BT is only the latest company to close its final salary scheme to new members and more are expected to follow

BT is only the latest company to close its final salary scheme to new members, and more are expected to follow.Employees with money sitting in a group personal pension plan may find their retirement income further damaged by the excessive charges imposed by many plans. A group personal pension is similar to a personal pension, the difference being that it is set up and administered by the company on behalf of staff. Plans can also prove expensive.Charges stack up and become relatively more punitive in times of low investment growth. Somebody investing £100 a month for 30 years in a pension that charges just 0.5 per cent a year would receive £9,790 annual income from their annuity in retirement. If the scheme charged 1.5 per cent, this income would fall to £8,080 a year. The difference will cost the investor £1,710 a year, or £142.50 a month, for the rest of their life.One attraction of stakeholder is that it has forced insurance companies to slash pension plan charges. Stakeholder plans may charge no more than 1 per cent in annual management fees.

Many insurance companies, including Legal & General, Norwich Union, Scottish Equitable, Scottish Life and Scottish Widows, have also reduced charges to bring existing personal pension plans in line with stakeholder ­ although many others have not. Stakeholder allows every man, woman and child to invest up to £3,600 a year in a qualifying pension, and receive tax relief on their contributions at either 22 or 40 per cent, depending on their tax bracket.Premiums are paid into low-cost, flexible pension plans run by insurance companies, which invest contributions in the stock market with the aim of producing long-term financial growth. Unfortunately, growth is exactly what the stock market is currently failing to deliver. Jason Hollands, deputy managing director of financial advisers Bestinvest, says most savers are confused about how stakeholder pensions work, and deterred by current investment troubles. “People are switching on the news and hearing about volatile stock markets and the economy slowing, and are turned off the concept of putting money into any stock market-related investment product at all, let alone stakeholder,” he says.Investors in another government-inspired scheme, Isas, have already had their fingers burnt by market turbulence. In April 2000 popular technology stocks and shares Isa funds such as Aberdeen Technology and Henderson Global Technology crashed, and one year on are worth less than half their peak value.

Market troubles have continued to ravage Isa performance, putting a huge dent in sales.The Government could hardly have picked a worse time to unleash its stakeholder pension scheme, launched on 6 April. The public’s faith in the ability of stock market-linked investments to deliver a reliable pension in retirement is likely to be sorely tested.Unfortunately, those outside a final salary occupational scheme have little alternative, unless they want to leave themselves at the mercy of the basic state pension.. The driver of the Land Rover at the heart of the Selby rail disaster was charged yesterday with causing the death by dangerous driving of the 10 people killed in the crash. The driver of the Land Rover at the heart of the Selby rail disaster was charged yesterday with causing the death by dangerous driving of the 10 people killed in the crash.
Gary Hart’s vehicle careered down a rail embankment off the M62, ended up on the east coast main line and set off a catastrophic series of events that resulted in a devastating high-speed train collision.Mr Hart, 36, who has two children and lives in Strubby, Lincolnshire, was released on police bail yesterday to appear before Selby magistrates’ court on 17 May on a single charge relating to all 10 deaths.Mr Hart was too traumatised to be interviewed after the accident, but police later interrogated him several times. Papers are understood to have been sent to the Crown Prosecution Service within the past two weeks.Immediately after the crash, which happened at 6.12am on 28 February near the village of Great Heck, Mr Hart said he believed a tyre had blown on his vehicle. He vehemently denied suggestions that he had fallen asleep at the wheel.The front of the Land Rover, which had been towing a trailer with a Renault car on it, was completely destroyed when the express train smashed into it. But police investigators have since pieced it together after a painstaking search of the site.The impact with the vehicle derailed the 04.45am Newcastle to London Great North Eastern Railway express carrying about 100 people.