Capita and the Cabinet Office apologised for the ‘worry, frustration, and distress’ and are urgently working together to put it right
05:45, 23 Feb 2026
Lisa Blundell is still trying to find out when she will receive her pension(Image: Liverpool ECHO)
People in Liverpool are waking up this morning worried about losing their homes, after the company managing their pensions failed to make payments. The situation has become so desperate, that one local MP has likened it to the post office scandal.
The Civil Service Pension Scheme, which manages the pensions of 1.7 million public sector workers, has been unable to provide lump sums or regular payments to many people since Capita took over the administration of the scheme in December.
Capita has apologised to those affected – understood to be approximately 86,000 people across the country – and said it had been left with a much bigger backlog of cases than originally agreed. Furthermore, the volume of calls to the service has now reached a peak of 25,000 per week, with some members waiting since January 2025 for their pension claim to be processed.
The Liverpool ECHO understands there are approximately 3,000 civil servants who retire every month, and the government has accepted many of those who have retired since 1 December last year, will not have received their first pension payment. In response to the crisis, the government has announced interest-free “hardship loans” will be offered to thousands of the worst-affected people.
Lisa Blundell is still trying to find out when she will receive her pension(Image: Iain Watts)
However, that still leaves ten of thousands of people without a readily available solution, causing stress, upset and alarm, to those plunged into financial uncertainty. People like Lisa Blundell from Kirkby who worked for the Health and Safety Executive before leaving the service approximately ten years ago.
Since then, Lisa has been working part-time in a new career, but when her husband decided to retire last year, she asked her employer to reduce her hours to one-day-a-week, and the couple started planning how they would spend the next five years.
Lisa said she reached out to the pension administrator in September, to begin the process of getting her pension, but after several delays, and very little contact, she became increasingly concerned.
Lisa added: “There was no update for months, and I knew my hours were about to go down, so there would be very little to live on. I knew Capita had taken over this contract so I called them last month to find out what was going on.
“I called at 8am and they didn’t answer the phone until about 12.30pm, when some poor overworked girl told me all she could do was add me to a list. Since then, I’ve not heard a peep.
“When I started paying into the pension at the start of my career, I was happy to sign up for it, and never thought anything more about it.
Lisa Blundell is still trying to find out when she will receive her pension(Image: Iain Watts)
“I knew every month I was setting something aside for when I could no longer work. I knew that if I kept paying in, I’d be safe and secure later down the line.
“But ‘later’ is now the present, and we’re all being told there are ‘issues’, ‘backlogs’, ‘processing delays’, ‘no clear timeline’. You start to feel like just another file in a backlog, another case number.
“For so many of the people affected, this money isn’t optional money, this isn’t a bonus, this is survival. It’s rent, mortgage, heating, groceries.
“It’s the difference between dignity and dependence, and suddenly, the future that felt secure is thrown up into the air, and it’s replaced with fear of the unknown, where all your plans are in jeopardy and uncertain.
“When I found out about the situation, something inside broke a little bit, because trust has been shattered. It feels like the ground is quietly disappearing beneath your feet, and you’ve got no control over it.
“Like everyone else, I kept my side of the deal, so how can they not keep theirs?
“We’re not as bad as some other cases I’ve heard about, and hopefully we will get by ok until it’s sorted. But you also wonder whether it will get sorted, whether you will be ok, and that’s caused sleepless night, I can tell you.”
Lisa Blundell is still trying to find out when she will receive her pension(Image: Iain Watts)
Lisa is in the same boat as thousands of others, including many people in Merseyside, and it has prompted Knowsley MP Anneliese Midgley to take up some of the cases, culminating in her submitting a question to the House of Commons on Tuesday (February 16).
Ms Midgley likened the situation to the post office scandal, and speculated that the pension problems will end up being dramatised on ITV. She said: “I’ve got constituents who are afraid of losing their homes because they can’t pay their mortgages, they can’t pay their credit card bills, they can’t pay their electricity and gas bills.
“But I think here lies a bigger issue, because it’s stuff like this, why the public have lost faith in us, because it’s not the first time that something like this has happened, and so there needs to be accountability.”
This was captured on a video which was published to her official Facebook page with the following post: “Over the past few weeks constituents have written to me with dreadful stories about not receiving their pensions, leaving them in situations were they are worried about paying their mortgages, credit cards, and bills.
“These pensions are civil service pensions – Capita have taken over the scheme and it has been a disaster.
“There are massive delays, poor communication, inconsistent information, and a national backlog of nearly 90,000 cases inherited from the previous contractor. The result is that many people who have worked hard as public servants across Knowsley aren’t getting their pensions.”
Adding: “I raised this in Parliament because it’s simply unacceptable that constituents are being left without the pensions they rely on. These are people who did everything right – worked hard, paid in faithfully, and trusted the system.
“Serious questions need answering about why this contract was awarded under the Tories in the first place, why clear warning signs were ignored, and what concrete commitments are now in place to clear the backlog.”
Knowsley MP Anneliese Midgley raised the issue in Parliament (Image: Parliament TV)
In response to the issues raised by Ms Midgley, a spokesperson for Capita told the ECHO it is putting more and more resources into resolving the delays, and expects all urgent cases to be resolved by the end of this month, with full recovery of the remaining priority cases to follow.
The spokesperson added: “Capita and the Cabinet Office are deeply sorry for the worry, frustration, and distress this is causing.
“Both Capita and the Cabinet Office take this responsibility very seriously and are urgently working together to put this right. The service is improving and continues to improve week by week.”
In relation to the ongoing problems, the General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) Union, Fran Heathcote told the ECHO: “The situation our members have been placed in is completely unacceptable.
“Civil servants who have worked their whole lives in public service should never be forced into hardship because a private contractor has failed to deliver the most basic standard of pension administration.
“Yet thousands have been left without income for months, pushed into debt, unable to heat their homes, and even relying on family for food, a humiliating and distressing position no one should ever face.”
On January 28, the government announced its decision to offer emergency interest‑free loans – up to £10,000 – to people impacted by the problems at Capita, but this is seen as only a ‘short-term fix’.
Ms Heathcote added: “This must be a turning point. Our members deserve dignity, certainty, and financial security in retirement, not emergency loans to survive failures outside their control.”
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