United Kingdom

UK - Final salary public sector pensions should be phased out in favour of cheaper career average schemes by 2015, Lord Hutton said.

US pension funds have been sorely behind their UK counterparts in terms of addressing funding risk, but it looks like the flurry of activity from across the pond is starting to rub-off.

GLOBAL/UK - Fidelity International has appointed Chris McNickle as global head of institutional.

UK - Public sector discount rates should be tied to UK economic growth to reflect future tax revenues needed to fund the scheme, the Pensions Policy Institute says.

UK - Members could end up cross-subsidising those with high pay rises as a result of the "scheme pays" annual allowance option.

UK - PwC has launched a bulk de-risking solution for employers sponsoring defined benefit schemes.

UK - A dispute over whether defined benefit schemes should have to pay VAT on investment management services has been referred to the European Court of Justice.

UK - F&C is considering whether to launch a fiduciary management service in the UK.

UK - The Pension Protection Fund has appointed a further nine asset managers to provide credit investments for the fund.

UK - Benign markets and the shift from RPI to CPI reduced defined benefit deficits from £144bn ($234bn) to £64bn over the past year, Pension Capital Strategies research shows.