NEW fund managers brought in to make more money for Buckinghamshire County Council's pension scheme are now delivering the goods.

The latest quarterly returns show the pension fund is up nine per cent on the previous quarter. The average for other pension funds was a 7.8 per cent increase.

One of the fund managers, Capital Investments, had a 6.8 per cent above average increase.

The pension fund, administered by the county council, hit the headlines when it was revealed as one of the worst performing of all the local authority schemes in the country.

Local councils, as employers, had to find big increases in their budgets as a result.

Pension money is invested by fund managers, and Bucks changed its two managers, Morley, and Merrill Lynch, to four others, Legal and General, Deutsche Bank, Capital Integrated and Fidelity.

The upturn in performance will not make any difference to the extra amount councils are having to pay now.

But if things continue well until the fund is re-evaluated in 2004, contributions could then go down.

In the meantime, because of the huge costs to employers, the government is bringing out a green paper on pensions which could change the system.

Councils will be asked whether a pension should be based on average salary, rather than final salary as is now the case, or whether the salary-based scheme should be scrapped.

Employees would contribute towards a pot of money which they then use to buy themselves a pension when they retire.