I am up there with Lord Wakeham, risking all by signing off accounts for the company of which I am a director. Worse, I have also learned that I should warn the management if I am likely to become ‘high profile' or attract an adverse press

I am the non-executive director of a company whose pension fund has been found, by actuarial calculation, to be insufficiently funded. You will know what this means – we now have to increase contributions substantially to make up for the shortfall, and this will substantially affect the bottom line, forcing us to increase the price of our product to the consumer. Why did we not see this coming? The scheme is sizeable. You may be surprised to learn that when it was last valued, at March 31, 1996, the value of its assets was £61.7bn (€96.2bn). In June 1999, the actuary informed us that the deficiency was £4bn. This is a sum that at the time of writing exceeds the market capitalisation of many European companies. How are we ever going to manage to eliminate the deficiency? The actuary made a supplementary report in March 2001 suggesting how to tackle the problem. Unsurprisingly, this was via supplementary employer contributions. Mind you, the assumptions used to arrive at this recommendation look rather suspect to me – they include a rate of return on investments of 8.5%. Given that the Moneypenny personal portfolio has declined by 22% since June 1999 I am not surprised that, in his most recent revaluation, the actuary had to revisit his calculator. I am unable to reveal how big the shortfall is now, as it is not yet public some nine months later. Who is managing this £61.7bn pension scheme? Could we not sue them? Sadly not. I am talking about the Teachers' Pension Scheme, which is a national, statutory contributory, unfunded defined benefit scheme administered by the Teachers' Pension Agency in the UK, although as I have discovered, this, like many things, has been outsourced to Capita. You will have realised by now that this non-executive directorship is, of course, the governorship of a school. It is none the less serious for that. I am right up there with Lord Wakeham in risking all in signing off the accounts. To judge from the section in the accounts entitled "statement of governors' responsibilities" we all need to be qualified accountants. I quote: "The governors are required to select suitable accounting policies and apply them consistently, ensure applicable accounting standards have been followed…" and so on. I asked so many finance-related questions at every meeting of the main governing body that the chairman decided to co-opt me to the finance sub-committee and thus reach the drinks cabinet a shade earlier. Here I am one of six, the only woman, the only person under 50 apart from the bursar and, more to the point, the only parent paying full fees. I am well aware of what an under-funded pension fund will mean. This year for the first time we also have to sign a statement to the effect that we have examined the risks that the school faces each financial year. The executive directors – the headmaster and the bursar – had thoughtfully prepared a risk management and assessment report for the non-executive directors – the trustees or governors – to consider. This ran to nine pages of an Excel spreadsheet and in my opinion went into rather excessive detail. I mean it didn't quite go as far as assessing the risk that we might have to replace a football goal on the far playing pitch, but almost. One particular risk was entitled "trustee profile risk", and stated that "trustees with a high public profile" might attract adverse press, affecting the school. It was suggested that the school write to all the governors annually and ask them if they were likely to become "high profile" or attract adverse press. How ridiculous is that? Our governing body contains many interesting people, but none of them are Angus Deayton or Paul Burrell. I think we are being over-cautious. You could, of course, take the view that when the Mrs Moneypenny book comes out next spring and contains details of every lap dancing club that I have ever had to sign expenses from, a bit of adverse press might be expected. The other possibility is that some relationship I have had in the dim and distant past comes back to haunt me.
But this is a school whose most current old boy is Will Young, winner of ITV's Pop Idol competition earlier this year, and a publicly declared homosexual. He is not a governor of the school, but as our admissions are up noticeably for the next few years and the school has never been in better shape, perhaps he would consider giving us the benefit of his experience. For a school that, as a charitable trust, ploughs every penny back into its facilities, there will be nothing for it but to put up the fees – by a relatively large amount. This will be true for every private sector school in the country. Closing the scheme to new entrants – the corporate sector option – is not available to us. Charles Clarke, the UK Education Secretary, won't even defer the start date of higher contributions until September 2003, despite the fact that not knowing what the increase will be, is making budgeting an impossibility. A tricky situation for the non-executive director of any company.