Dr. Tom McDonnell:

They absolutely work together. One needs to be benchmarking against something. It may be the cost of living. I presume it is the cost of living, if it is adequacy. That means it is connected, long term, to what happens with price inflation, which is indexation. One is benchmarking to get to a particular percentage or point, which one believes, through one's empirical analysis, is what gets one to adequacy. There has to be a connection with indexation over the longer-term. In the shorter-term, if one is below the benchmark, that means it is indexation-plus. One has to be higher than inflation. If one is above the benchmark, one could argue it could go the other way, but that may be hard to do in practice. The two will be linked. Benchmarking and indexation are two separate, but closely related, polices that have to work together. The benchmark is the adequacy point but, in the long term, it is about getting to the benchmark and then one can kick into indexation.