With some four million members, the local government pension scheme is one of the largest public sector schemes in England and Wales with 89 schemes and over £145bn of investments. But, with a reformed scheme set to launch next year and pressure to merge funds to save costs, the task of running them is an increasing challenge. Michael Burton reports on the conclusions of last week's round table debate with some of the UK's foremost local authority pension experts.

Local authority pension funds are in a state of flux.Pressures on returns, pressures on budgets, pressures from ministers anxious to make more efficiency savings in administration and pressure from the public, envious of the final salary aspect of public sector pensions, make the task of administering the funds especially challenging.