The relative performance of the pension fund and the FTSE100 Index is shown above The fund would generally be expected to out-perform the index during its early years because, in addition to equity growth, it is receiving income from both the employer and the employees and the outgoings due to the pensions in payment are small. However when there is a "pensions holiday" as in 1992-2002, the changes in the fund value are due to equity growth less pensions in payment. When the pension fund is "closed" no more new members will be contributing. As the scheme "matures" the number of active members falls and the number of pensioners increases The actual changes in the membership over the last 16 years are shown below. (The total membership in the scheme has dropped only slightly from about 17,900 to 15,280 in 2010 but the distribution between the classes of membership has considerably changed with the active members declining and the pensioners increasing.)

The steep fall in the active members between 1990-4 was due to early retirements and compulsory redundancies.

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