"The best performing pension could produce more than three times more pension income than the worst performing one. The really bad news is that your pension fund is more likely to be amongst the bad than the good" The Observer
The State Second Pension (S2P) replaced the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme (SERPS), providing ‘top-up’ state pensions for employees over and above the basic state pension.
Many employer-sponsored pension schemes are ‘contracted-out’ of this second tier state pension, in effect taking responsibility for this additional retirement benefit. This can be a very valuable benefit which is often not appreciated enough by those entitled to it.
As for the basic state pension the Department of Work and Pensions enquiry form BR19 will tell you the level of your entitlement, but for more extensive advice...