Civil Service Pension Scheme administration problems

We are receiving many member queries about the current unacceptable performance of the civil service pension scheme administrators.

This is a fast-moving issue, with significant developments occurring regularly. This page will be updated with the latest position and key information for members.

Hopefully, most of the answers that members need will be available here. But please contact your local representative or full-time officer if you need further assistance.

What has been going wrong with Civil Service Pension Scheme administration?

The service that members receive has not been great for some time. A recent National Audit Office report noted particular problems with response times to members’ calls and emails.

Things got noticeably worse from 1 December when the administration contract transferred to Capita (from MyCSP).

From that point, there were many complaints from members who could not access Capita’s online pension portal, or whose data was missing or incorrect.

These issues obviously caused great inconvenience and sometimes affected members’ ability to make important decisions, including about full and partial retirement.

More recently, we have become aware of significant numbers of newly retired scheme members not receiving any pension payments, sometimes for several months.

This is obviously causing the members concerned distress, and many are experiencing financial hardship.

We are helping members who are:

These serious problems are exacerbated by the lack of certainty about when members can expect to receive payment from the scheme.

What is the scale of these problems?

When planning for taking on this contract, Capita assumed they would inherit about 37,000 cases from MyCSP.

In the joint apology from the Cabinet Office and Capita on 28 January it was noted that the actual backlog of cases was 86,000.

On 2 February the Public Accounts Committee published a letter from the Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary that stated the backlog had increased to 120,000 cases.

The backlog will include a wide range of cases (including duplicates), from relatively trivial to extremely difficult cases involving financial hardship and even bereavement.

The most serious cases will involve members who retired but did not receive their pension. The Permanent Secretary said this happened to about 8,500 members.

The maladministration underpinning this terrible standard of performance is obviously completely unacceptable.

What scrutiny has this issue received in the media and in Parliament?

A scandal of this scale inevitably attracts attention, and there has been a lot of media coverage of it, particularly about the impact on individual members.

Because this is a public scheme whose managers are accountable to Parliament, there has also been a high level of scrutiny there too.

Initially, Prospect devoted resources to raising the profile of the problems that members were experiencing. It has now received the attention it needs at the highest levels.

The experience of one young terminally ill member of the scheme was raised at PMQs on 21 January (BBC Northern Ireland covered that case).

MPs debated the schemes’ problems in Westminster Hall on 4 February. This report conveys the outrage that MPs expressed about the human impact of the situation.

Prospect wrote to all MPs with a briefing about the situation ahead of the debate in Westminster Hall (you can download that here).

The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) has oversight of the Cabinet Office (the managers of the pension scheme).

PACAC questioned Ministers and senior civil servants about the situation on 4 February. An oral evidence session scheduled for 10 February was cancelled but will be rearranged shortly.

Both the National Audit Office (NAO) and the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) have scrutinised scheme administration in general and the transfer to Capita in particular.

The Public Accounts Committee inquiry into the Civil Service Pension Scheme contains a lot of information about the background to this problem (and the latest government responses).

What has been the scheme’s response?

There should be no doubt that the very highest levels of government have grasped the seriousness of the situation and responded appropriately.

HMRC’s second permanent secretary Angela MacDonald has been asked to lead a specialist team to help with the casework backlogs.

She and her team are developing a recovery plan to return the service to an acceptable standard.

The recovery plan includes the prioritisation of processing payments to the most urgent cases.

There will also be a surge team of over 150 additional staff deployed to work on reducing the backlog.

A crucial element of the plan is providing interim financial support for members while they wait for their pensions to be paid.

Members will want specifics about when the backlog will be cleared and service returned to normal. We will provide updates as they become available.

The Cabinet Office published an update on progress towards recovery of the service on 9 February. It stated that the target was to return to standard contractual levels by June 2026.

Should there be compensation for the detriment caused by these problems?

Yes.

Many thousands of members have suffered significant detriment due to the pension scheme’s extremely serious maladministration.

These losses will be financial (eg interest payments owed on the sources of credit members relied on while waiting for their pension to be paid) and non-financial (eg the distress caused by the delays).

Each case will be different, but it is not difficult to imagine circumstances where members who suffered the most from serious delays in payment could be owed substantial compensation.

Many tens of thousands more members will have suffered less serious detriment, but still potentially be owed compensation for the significant inconvenience these problems will have caused.

The usual route for making complaints about maladministration is through the pension scheme’s internal dispute resolution procedure.

This process has two stages, if members are unhappy with the outcome, then can appeal to the Pensions Ombudsman (this must be within three years of becoming aware of the problem).

All members are entitled to make a claim through this process. Because thousands of members claiming at the same time could result in more delays, Prospect has been pushing for a compensation scheme.

A compensation scheme would not prejudice members’ right to take a claim through the standard complaints process. But it could deliver appropriate compensation to more members more quickly.

We will communicate more about our campaign for a compensation scheme in due course. We will also provide support for members taking a claim for compensation through the complaints procedure.   

What should I do if I’m in financial difficulty because of delays to my pension?

The Cabinet Office and employers have moved at great speed to set up a scheme to offer people in financial distress due to delays in receiving their pension.

The proposal is for a scheme of personal loans to provide transitional help to individuals experiencing financial hardship due to delays to their pension payments.

The loan is to provide funds to bridge the gap until the pension is paid. It is not a form of compensation for the detriment suffered.

The loan is interest free and a single payment of £5,000. A further loan, of up to £10,000 in total, will be provided if more financial support is required for exceptional reasons.

Those who have fully retired (ie left active service) since 1 January 2025, and those who are partially retired, should apply to their former / current employer.

All other members of the Civil Service Pensions Scheme should continue to use the hardship route available through the pension scheme administrator, Capita.

Any member who has not received their pension payment on time will have suffered a detriment and will be entitled to a payment under this scheme (subject to basic ID / fraud prevention checks).

Entitlement to a further payment, beyond the basic £5,000, will be based on evidence of additional financial need.

The most serious cases will urgently need funds to deal with the financial hardship they have suffered. This scheme provides the fastest potential access to financial help.

Members should be directed to the scheme run by their (former) employer. Accessing funds through this scheme will also automatically trigger escalation of the case with Capita.

The expectation is that all employers will offer this scheme to affected (former) employees. Please get in touch if there is any difficulty with your employer participating in this.