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

horsewithnoname

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82042317#Comment_82042317

as the saying goes, self praise is no praise at all 🤔

NewtsInThePond

We had an email at work today from the Prospect Union stating their encouragement to sign this petition, which I have already done. Am posting this link here in case anyone else on this particular chat thread may be interested too. Not sure what sort of impact it will have, but interesting to see over 5K peeps have signed up to it! Stop the Civil Service Pension Crisis: Bring Pension Administration Back In-House | Megaphone UK

It still says on the CPS web site - Quotes update: All outstanding retirement quotes will be issued to members by the end of June. Please see our Quotes Hub for information and support. Please note we cannot escalate any quotes in advance of the end of June whilst we work through this distribution.

That is just five working days left!!! I live in hope to receive my partial retirement pension quote, but not holding my breath just yet! 😃

ali_bear

I think at least half of the problem was the way the contract was removed from the previous encumbent MyCSP which left them with little reason to progress anything, or to prepare a decent handover to Crapita. Handing it over again would likely compound the problems.

Having said that I will fall off my chair if I see any progress on my case before the end of June.

indiasign

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82045536#Comment_82045536

I note you, quite sensibly, haven’t specified which June! 😉

MouldyOldDough

Maybe now is the time to start thinking of asking Andy Burnham for help ?

I have absolutely no idea what his views on Civil Service pensions will be - should he become the new PM …

He has apparently already talked about reducing income tax paid by pensioners.

german_keeper

Some information which may be of use to somebody; unusual situation but I suspect not unique. Bit of a saga!

A friend of mine retired/resigned from HMRC in March 2024 at the age of 56. His financial plan was to take maximum UFPLS from his CS Partnership Pension and his AJ Bell SIPP, backed up by savings and income from a small business, until taking his CSP at 60.

Due to a change in personal circumstances the plan changed and he decided to take his CSP about 18 months early from April this year and duly put his papers in with the required 5 months notice, lump sum due about 18 April with regular pension payments a month later. Of course as I type he hasn't even received a quote, despite umpteen phone calls and the usual escalation promises.

As part of his change of circs he is required to pay a significant lump sum by 28 June, and this was the major reason for taking the pension early so the lump sum would cover this. Not ideal but the only real option he had. A few weeks ago he went down the hardship route and emailed HMRC. At this point unbeknown to him he was introduced to an apparently arbitrary cut off point that people who retired before 1 Jan 25 were not entitled to a hardship payment.

He went back to HMRC with the argument that any hardship caused by this fiasco was no different whatever your retirement date was. They quite oddly suggested he contact Capita. As we expected they played the straight bat and confirmed that hardship payments were nothing to do with them. So back to HMRC and they said approach Cabinet Office.

So he sent an email to Darren Jones MP who appears to be Minister for Cabinet Office. His Office replied that as he wasn't a constituent they couldn't help, but did give a contact email address in the Cabinet Office. He emailed this address, copied in the lady at HMRC who had been dealing with the case, and hey presto within a few days the hardship payment was paid to his bank account.

We haven't seen any official confirmation of a change in policy, I suspect we won't. But I think the moral of the story is that hardship caused by Capita is hardship caused by Capita and there is no logical reason for this Jan 25 cut off point. Hopefully this post will help somebody.

LHW99

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82047543#Comment_82047543

However the latest rumour doing the rounds is that RR is considering automatic taxation of the state pension

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-15929077/State-pension-taxed-paid-new-plans.html

The suggestion was also in yesterday's Telegraph, which also said:

"The change would require a major technical update to the way Britain’s
tax system operates, a task which the Government was planning to hand to
a private sector contractor."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/pensions/state-pensions/income-tax-to-automatically-come-out-of-state-pension/

One can only hope it won't be either of the two mentioned in this thread, otherwise no-one in the UK over SPA will have any money!

daisy_1571

Jeezo, raise the personal taxfree level to the highest personal state pension amount, job done. Only personal pensions/second jobs etc will deal with the tax as happens now, beurocracy money saved all round, feel-good boost to every tax payer, huge stress off pensioners with small pensions, win win. This is only happening because the tax free level has remained the same for so long, it is litterally a problem of their own making. Or what am I missing?

Why can successive governments not just do the flipping simplest thing and save everyone ongoing rules, regulations and complications?

QrizB

Jeezo, raise the personal taxfree level to the highest personal state pension amount, job done. … Or what am I missing?

The "highest personal state pension amount" is somewhere north of £20k pa. Raising the personal allowance to that level would cost the Treasury quite a lot.

Edit to add: back in 2025 (before the latest increases) @Silvertabby had a neighbour who was on £24k pa state pension. In the same post she said that there were 2.5 million state pensioners receiving more than £13k pa.

hugheskevi

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82048595#Comment_82048595

As at November 2025, there were 2.6m individuals receiving a State Pension in excess of £13,000 p/a.

Of the 2.6m, 2.1m were receiving a pre-2016 pension and 0.5m a New State Pension. That demonstrates the issue of taxation of State Pension where the only income is State Pension is far from being anything new.

It is (somewhat) interesting to look at what the Personal Allowance and higher rate thresholds would be today if they had simply increased in line with average earnings every year since 2008. The Personal Allowance today is still higher than it would have been under earnings uprating, while the higher tax threshold is around £20,000 lower than where it would have been.

The real terms reduction to the higher rate income tax threshold has almost entirely taken place since 2021. Combined with means-testing of Child Benefit starting at £60,000 the band of earnings between £60,000 to £70,000 has been hugely squeezed by taxation changes and fiscal drag.