Newsletter No. 53

 HALCROW PENSIONERS ASSOCIATION 

 Newsletter No. 53 : April 2023

This is a newsletter of the Halcrow Pensioners Association (HPA). More details of HPA's objectives, organisation and its activities are here. You have been sent this newsletter because you are on the HPA's mailing list. Membership of HPA is open to all to all former Halcrow employees, sub-contractors, spouses and dependants who consider themselves to be part of the Halcrow "family". If you do not wish to receive the HPA newsletters then please either use the unsubscribe link at the bottom of your email or email the webmaster to remove your name from the mailing list. If you know anyone who may be interested to receive the newsletters then please forward them this newsletter using the link at the bottom of this email and encourage them to sign up for their own newsletters here.

Reminder of 2023 Annual General Meeting
As notified in Newsletter No. 52, the 2023 HPA AGM will be held in the HPA forum between 21st and 30th April. The proposed schedule, which has been based on the pace of previous AGMs, for the meeting is:

A notification will be sent when the AGM is open. Anyone who has every paid an HPA subscription is eligible to participate but anyone who has not previously registered for the HPA forum will need to do so as explained here. Please attend and provide your input. It is not too late to suggest items for discussion which can be posted here.

Hampshire vs PPF
HPA has previously commented in Newsletter No. 38 about the legal case known as Hampshire vs PPF the details of which are well explained here and which was decided upon by the European Court of Justice. In 2019 the PPF published this statement about implementing the court ruling.

It has just come to our attention that one of our members who elected to transfer to the PPF in 2016, rather than join HPS2, has been awarded a material backdated one-off increase in pension. This, it is understood, is as a result of a CJEU ruling pre Brexit that requires pensions to never fall below 50% of what they would have been due to any cap and zero or very reduced inflation increases being applied each year since. We are trying to find out more information about the basis for the calculation of the increase.

There is a protective clause in the HPS2 deeds that requires HPS2 pension payments to match any such increases made by the PPF so we are no worse off compared to the PPF. In principle then, most if not all of us, will have been impacted by no increases applied since 2016 to all pre-April 1997 service. Over time the cumulative effect will at some time potentially trigger this deminimus ruling.

We expect this to be an item of considerable interest to HPA members who may want to discuss it during our imminent AGM.

Proposed Social Activities
At the 2022 AGM the HPA members voted in favour of HPA developing a social component. Nothing, however, has happened because of a lack of proposals or volunteers. The HPA committee has therefore done a little brainstorming. The “Gardening Club” which was mentioned in Newsletter No. 3 (January 2013) is still going strong and provides a possible example of a social activity which could be adopted by HPA, particularly for other parts of the UK.

The Process
A possible process for organising social events could be:
•    One or more HPA members think of a group activity which might be of interest to other members (including spouses and dependants)
•    The proposal is posted in the social activities section of HPA forum and circulated to HPA members by email
•    Those who are interested respond in the forum
•    If there is sufficient interest then the arrangements are finalised by the organiser
•    The activity takes place

Types of Activity
•    A group walk followed by lunch (the Gardening Club model)
•    A group trip (eg cruise on the River Thames or a canal boat or a trip on a railway)
•    Meet and stay at a hotel (ideally with a group discount), have dinner together followed by possible group activity the next day
•    A tour of a building / industrial facility / construction site / etc where visits are only available to organised groups, followed by lunch
•    Holidays or other excursions where a group can obtain a discount from the organisers
•    Etc.

Location of Activity
The location can be anywhere although probably in UK and fairly close to a potential cluster of HPA members (ie former Halcrow offices) although people may be will to travel from further away if the activity is of interest.

If this is something you could contribute or would like to be involved with please tell your colleagues during the AGM forum. It will be better if several people (regional coordinators) are willing to share the workload and the HPA Committee proposes to create a Social Secretary honorary officer as overall coordinator.

Future HPA Initiatives
The need for HPA continues and among the possible ongoing tasks to look after HPA members' interests are:
1.    To keep HPA members informed about HPS2 and other pension-related matters.
2.    To closely monitor HPS2, the HPS2 Trustee and Jacobs UK (the scheme sponsoring company) to see whether adequate contributions are being made to the pension scheme.
3.    To examine and comment on proposals for changes to pension-related laws or regulations where we think they would affect our interests.
4.    Take opportunities to press for better supervision of pension schemes and their sponsoring companies.
5.    To facilitate social networking between former Halcrow employees.

Previous Newsletters
If you haven't been with HPA from the start or want to remind yourself of previous events then you can browse through the previous newsletters for which there is a full list here.