A wrangle has started between two of the Maxwell pension funds. One of the funds has a £30m surplus and the other has a loss of around £40m. The trustees of the Maxwell Communication Pension Plan (the one with the loss) believe that the losses should be made up by the surplus from the Works scheme.
However, the Government are refusing. The Department for Work and Pensions believe that the loss in the Communications plan is down to poor investment decisions of the trustees. To allow them to receive the surplus could be seen as the Government bailing them out because of investment performance.
The trustees of the Communications Plan stated that they "followed a prudent and cautious investment policy, putting 70% in bonds and 30% tracking the index".