Newsletter No. 10
HALCROW PENSIONERS ASSOCIATION
Newsletter No 10 : February 2015
You have been sent this newsletter because you may be a member of the Halcrow Pension Scheme. If you are not a member then please use the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this email to remove your name from the mailing list or email the webmaster at halcrowpensioners dot org dot uk to remove your name.
The webmaster apologies for keeping members waiting so long for this newsletter and would welcome hearing from anyone who would be willing to help with the task of the newsletter production.
A Reminder from the Treasurer
For those who haven't already paid, the HPA treasurer looks forward to receiving your 2015 subscription. It remains at £10. Payment by bank transfer is preferred because there are no transaction charges although you can also pay by credit card through our PayPal portal. Details of the payment methods are here.
The 2015 Annual General Meeting
It doesn't seem long since the last AGM but, in accordance with HPA's constitution, an Annual General Meeting should take place in April. It is proposed to adopt the format used previously of a virtual meeting in a sub-forum of the HPA forum to which only paid-up members of HPA will be given access. The meeting will be the member's annual opportunity to contribute to the direction and operation of HPA. Should, for example, some of HPA's funds be used to obtain a legal opinion on the liability of a parent company towards the deficient of a pension scheme sponsored by a subsidiary? The exact timing of the meeting has yet to be determined but the week commencing 13th April is a strong contender as it falls mid way between Easter and the early May holiday.
The 2014 AGM
The 2014 AGM was held between 28 April and 06 May 2014 and was attended by 32 members. The minutes are available here and registered members can remind themselves of the discussion in the forum.
The 2013 Halcrow Group Annual Report
The Halcrow Group Annual Report for 2013 became available at Companies House in August 2014. Performance was summarised as "Turnover increased from £210.9 million in 2012 to £232.0 million in 2013; an increase of 10 per cent. A loss before taxation of £6.8 million in 2012 was turned around to a profit before taxation of £0.7 million in 2013. £3.8 million of this related to improvements in the business; £7.4 million to a reduction in provisions needed; and increased costs of £3.8 million related to net finance costs on the pension scheme liability."
However, the Auditor's Report states "At 31 December 2013 the Company had net current liabilities of £30,873,000 (2012: £16,858,000). The Company is dependent on continued support from its Parent and ultimate Parent, CH2M HILL Companies, Ltd., including for any additional funding that might be required, and no certainty has been provided in respect of this support. This matter, together with the other matters explained in Note 1, indicates the existence of a material uncertainty which may cast significant doubt on the Company's ability to continue as a going concern."
Note 22, which discusses pensions liabilities, hase been extracted from the report and is available here because it will be of particular interest to HPS members. While much of the information relates to all the pension schemes to which Halcrow contributes, some of the information relates to the main pension scheme (ie HPS).
The Triennial Pension Review
The triennial pension review for the Halcrow Pension Scheme, as at 31st December 2011, should have been completed and the report issued by the legal deadline of 31st March 2013 together with an updated funding plan agreed with the company. This review is now so overdue that it has been superseded by the review of the scheme as at 31st December 2014.
The HPA has been in contact with The Pensions Regulator and The Pensions Advisory Service. Unfortunately, there is no legal obligation for the Pensions Regulator to be open and transparent about its dealings with individual pension schemes and, apart from the basic statement of being aware of the situation, they will not divulge what, if anything, they are undertaking as corrective action.
The sponsoring company (Halcrow) continues to make payments into the scheme in accordance with the recovery plan agreed as part of the 2008 triennial review. The company paid £11.5 million in 2013, up from £9.9 million in 2012 and a further increase was expected for 2014. However, while Halcrow made a small paper profit, the amount of money owed to the parent company has increased by more than the value of the payments so there has to be doubt about the long term sustainability of this arrangement unless Halcrow startes to generate substantial profits.
Sale of Burderop Park
Staff based at Burderop Park were informed in autumn 2014 that the company was seeking to sell the property, preferably with the provision to lease back the space that they needed. Since the downturn of business in 2009 the premises has not been fully utilised and the unused capacity represent a significant overhead cost. It is understood that a potential purchaser has been found.
Correspondence with the HPS Trustees
On 21st November 2014, in agreement with the committee of the HPA, the HPA Secretary wrote to the Chairman of HPS to express its concern over a number of rumours and issues concerning the future of HPS and the financial stability of Halcrow (for full text see here). We are pleased to report that these concerns were addressed, at least in part, in the subsequent HPS bulletin to members: Notes of a Halcrow Pension Scheme (HPS) Trustee meeting (No 115) Held on 8th December 2014. This should be seen as a positive outcome from the activities of the HPA in raising issues of concern to the HPS on behalf of pensioners. If you have not received this or the other bulletins then you can email the pensionsteam at ch2m dot com and request to be added to their email list.
Occupational Pensioners Alliance
Following a resolution at the 2013 AGM, the HPA has joined the Occupational Pensioners Alliance. The OPA has regular meetings usually held in SW London. If any HPA member is interested to attend the OPA meetings or take part in the OPA AGM to be held in May or be nominated for the OPA committee then please contact the HPA secretary (secretary at halcrowpensioners dot org dot uk).
Letter to the House of Lords re the Pensions Scheme Bill
On 21st January 2015, the Chairman of the HPA wrote to the Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, who has been very active in moving amendments to the Pension Schemes Bill 2014-15, drawing his attention to the loophole in the law that has allowed the excessive delay in the publication of the HPS Valuation Report 2011 and a revision to the Recovery Plan (due to the parties not agreeing the assumptions to be used), and suggesting that the Bill be amended to close this loophole. We await developments.
Awareness of HPA
We are relying on personal networks to spread the news of our existence as the HPS trustees have declined to make HPS members aware of HPA's existence through one of their routine mailings to scheme members. We remind all the recipients of this newsletter to spread the word by forwarding this email to anyone else whom you think may be a member (pensioner, deferred or contributing) of the Halcrow Pension Scheme and particularly those who have left the company in the past few years. It is better that they receive multiple copies of this email than remain unaware of the HPA. We would also request people to update their details in our newsletter database (particularly those people for which we only have a Halcrow email address which are now being phased out). If you received this email directly then please use the link at the bottom of the email to access your details.
Thank you from the HPA committee.