Many of you have complained about us not resuming our telephone and in-person reception services, our email turnaround times, and delays in crediting periods to your account.
Please be assured that the Careers and Benefits department, which I head, is keenly aware of and sorry for these inconveniences and is doing everything it can to continue to perform through this complicated situation and with reduced staff numbers.
As you know, our department has already had to deal with several months of disruptions, beginning with France’s transportation strikes in late 2019 and followed by the more serious issue of the ongoing public health crisis which began in March 2020. As regards the pandemic, the French government imposed a strict lockdown, CRPN had to keep staffing of our premises down to an absolute minimum and we were forced to shut down our in-person and telephone reception services. Under these difficult circumstances, in accordance with the directions we received from our oversight authority, our top priority was assigned to paying benefits and processing new personal and survivor’s entitlement claims. In this regard, we have met our obligations and there have been no delays attributable to CRPN.
The post-lockdown plan which CRPN rolled out on May 11th has not made it possible for us to return to business as usual or to catch up with the work that had to be put on the back burner over the past few months. We have not yet been able to resume our telephone reception service and, for safety reasons set forth in the post-lockdown plan, in-person reception cannot yet be brought back as we currently stand. A few weeks ago, I asked that we begin setting up telephone appointments with those of you who are about to retire and have not found answers to all of your questions on our website: in the interim, until we can resume in-person reception, this will allow us to work with you and provide any guidance you need as you approach retirement.
There are two remaining major issues: email turnaround times and delays in crediting periods to your accounts. Many of you have been complaining about this, which I totally understand.
Please be assured that we are doing our utmost to process your emails by priority subject lines. Unfortunately, we are not currently able to give a satisfactory turnaround time to the high volume of emails which we are currently receiving, and all the more so since our staff members are also being required to perform other operations at the same time. We sincerely regret this situation.
CRPN’s website is being constantly updated with an extensive amount of information; this is an opportunity for you to find your own answers to your questions without having to go through us.
As regards crediting periods to your accounts, our team has devoted the last few days to crediting periods to the accounts of air crew members over age 50; periods accrued by those under 50 will be credited at a later date. However, this delay in crediting your periods does not prevent you from using our retirement date and pension forecast calculators which you can access through your personal account: just add in your estimate of the number of days not yet credited to your personal account.
Please be assured that our Careers and Benefits department is fully on board and working hard towards a quick return to the quality of service which you expect and we have always worked to provide.
Sylvie BESSON
Careers and Benefits Department