Employers are rushing to close final-salary schemes to new members to escape the extra cost of their employees' increasing longevity.

A record low of 17 per cent of British final-salary schemes are still open to new applicants, down from 28 per cent last year, according to research by Aon Consulting. In 2003 about half of final-salary pension schemes - which offer guaranteed pensions regardless of market movements - were still available to new employees.

Companies are moving away from final-salary schemes, also known as defined benefit schemes, because of tighter regulation, the present volatile market conditions that have depleted many pension schemes, people living longer and fears over future developments in accounting for pensions.

In the year to April 2007, about 40 per cent of calls to the Pension Advisory Service (PAS) were about final-salary schemes. This dropped to 31 per cent for the year to April 2008.

Tony Attubato, technical manager at PAS, said: “The biggest problem that employers face is that these schemes are very expensive to run. The biggest driving factor is that people are living longer. There is also more regulation in the post-Robert Maxwell world. Employers don't want to commit themselves to a level of benefits that has an unknown cost.”

A third of employers who continue to offer final-salary schemes to new entrants said that closing the schemes was too painful to contemplate. This was significantly more than last year's 17 per cent, a change partly explained by the negative coverage of several high-profile closures to future accrual.

More than a thousand employees of Ineos went on strike at the company's Grangemouth facility, Britain's third- biggest oil refinery, over the closure of its final-salary scheme to new members. Their actions forced BP to shut down the Forties pipeline, which supplies nearly 40 per cent of the UK's oil and gas.

This month, Richard Lambert, Director-General of the CBI, gave warning that more businesses were alarmed at the mounting pressures being placed on their defined benefit schemes. He said: “Pension deficits are back near the top of the corporate worry list.”

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