If you registered on the website before 2nd June and HAVE NOT received this newsletter as an email, please send a note to Mike Eacott. Also check the Lost Members page to see if we have lost contact with you.

2nd June 2001

Dear C-Planner, N-Planner or E-Planner,

You are receiving this e-mail because you have registered on the CPlan Web site: http://www.gpsu.co.uk/cplan/ If you do not wish to remain registered, then please visit the site and use the registration form to "unregister".

If you are an "E-mail Buddy", please print this down and give it to your buddy.

Newsletter 5 was about a single topic, the Open Letter to Mr Gerstner, so this newsletter covers things that have happened since Newsletter 4.

(By the way, if you supported the open letter, Mr Gerstner has called you "naive or vindictive".)

The major contributions since newsletter 4 can be found on the website as links at the top of the Latest News section www.gpsu.co.uk/cplan/news.html . Their effect has been to consolidate the website picture. Some of these areas were already covered and you certainly might have to browse over the site for the best information:

The performance of our fund in building up reserves. (Better than average - see a Decade of Incline).

The benefit we have received from this. (Worst of all comparable schemes - see a Decade of Decline. and Decade of Decline(2)

IBM's proposals to use the reserves for transfers that would benefit no member of any plan. (See FAQs 10 to 14.

On the unfairness of the proposals. (C and M plans totally different - see DAT Reid analysis).

On the illegality of the proposals. (See early documents, aims, strategy, situation).

How the proposals came to be accepted. (Various views, eg see Trustview 2).

How members have reacted. (see 600+ messages by subject in the archived messages).

On the avenues open to members. (see , links to OPAS etc).

The words of some complaints, complaints that OPAS has supported being submitted to the Ombudsman. On legal matters and the European Court.

With your input the website could be improved in a number of areas:

• Information on switching plans. (e.g. How to calculate what you get changing from C to M-plan?)
• On organisation beyond this site. (Is it needed? Unions, an association? Lots of opinion, little consensus.)
• On publicity. (To be more or less ladylike/gentlemenly?)
• On actuarial matters. (Without the transfers, would the C-plan be already funded for its lifetime?)
• On political moves and new regulations.
• On world news. Although we have links, and host a section for South Africa, it is not knitted together. Much of the "New IBM" evidence is here - see the link to the views of a top IBM researcher.

There is some news on those areas:

The affair has been covered in internet news, regretably without a mention of our website. (Try www.ii-q.com/default.asp?Page=1&SID=2126&Type=News&SecID= .)

There was an article in the Guardian, 'Jobs and Money' section dated April 28th, which mentioned this website. Unfortunately the article is not available on the Guardian website so we cannot provide a link.

The political moves are important. Whatever the Ombudsman says will apply only to our case, and is most unlikely to clear up the general "how to use the surplus" question. So the 5%-20% of final salary retirees like us with no guarantee (official figures are hard to come by) will still feel at risk. The government has started preliminary talks with the Law Commission on creating a legal framework regarding ownership of pension fund surpluses. They may be considering dividing each surplus into a Members' Account and an Employers' Account, as the South African government has decided to do. However, we do not know what the talks are about - they may be about making it easier for corporations to do what they like.

MPs are reluctant to get involved because the Ombudsman is on the case. Jacqui Lait, shadow pensions minister, said that the Conservative Party was waiting to hear rulings on outstanding cases before it would formulate policy. Some MPs are willing to say more; Sandra Gidley, an MP local to Hursley, has this message for you:

Dear Pension Plan Members, I am writing to let you know that I am keeping myself informed about your situation, and following the activity. I have concerns about the social policy issues of pensions in general, and the C-plan affair in particular. Since there is a complaint being looked into by the Ombudsman, and others heading that way, it is not appropriate for me to comment on the particulars of those cases, but I am offering to help if you have difficulties making use of the complaints procedures. Final salary pension schemes are a good feature of life in the UK. Compared with other countries, we have a lot of people enjoying the security that they usually provide. Although our regulations only provide guarantees of pensions retaining their value for pension earned since 1997, the majority of companies have adopted the good practice of maintaining the value of pensions for all service. Money purchase schemes have an advantage for the employer in the predictability of their cost, and an advantage for the employee in the ease with which they can be transferred to a new employer. However, they will need to have been in play for many more years before we can confidently assess them in relation to final salary schemes. What is sure is that members of final salary schemes will feel aggrieved if they think, as many contributors to your website think, that their prospects are at risk because they are unfairly subsidising some money purchase scheme which has better benefits. I don't think this will be a common situation because the normal balance of employer and trade union influences, coupled with a sense of British "fair play" operated by the trustees, will avoid such situations. With its combination of trade union, pension, and trustee appointment policies, IBM is an unusual case. The Ombudsman has to make his decisions on the basis of current law. I know some of you feel the law needs strengthening, both to help the Ombudsman defend members' rights and to add particular new regulations. In my view, the South African Government's approach of dividing the reserves of a scheme into a part for the employer and a part for the members is sound in principle but would be unnecessarily heavy regulation for our country. Some minor regulatory change is another matter. If it should emerge that there is a risk that companies will follow one another in a downward policy of reducing the benefits in final salary schemes, so as to avoid spending anything on their money purchase schemes, then I would want the government to consider placing a limit, for example Limited Price Indexation, below which the benefits should not be allowed to fall. I shall continue to watch the situation closely on your behalf, and act where I see the need. Sandra Gidley, MP (Liberal Democrat, Romsey)

We only know of about 6% of MPs having been contacted about the IBM affair, although there is reason to think that there have actually been more contacted. If you have written to your MP and not yet told us, please let the Webmaster know about it, even if you are sure somebody else has written to that MP.

There is likely to be a lull in news for a while, with most of the complaints in the Ombudsman's hands, and with MPs concerned with the election and their holidays afterwards. You can expect the activity to pick up again later in the year.

Mike Eacott (Membership secretary for the C-Planners Group)

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