The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) has admitted it had previously underestimated the deficit of UK defined benefit schemes by almost £20bn in January 2008.
The PPF announced the country’s latest aggregate deficit had increased by £16.7bn, but added it had miscalculated the previous month’s figures by £19.6bn, placing the aggregate deficit for February at £97.5bn.
A PPF spokesman said: "We made a mistake. The error was spotted and we rectified it."
The amended figure for February was the worst for almost five years and a huge drop from 12 months ago when UK pension funds were an aggregate £3.2bn in surplus.
The total deficit of all under-funded schemes was similarly altered from £118bn to £130bn for January.
The total deficit of schemes in deficit was similarly altered from £118bn to £130bn at the end of January, while the total number of schemes in deficit also increased over the month with a further 102 schemes falling into surplus - the highest amount since June 2005.
Joanne Livingstone, member of UK pension scheme advisors, Punter Southall, said this error only highlight the unpredictability of the 7800 Index. "The measure is only really used by the PPF for they’re own calculations but because of their status it seems to be elevated to absolute truth," she said.
The PPF said its figures were based on the monthly calculated funding position of nearly 7,800 private sector pension funds on an s179 basis.
The blunder by the organisation follows on from last November’s advice error over insolvency risk calculations, which led to the group apologising to 41 pension schemes .
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