Can do better
PETER LILLEY never looked comfortable in Whitehall's fastest revolving chair. Now centrifugal force and a: change of fashion have whirled him out of the Department of Trade and Industry and into Social Securi- ty, where, as it happens, there is a job for him to coo. His new ministry is supposed to look after pensitins — which includes occu- pational pensions and their funds. Tony Newton, his uninspired predecessor, was warned that this was a bomb in his in-tray. He did nothing about it until Robert Maxwell lit the fuse, and nothing much after that. Now he has gone off to lead the House of Commons — where, for heaven's sake? Mr Lilley will not find it hard to do better. He could start with a clean sweep of the Occupational Pensions Board, which is supposed to keep watch on the funds. It has proved a hopeless watchdog, scared of barking and more scared of biting, afraid that if it did its job more thoroughly compa- nies might not want to run pension funds. After Maxwell, that excuse will not do. Mr Lilley must know (for even his watchdog shows signs of knowing) that for every embezzler like Maxwell there are a dozen pirates who prey on pension funds but keep within the law — and for every pirate, hun- dreds of otherwise honest men .who, as pen- sion fund trustees, sit as judge and jury in their own cause. Reform cannot now stop short of a Pensions Act.
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