New Capita-run Civil Service Pension Scheme - problems (what a surprise!)

hugheskevi

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81873437#Comment_81873437

I don't people were particularly complaining about Capita before the 2014 change. The change was more ideological than performance-driven. In 2010. Francis Maude was pursuing a mutuals agenda. The Civil Service was previously administered in-house through a variety of processing centres, with Capita providing the pensioner payroll.

The introduction of the mutual MyCSP saw all the administration centres come together and be outsourced (TUPE'd) to the new mutual entity. Soon afterwards the pensioner payroll operated by Capita was brought into MyCSP too. It was the transition of the payroll that caused the problems people complained about. Depending on who you believe, Capita handed over far more work than was expected, or MyCSP wasn't sufficiently ready to take on the payroll.

With the change of administration contract from MyCSP to Capita, the mutual experiment is ended, and the services are fully outsourced.

jamesh8

An update for people. Capita told me over the phone today that they are not currently offering interest free loans to members. They say they are only for people who left the Civil Service within the last 12 months. I left several years ago.

They did tell me though that they are now prioritising the lump sum payments and getting those to people waiting, ahead of the regular monthly payments. The idea being to ease people’s hardship.

What__A_Shower

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81876919#Comment_81876919

Let's hope they are getting things sorted, I retired exactly one month ago today and as yet haven't received my lump sum or my 1st pe

nsion payment! Nor have I any idea when to expect payment.

german_keeper

Latest detail I have seen was in Civil Service World on 4 Feb.

"The government is aiming to restore most elements of the Civil Service Penson Scheme to the required service levels by June, a Cabinet Office minister has said."

"Meanwhile, Cabinet Office permanent secretary Cat Little has revealed that the backlog for the scheme has now reached 120,000 cases."

However a little further down there is a bit extra regarding the numbers. Looks like they don't actually know, just an estimate.

“The size of the work in progress (WIP) backlog (including the circa 90,000 cases inherited from the previous administrator), is now estimated at around 120,000 cases."

Golactico

The Government has published a plan:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-pension-recovery-plan-updates/civil-service-pension-recovery-plan-update-9-february-2026

NormalNorman

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81878002#Comment_81878002

19 managers and consultants with one employee actually doing the work on minimum wage… And they call this progress?

MouldyOldDough

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81878024#Comment_81878024

250 people working 24/7 - a "Surge Team" !

due to get it all sorted by June 2026….

kermchem

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81878170#Comment_81878170

No, it is 150 person government surge team, and a 100 person Capita surge team working at best 35 hours per week, with 120,000 outstanding cases

JoeCrystal

Indeed, so if it is the end of June 2026, that leave 98 working days aka and assume everyone is never going to be on holiday or take leaves or be on sick leave or either paternal and/or maternal leave.

This mean there are 686 hours available per employee, multiple that 250 fully available employees, that mean 171,500 hours altogether or 10,290,000 minutes, divide that by 120,000 cases, that leave roughly 85 mins per case to work on.

However, the numbers 'dealing' with the cases are likely to be much, much smaller, I got a feeling that most of them will be thrown at the phone banks to deal with calls and that Outstanding cases are potentially still building up.

Look like 100 from Capita is solely focusing on dealing with the calls while 150 from Civil Service are just about catching up on unread emails and letters and likely photocopying and scanning the information and forms into the system.

kermchem

If they fix the website, not pretend to fix it, but really FIX it, then they might get the call volume down.

OH has friends who retired recently and have not been paid. OH might go in 12 months - we are just working on the old annual benefit statements and building a savings chest. Hope it might really work by the time we need it. (oink flap)