continue to keep the scheme under review, as is right, and if other sources were to make further contributions to it, that would be welcome. However, the key point is whether the assistance that has been given is proportionate. We need to ask ourselves what principle the ombudsman works to when making recommendations about recompense, and she actually gives the answer in her report:"““it is my usual practice to seek to put individuals back into the position they would have been in had that maladministration not occurred.””" The truth is that, if that were the situation, those individuals would have been put back into a situation in which funds were underfunded—significantly, in most cases—and in which their employers were about to become insolvent. There is very little that people could have done to rectify the situation in which they found themselves.