HALCROW PENSIONERS ASSOCIATION 

 Newsletter No 2 : October 2012

Contents (click on the blue headings for more details)

HPA Chairman Interviewed by Building Magazine

The HPA had been approached by Building Magazine who wanted to improve their understanding of the background to the formation of the Halcrow Pensioners Association as part of data collection for a feature on pensions in the construction industry. The HPA chairman met the assistant editor of the Magazine when he was visiting London on 17th May. The article published by the Building Magazine in July 2012 is summarised here.

The Halcrow Trust Distribution

The distribution by the trustees Halcrow Trust of the proceeds of the sale of Halcrow took place earlier this year. It appears that the trustees made a very restrictive interpretation of the definition of beneficiaries set out in the Trust deeds, with for example, the exclusion of the widows of otherwise eligible people. Perhaps the main beneficiary of the distribution was the UK tax authorities.

Speech by Malcolm Fletcher

Staff in Burderop Park were invited, on 20th June 2012, to toast Malcolm Fletcher who was the Chairman of Halcrow at the time the Halcrow Trust was established. Malcolm gave a brief talk about the history of Halcrow and why the Trust was established. This was followed by a presentation by Malcolm Wallace about the Halcrow Foundation which, until the sale of Halcrow, received 1% of the profits for charitable use. The Foundation was awarded part of the Halcrow Trust distribution but will  have to survive in the future through fund raising and donations.

Halcrow Pensioners Reunion in Edinburgh

About 30 Halcrow pensioners gathered for lunch on Saturday 6th October and were addressed by Brian Shelton of CH2M Hill, Paula Gibbons, the Halcrow Pensions Administrator, Derek Pollock, the Chairman of of the HPS Trustees and Neil Johnstone, the Director for Continental Europe. Click on the heading for the full report including some photos.

General Pension Funding Adequacy

The HPA is monitoring the pension funding information published by the Pension Protection Fund. The PPF backstops the HPS in the event the scheme goes bust, but it is not guaranteed by Government. It is therefore in members' interests to keep an eye of how the PPF itself is doing, so that if need be, we can raise our concerns with the Pensions Ombudsman. The PPF monitors the health of over 6,000 pension schemes and gives particular attention to those in deficit.

Quantitive Easing may be an easy way for governments to get more money to borrow, but it is bad news for pension funds because bond yields are depressed to the extent that they are lower than the rate of inflation. Read this for an explanation.

Purpose of HPA

As individuals we have limited voice, but collectively we stand a better chance of being heard and influencing future changes. In addition to forming a platform for talking to past colleagues, HPA provides, for the first time, a collective body to represent member's interests to the trustees. We need members, both to be able to demonstrate the numbers of people concerned about the welfare of the Halcrow Pension Scheme and also to raise a fund to meet legal or other costs. So please join (the treasurer considers that subscriptions are for a year starting from the date of payment). We also have a forum where HPS members can discuss common issues (and the webmaster is feeling lonely!).

Please Spread the Word

Finally, please 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. It is better that they receive multiple copies of this email than remain unaware of this initiative. We requested the chairman of the HPS trustees if HPS could alert all HPS members to HPA's existence in one of its communications to members. This request was referred to the trustees who declined our request. We are theefore relying on personal networks to spread the news of our existence.

We would also request people to update their details in our email database (particularly those people for which we only have a Halcrow email address which are now being phased out).

Thank you from the committee.