Accounting for pension costs - survey of universities’ disclosures as at 31 July 2018

We are pleased to present the results of our eighth survey of the assumptions adopted by UK universities for determining the value of their pension liabilities for accounting purposes.

This is a challenging time for the sector in general, and increasing pensions costs are not helping. Significant cost increases are on their way for the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (and Scottish Teachers’ Superannuation Scheme) and the Universities’ Superannuation Scheme (USS), while the England and Wales Local Government Pension Schemes have their actuarial valuations coming in 2019 as well.

We hope that this analysis will be helpful to universities formulating their own assumptions under FRS102 for future disclosures. In the meantime, we wait to see what will happen to markets (post Brexit?) to find out what that will mean for the position in 2019.

Download the briefing note below.