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The Association of Consulting Actuaries (ACA) has called on the government to look seriously into developing an occupational pension scheme which would act as a 'middle way' between DB and DC schemes.

Speaking at a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Occupational Pensions, Keith Barton, chairman of the ACA, said that in the run up to the general election, the public and pensions industry would be examining the seriousness of politicians in developing imaginative policies designed to re-invigorate quality workplace private sector pensions.

Barton said that personal accounts have their place in extending pension coverage, but their development should not disguise the paramount need to promote quality pension provision across the private sector.

He said: "For the last five years we have been commending to government and both Houses that there should be new 'middle way' occupational pension solutions available to employers which sit between defined benefit and defined contribution arrangements.

"These schemes would provide reasonably predicable levels of retirement income for members but which would be free from some of the burdensome guarantees which have led to the demise of current schemes."

These schemes would provide greater certainty of benefits for members compared with defined contribution and greater certainty of costs for employers than current defined benefit schemes.

Furthermore, they recognise the efficiencies in collective schemes that can add anything up to 40 per cent to pension outcomes, compared with individualised defined contribution contracts.

Barton said: "We warned last year, during the passage of the then Pensions Bill that without such reforms, there would be more closures of defined benefit schemes, with employers invariably choosing defined contribution as their new arrangement.

"We suggested a means by which current legislation could be quickly amended so employers would have access to a new middle way option.

"That amendment was not about abandoning pension increases, as some have suggested, but recognised that there could be some circumstances in which pre-funded pension increases could be suspended for a period as part of a package to help restore scheme solvency.

"Regrettably, the government blocked the reforms. In some quarters, there seem to be those in denial about defined benefit closures."

Barton added that the outcome of that lost legislative opportunity was now all too apparent.

Private employer after employer is addressing their future pension package, often due to the tough economic climate they are facing, and increasingly in the light of the run up to auto-enrolment and personal accounts in 2012.

He said: "This dire private sector problem has now turned the heat on more generous public sector pensions that are largely funded by the taxpayer - in the majority of cases taxpayers with far inferior private pensions or no affordable private pensions whatsoever."