36. The TMC considered the briefing from the Trust Secretary together with various slides prepared by the Principal Employer. According to the slides, the proposed changes would have no impact on retired and deferred members, the LPI increases represented an improvement to members' benefits, and C members would also have the option to transfer to the M Plan should they so wish. Other slides set out the Principal Employer's business case for the changes. They showed, among other things:

•                        that short term money-purchase pension costs could be met from the existing surplus

• the long term cost of providing C Plan benefits was 14.5% of pensionable salaries including LPI whereas the cost of providing M Plan benefits was 10.1%.

• the Principal Employer considered its "internal drivers" to be workforce strategy, contemporary pension arrangements, and the predictability of pension costs.

Three of the complainants suggest that this briefing underestimated the cost-saving to IBM because it did not allow for the introduction of "thousands of bulk purchased employees and temporary employees".

Presumably the Ombudsman could have found out if these cost predictions allowed for the expansion of the M-Plan that has occurred but either did not ask or does not tell us.