"As far as I know BW the existing pension pots are being ring fenced and guaranteed pensions will be honoured."

I thought I'd heard/read that, Don, but I wasn't sure - my memory is starting to play tricks on me in my advancing years. If so, that's good and I'm glad for them.

"All changes should, I agree, be applied to new joiners only, but the trouble is that there is already a shortfall of about nine billion, rising by almost four billion a year if changes are not made."

That's precisely the reason for my comment in my earlier post that "they do need to understand that the day of the defined benefit pension scheme is over, and that they need to move to a defined benefits structure which is, simply put, much more affordable",/i> and "Whilst I sympathise with the above groups regarding the retirement age issue, I think they need to join the real world where pension provision is concerned".

Despite someone in a later post claiming that these pensions are more-than-adquately funded, the fact is that they clearly are not and, in an age of increasing longevity, they need to be modernised in order to ensure their sustainability for future generations.

Public Sector workers should remember also that they have traditionally been in a very privileged position of having employer-supported-and co-funded pension schemes - many in the Private Sector didn't until the introduction of Stakeholder Pension Schemes five years or so ago.