drafted in to lead\u00a0efforts to\u00a0resolve\u00a0the Civil Service Pension Scheme\u00a0backlog crisis\u00a0<\/a>in January this year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\nHMRC said MacDonald will be\u00a0\u201cfocused\u201d\u00a0on\u00a0the\u00a0CSPS\u00a0work until\u00a0she leaves government.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
MacDonald joined the civil service in 2009 after holding several roles at insurance giant Aviva. She originally worked at the Department for Work and\u00a0Pensions, but\u00a0left to become\u00a0HMRC\u2019s director general for customer services in 2017.\u00a0<\/p>\n
HMRC first permanent secretary and chief executive JP Marks\u00a0thanked MacDonald for her contribution to the work of government and praised her career achievements.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI am\u00a0very grateful\u00a0to Angela for her exceptional leadership of HMRC, across the operational delivery profession and Yorkshire region throughout her career,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAngela has had an outstanding 30-year career, and as\u00a0second\u00a0permanent\u00a0secretary, has been central to transforming HMRC\u2019s customer service and compliance performance, leading HMRC through the Covid-19 pandemic.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d\u00a0like to thank Angela for her leadership and commitment to public service. The whole department wishes her all the\u00a0very best\u00a0for the future.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Civil Service World understands that MacDonald\u2019s plans to retire from government this summer were announced internally in December last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Cabinet Office, which has overall responsibility for the CSPS, is planning to appoint an operational director who will serve as a permanent successor to MacDonald at the department. It said they would be a \u201chighly skilled operational director\u201d who will be confirmed following a \u201ccompetition process\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
HMRC is\u00a0not currently planning\u00a0to recruit another second permanent secretary. Responsibilities are being\u00a0shared\u00a0across a smaller leadership team, led by Marks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
MacDonald was appointed to her CSPS recovery role in mid-January, weeks after outsourcing giant Capta took over\u00a0from\u00a0MyCSP\u00a0as scheme administrator\u00a0and the full scale of the backlog crisis began to\u00a0emerge.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thousands of civil servants\u00a0have been\u00a0left waiting for regular payments and lump sums,\u00a0prompting the need for emergency loans for former civil servants.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Processing delays have also left officials who are close to retirement in the dark about what their pension entitlement will be, placing them in the position of being\u00a0unable to\u00a0plan\u00a0for the future.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
As of last month, there were more than 23,000 pension quotations waiting to be processed. Scheme members were told this would be done in batches\u00a0by the end of June.<\/p>\n
MacDonald\u2019s most recent update on the recovery work acknowledged that while many\u00a0thousands of lump-sum payments have\u00a0been made\u00a0\u2013 and pensions put into payment \u2013 over recent months, \u201cmany more thousands are still waiting\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 23 April message\u00a0described the recovery period as being at a \u201ccritical stage\u201d, with \u201cmany challenges\u201d\u00a0remaining\u00a0\u201con a number\u00a0of fronts\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
MacDonald told CSPS members that Capita has committed to restore service levels to agreed contractual levels by the end of June.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease be assured that Capita will be held to account to ensure members get the service they deserve,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In addition to its work in relation to resolving the CSPS pension scheme problems, the Cabinet Office is also investigating the respective liabilities of Capita and\u00a0MyCSP.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A Cabinet Office spokesperson\u00a0repeated\u00a0the department\u2019s\u00a0view that\u00a0service levels following the 1 December 2025\u00a0move to Capita have been\u00a0\u201cunacceptable\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAn urgent recovery plan is under\u00a0way, and our immediate priority is to stabilise the service and give current and former\u00a0civil\u00a0servants the service they deserve,\u201d they said. \u201cThis emergency intervention will continue to be prioritised and led by the Cabinet Office.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Civil Service Pensions Taskforce head Angela MacDonald will retire from the civil service\u00a0at the end of\u00a0July, it has\u00a0emerged.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[45,49,48,133,131,132],"class_list":["post-658132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-finance","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}