25 March 2020
Given the significant and fast-moving development of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) issue, and the Government’s policy in relation to how the UK needs to react to this, we want to update you further on how we are responding to the situation.
We are working closely with our Plan Administrator (Equiniti) who is responsible for administering the Plan. Equiniti’s main priority during this time, whilst protecting the health of their staff, is to maintain the delivery of key services to our members, which includes:
To comply with the Government’s current policy Equiniti have put in place processes to enable all its staff to work from home. The team which receives and answers your calls are most affected by these changes with the result that it may take longer for them to answer any calls received. Also due to the reduced number of call centre operators you may not get through to an expert of the HP Plan initially however the operators are still trained and competent to respond to pensions calls. Therefore we would encourage you to see if the answer to your questions are within the pages of this website before contacting Equiniti. If you do need to call, then it may take longer than normal for Equiniti to answer your call.
Don’t forget, within MyPension, the secure area of this website you can see information about your actual Plan benefits. If you are yet to activate your registration for My Pension, we will be sending you details of how to do this shortly.
The Trustee would like to thank all members for their patience and understanding if, as a result of the current pandemic, it taking longer than normal for Equiniti to respond to their request.
Further updates will be issued if the situation develops further.