The PPF has announced that the levy scaling factor for 2008-2009 will be 3.77, more than double its original estimate of 1.6, which was given in November last year.
Alan Smith, director at First Actuarial, said schemes would already have budgeted for their levy based on the November estimate.
“We’ve provided estimates to clients based on the information the PPF provided,” said Smith.
“How they can move from 1.6 to 3.77 is quite astonishing. This is going to be really bad news for schemes and it doesn’t show the PPF in a very good light. You have to question what the point of an estimate is if it’s going to be so far wrong. This is worse than the Olympics’ budget.”
In setting the scaling factor, the PPF first calculates each scheme’s individual levy, save for the scaling factor. It then compares the total of all individual levies with what it needs to collect for 2008-2009, and scales the total figure accordingly. DR
