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The last sentence is very misleading in that it gives the impression that the USS is losing money.

The deficit figure of £7.2bn does not relate to the financial year but is a mark-to-market snapshot of assets/liabilities at a point in time. In fact in the financial year to March 2014 the USS made a surplus of income over expenditure of just over £1.0bn and increased in value (including capital gains) by over £3.0bn.

The deficit referred to (not a deficit in the true sense but the difference between assets and liabilities) is based on a hypothetical valuation of liabilities that - as with many pension schemes - is inflated by current low interest rates.