Newsletter No. 59

 HALCROW PENSIONERS ASSOCIATION 

 Newsletter No. 59 : December 2025

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 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.

The HPA committee wishes all readers an enjoyable Christmas and a prosperous 2026.

The Pension Schemes Bill (2025)
The Pensions Schemes Bill (2025) is currently working its way through parliament. After intensive lobbying, particularly by Roger Sainsbury of DPA, the poposed legislation currently includes provision for PPF to increase its compensation (PPF terminology for pension) by up to 2.5% per annum effective January 2027 in respect of pre-1997 accruals where PPF members' former pension schemes provided such increases. Good investment performance means that PPF now has a significant funding surplus and can afford to pay such increases. Backdating of the increases is not currently proposed. Once the legislation is effective we will see whether the HPS2 trustee intends to provide similar increases for HPS2 members in accordance with the "no worse than PPF" underpin contained in the HPS2 Trust Deed that was effective at the time of members' transfer into HPS2.

Trustee Reports on Scheme Funding
The Trustee has issued (i) a Summary Funding Statement at 31 December 2024 (issued October 2025) and (ii) the XPS Pensions Scheme Funding Report for the 15 months to 31 March 2025. The former document revealed that both the assets and liabilities had reduced and the funding surplus had increased from 106% to 107%. The funding report provides much more detailed financial information and indicates (note 9 on page 28) that, in the 15 month reporting period, administrative expenses of £1.1M had been charged to the scheme. Jacobs used to pay these expenses. Jacobs declined to allow a discretionary pension increase for 2026.

HPS2 membership has been declining due to deaths (although the death of a member often results in a spouse becoming a member) and some transfers out since it was created in 2016. Pensioner numbers are increasing whilst deferred numbers are reducing. This pattern is going to continue until the scheme naturally finishes. It also explains why HPS2 has very largely exited growth investments and is now mainly invested in bonds and other less risky investments.  The trend in membership numbers is given below. A triennial scheme review effective 31 March 2025 is currently in preparation. It is being undertaken 9 months early in order to synchronise all the schemes being managed by the same trustee.

Deceased Former Colleagues
The HPS2 website maintains a list of deceased HPS2 members. A copy of the list of those who have departed since the start of HPS2 is available here. This list will not include anyone who either did not transfer to HPS2 or has subsequently transferred out of HPS2.

Burderop Park
Building of new houses at Burderop Park has been completed while conversion of the stable block into a home is ongoing. The sports field area remains fairly open but is no longer flat. We have been in contact with the new owner of the mansion and it was arranged for three of the HPA committee to visit in December 2025. There is background central heating with the main rooms also having log burning stoves. Adequate log storage is a current problem. The approach to restoration has been to leave some of the old walls exposed. One of the upper rooms contained a model which had been found in a cupboard. It is thought that this was a Halcrow proposal which the Swindon planners didn't like. If anyone can shed further light on this please contact the webmaster or post a message in the HPA forum. Click on the photographs below for larger versions.

Refresh of the HPA website
It is now 14 years since the HPA website was established and it is need of a refresh. It is hoped to complete this prior to the next HPA AGM in April 2026 and it possible that the website will go offline for a while. The HPA forum should not be affected by this work.

Future HPA Activities
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. Continue to compare the compensation, benefits and received support of our members within both HPS2 and the PPF.
4. To examine and comment on proposals for changes to pension-related laws or regulations where we think they would affect our interests.
   
5. Take opportunities to press for better supervision of pension schemes and their sponsoring companies.
6. 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.