FOR a number of years in the early 1970s I was responsible for investing the Swindon Council pension fund.

It was much smaller than the present fund because the council didn't have all the services it now provides, but it still ran well into seven figures.

Therefore, unlike Frank Avenell (It's treachery, EA May 28), I know what I'm talking about on this subject.

I managed our fund under regulations dating back to the '40s or '50s.

They compelled the council to secure an independent actuarial valuation on every fifth year.

If the valuation showed the fund to be insufficient to meet its future commitments, the council had to make good the deficit.

Fortunately, we never got into difficulties while I was in charge and a healthy fund was handed over to Wiltshire Council Council in 1974, when local government was reorganised.

Thereafter, I'm sure my colleagues at the county council were equally diligent.

Sadly' their efforts were undermined when the then Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher was thrashing about to get out of the poll tax hole she had dug for herself.

She allowed councils to reduce their pension fund balances down to only 75 per cent of future commitments to "save money."

It was actually just storing up trouble for the future.

This, coupled with the disastrous effect of Black Wednesday on fund investments, eventually gave rise to the £40 million hole in Swindon's share of the Wiltshire fund.

Frank is wrong when he says Tony Blair and the Government have stood idly by in this matter.

They have compelled local authorities to restore their funds to 100 per cent cover of future commitments and what a lot of whingeing that provoked, particularly from Frank Avenell.

For the private sector, this Government has set up the Pension Protection Fund, perhaps not the whole answer but a step in the right direction that no previous Chancellor of the Exchequer has taken.

It offers at least some hope to Rover employees.

DREEVE

Okus Road

Swindon