Pension figures spark concerns

Concerns over the pension savings crisis have been raised after official figures showed that employee membership of private sector defined benefit (DB) or final salary pension schemes has plummeted from more than a third 15 years ago to just 9%.

DB schemes promise to pay out a certain sum each year when people retire and tend to be based on the number of years they were in the scheme and their salary on retirement (final salary) or the career average wage while the worker was in the scheme.