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

reverso2

Problems are still continuing…

My wife applied for her pension in January 2024 for payment in July 2024. All paperwork completed in May 2024, with follow up queries dealt with in August 2024. She was advised everything was on track for payment but there may be a slight delay…… Nothing happened though and she eventually began the complaint process.

Her lump sum was paid out of the blue in February 2026. She has since been sent two emails and a letter chasing completion of a form - basically they just want a cross in a box to say the question is not relevant (which of course it is).

This is the same question which MYCSP asked her in August 2024 and which she responded to in a few minutes by return email. She has emailed the form to Capita in early April and again in early May this year as well as sent it by the portal. It is clear that Capita are not reading emails that are sent to them in their advertised email address nor does it seem that they are looking at the portal requests. As it is, it looks like she will miss the May end date for payments in June, in which case her pension will at the least be paid 2 years late. Is this a satisfactory service? She has also been waiting for the outcome of her stage 2 complaint for over 7 months now. Absolutely dreadful service from those involved. I hope others are having better luck than she is.

alri08

I have been paid! It seems to be the arrears I would be owed, assuming the monthly pension starts in June.

Backstory is I returned all my paperwork to MyCSP in October 2025 expecting pension to be paid in early February. I then had a message from Capita in March asking me to fill in a McCloud remedy options form again. I sent the completed form back straight away and have heard nothing since then.

This morning I logged into the portal, it still has very little information and does not show my pension in payment. I had a brainwave and logged into the HMRC website, which gives a tax code for civil service pension and shows a payment being made on 1st June 🤞

NewtsInThePond

Good Morning Peeps! I have noticed this information on the CSP web site, but to be honest I have no idea if this will impact on me and those of us waiting patiently for our partial retirement quotes "by the end of June" as promised. Any ideas from anyone else with more knowledge about this subject than me please would be most appreciated!

Temporary pause on transfer value quotes

Some pension services linked to transfer values are temporarily paused while calculation factors are being updated. This is due to a change in the Superannuation Contributions Adjusted for Past Experience (SCAPE) discount rate announced by HM Treasury on 19 May

Therefore, we are unable to provide cash equivalent transfer values (CETVs) or process transfer requests that rely on these calculations. Any requests received will be held and processed once the new factors are available.

hugheskevi

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82016536#Comment_82016536

This is part of the change in the SCAPE discount rate from CPI+1.7% to CPI+2.0%.

All actuarial factors will be updated to take account of this change. Whilst this is done, transfer quotes are suspended. This will not affect retirements.

As a consequence of the change, Added Pension and EPA will become cheaper to purchase, and actuarial reductions for early retirement will increase by a very slight amount.

horsewithnoname

so will people be worse off because they have delayed their retirement because of the utter disgrace that is the cabinet office? Or will that be outweighed by the extra months less actuarial reduction caused by retiring later?

Yorkie1

As a consequence of the change, Added Pension and EPA will become cheaper to purchase, and actuarial reductions for early retirement will increase by a very slight amount.

Do you think that would mean a recalculation of deduction rates (e.g. currently 3.8% for EPA) this tax year, or from next tax year onwards? Or something else?

hugheskevi

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82016925#Comment_82016925

The new factors are likely to be introduced at different times, starting with CETV calculations.

I would not expect any recalculation of anything already in place. EPA in particular I would expect to commence from 1 April 2027, and probably also Added Pension, as otherwise you would either be treating ongoing payments differently to lump sum payments, or having to recalculate ongoing Added Pension purchases.

Lifematters

What about those that have asked for a transfer out of CPS? I completed paper work last August for transfer from CSP into my current LGPS. Heard nothing from them, even after LGPS has been chasing for transfer monies.

hugheskevi

There are a few new updates:

• An update from Angela MacDonald at this link.
• An update to the gov.uk page at this link
• A letter from the Trade Union Prospect to the Public Accounts Committee at this link

It doesn't make for good reading, particularly this paragraph from Angela MacDonald:

We continue to see escalations from understandably distressed members who are having to retire due to ill health or where there is bereavement, whether for a member in service or an already retired member. We know this is an area where we had been informed that service had significantly improved and therefore it is very disappointing to see that this is not what is happening. We are working with employers and with Capita to identify relevant cases and address the poor service delivery. I am sorry this is happening, it is not acceptable.

However, the update is probably more notable for what it does not say than for what it provides updates about. On 23rd April there were 23,000 outstanding quotes. The update says that between 13th and 29th May 800 more quotes will have been issued. That figure of 800 should be more like 7,500 - 8,000 on a pro-rata basis if Capita is going to get through the quote backlog by the end of June as previously stated. There is no commentary about whether the 800 is on target, behind target, or whether end of June still applies. So whilst it cannot be said that the recovery plan is behind target - quote delivery could be back-loaded, with system work initially, followed by large scale quote delivery - it may have been expected that if everything was going well this would have been prominent in any update, and providing no detail on this is unlikely to be a good omen.

There is silence on the status of telephone lines, and the portal updates. Have telephone answering times recovered? Do Capita consider the Portal is working fine and no further work is planned? What of the retirement modeller that was delayed? What about pre 2025 Annual Benefit Statements?

That leaves the timeline looking like this, but there have to be serious questions about whether most of this is deliverable or not:

• End June - all Key Performance Indicators will be back to normal, ie, service at reasonable levels
• End June - have implemented at least 400 of the Immediate Choice elections received but not yet implemented from the statements sent out between January and March 2025 (Pledge made by Capita at a PAC or PACAC hearing, but I suspect unlikely to happen)
• 7th July - Combined PAC / PACAC session with the Minister for the Cabinet Office and senior officials (tbc)
• 31st August - statutory deadline for combined ABS/RSS annual statements to active members
• 30th September - all pensions relating to the quotes issued by end June put into payment and arrears paid
• 6th October - statutory deadline for Pension Saving Statements to be issued
• 31st October - deadline for Pension Dashboard connection
• Payment of interest on late payments, which will be paid separately to the arrears payments that will be made in May, June, July, August, and September (no date committed to)
• Implement new actuarial factors based on new SCAPE discount rate of CPI+2% (factors not yet produced by the Govt Actuary's Dept so no timeline)
• 6 April 2027 - implement Inheritance Tax changes
• Mid 2027 - Immediate Choice Remedy Saving Statements all issued (and presumably remaining deferred members RSS)

The following are things that should have already been delivered but were not, and as yet have no date attached to them:

• Recover telephone wait times back to acceptable levels. After recovering in March, they fell back to well over 30 minutes in April and May
• Recover ill health and bereavement cases back to service delivery standards
• Annual Benefit Statements for years prior to 2025 to be available in member portal
• Retirement Modeller to be available in member portal
• Portal updates - Capita previously said that only 1% of members don't have access, but many were still reporting lost access (username or password suddenly unrecognised and can't be reset). Live Chat only seemed to deal with portal access issues, with other queries having to go through the portal. Many report no answer to queries submitted through portal. Track my case seems extremely basic, and of little use other than to confirm the case is within Capita's system given it only says in progress or resolved. Uploading of documents seems problematic too (only one at a time, or limited size of document, or unable to upload anything at all).

Watching_The_Wheels

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82018335#Comment_82018335

Wonder if they’ll ever add to that list those of us missing WPS contribution refunds, 6 months after retirement and counting for me. Has anyone been refunded since Capita took over?