How far will your ££ pound ££ go with GB Oils

Retail Price Index

Current RPI 4.6%
Current CPI 3.1%

RPI remains the favoured basis for inflation references in pay claims. It is the most extensive basket of goods and services and includes housing costs which for most workers is the highest outgoing.

Breakdown of key RPI Statistics

All items index for housing (excluding mortgage interest payments) up 4.9%

Petrol and oil up 8.1%


Vehicle tax and insurance up 32.4%


Rail fares up 8.8%


All goods up 4.3%

Directors to retire happy on six-figure annual pensions


Directors of the UK’s top companies should be well provided for in their retirement even if the rest of the workforce has to tighten its belt, the TUC’s latest PensionsWatch survey suggests.

Whether they are in traditional defined benefit (DB) schemes or up-and-coming defined contribution (DC) schemes, levels of funding are far better than can be found in most workplace pension schemes, where there is one.

Among the 102 major UK companies covered by the survey, around two-thirds (63%) continue to provide DB benefits for at least some directors, while half (48%) provide defined contribution schemes. For those in DB schemes the average accrued pension was £227,726 a year, 26 times the average occupational pension entitlement of the population as a whole. This reflects not only the high level of directors’ salaries but also a generous 1/30th accrual rate as the most common arrangement, which goes together with a common normal retirement age of 60.

For employees, in particular the minority in the private sector who receive any kind of workplace pension, the trend has been towards DC schemes with lower levels of funding. But for directors in DC schemes in the TUC survey the average company contribution was £134,760, an average contribution rate of 19%.
For employees, in particular the minority in the private sector who receive any kind of workplace pension, the trend has been towards DC schemes with lower levels of funding. But for directors in DC schemes in the TUC survey the average company contribution was £134,760, an average contribution rate of 19%.

The last survey by the Association of Consulting Actuaries (ACA) found that companies were putting as little as 4.5% on average into stakeholder pensions (excluding the one in five who contribute nothing) and only a little more into other types of DC scheme — 6.0% into group personal pensions and 6.7% into other DC schemes.
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “Employers often tell us that decent staff pension schemes are no longer affordable. Directors’ representatives are in the vanguard of those attacking public sector pensions. Yet greed is still good in the nation’s top boardrooms where directors continue to reward themselves with seven figure pension pots.”
He accused companies of refusing to fully disclose the lavish pension arrangements of executive directors, either to shareholders or to their own members of staff, and called for an end to “two-tier” provision with all their staff on the same pension arrangements.

Source: LRD

So the only thing not to go up is your pay!!! Think