The Pension Protection Fund's (PPF) latest 7800 Index has revealed that the deficit of defined benefit (DB) schemes has increased to an estimated £236.6bn in March 2013.

At the end of February, the deficit was £201.5bn, and the PPF said the position has worsened on the previous year, when a deficit of £204.2bn was recorded at the end of March 2012.

The funding ratio of the schemes within the index decreased from 84.6% to 82.6% at the end of March 2013, and is lower than the 83.4% recorded in March 2012.

The total assets were £1121.5bn at the end of March 2013. According to the PPF, scheme assets rose by 1.5% over the month, due to small increases in the equities market and a rise in bond prices.

Over the year, there was an increase of 9.2% in scheme assets.

Total liabilities were £1358.1bn, an increase of 4.0% over the month, reflecting lower nominal and index-linked gilt yields. There was an increase of 10.3% in total liabilities over the year.

The data showed that there were 5,080 schemes in deficit representing 80.4% of the total 6,316 DB schemes in the index.

The number of schemes in surplus decreased to 1,236 at the end of March 2013 from 1,343 at the end of February 2013. There were 1,294 in surplus at the end of March 2012.

First published 09.04.2013

monique_simpson@wilmington.co.uk