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The funding level all depends on how you do the calculations.

It is highly misleading to write: "The majority of UK companies and organisations in the UK have been forced to ditch their ‘gold-plated’ final scheme over the last few years to help tackle costs associated with people living longer and poor market performance."

The effect of people living longer is a significant factor but relatively small in fact.

And it is very misleading to say that the deficits are due to poor market performance. They are mainly due to the way pension liabilities are calculated - which have absolutely nothing to do with market performance. Liabilities are calculated using discount rates - so called risk-free rates which are in fact nothing of the sort and are highly variable - based on gilts. As we all know gilt rates currently are very low indeed as a matter of Bank of England policy. That sends the calculated liabilities through the roof. That is not poor market performance.

In fact the USS investment portfolio has performed very well last year.

And remember that the actual liabilities are defined by the scheme rules and do not depend on markets.

The problems of many pension schemes including the USS stem from the practice of actuaries and accountants - many of whom seem to be in a frenzy of neoliberalism - in insisting on using the FRS17 accounting rules which are based on unreal assumptions that are far too prudent to be practical.

And there is nothing wrong with the cash-in-cash-out principle as part of a practical DB pension scheme. The objection to it seems to be purely ideological.