The Cabinet Office’s latest update on work to address the Civil Service Pension Scheme crisis has revealed a growing number of new claims still waiting for payment more than 100 days after being lodged.
In August the government’s Pensions Taskforce began publishing “granular” data on the total number of cases that are more than 100 days old, broken down by the category of claim and an indication of whether it can be resolved straightforwardly.
According to the latest figures, Capita was processing 2,042 cases older than 100 days as of 15 September – a 21.7% increase on the numbers published on 7 September.
Of those cases, more than 1,500 were described by CSPS administrator Capita as “non-workable” because extra information is required before the claim can complete processing. That figure is an increase of 17.8% since 7 September.
Conversely, just 505 of the cases were described as “workable” and payable within 15 days.
Bereavement cases account for the bulk of the claims identified as more than 100 days old. There were 1,423 of them on 15 September, up 354 from 7 September.
The latest figures show 323 death-in-service claims that have been in the CSPS system for more than 100 days, up 15 on the previous figure.
Also waiting more than 100 days to complete processing were 283 claims for regular pension payments – five fewer than on 7 September – and 13 ill-health-retirement claims, one more than on 7 September.
Richard Vianello, the Cabinet Office’s director responsible for civil service pensions, said Capita’s performance “remains unacceptable” almost 10 months after it took over as CSPS administrator from MyCSP and the backlog crisis in the scheme emerged.
“We continue to press Capita for plans and realistic timescales for recovery,” Vianello said.
“The increase in old cases is a clear indicator of continued poor performance across these priority categories. The remedial advisor is working closely with Capita to scrutinise their plans and to identify where these can be enhanced to improve the position.”
Cabinet Office minister Sally Jameson has pledged to give members of parliament a “substantive update” on the CSPS next month, following the conclusion of the technical audit and report being carried out by remedial adviser Grant Thornton, under measures announced in July.
Civil service unions PCS and Prospect are actively campaigning for the CSPS to be brought back in-house at the Cabinet Office, however FDA general secretary Dave Penman warned last week that insourcing right now would be the wrong move to tackle the scheme’s problems.