{"id":595036,"date":"2026-05-20T21:28:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T21:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/595036\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T21:28:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T21:28:12","slug":"capita-chief-grilled-over-civil-service-pension-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/595036\/","title":{"rendered":"Capita chief grilled over civil service pension chaos"},"content":{"rendered":"

The chairman of Capita was called in for questioning by one of the most senior civil servants in the Cabinet Office last week to address concerns over the mismanagement of the outsourcer\u2019s \u00a3239 million contract managing civil service pensions.<\/p>\n

David Lowden was called to speak to Cat Little, the permanent secretary<\/a> to the Cabinet Office, on Friday to answer questions about the \u201cunacceptable\u201d management of the scheme, which has seen thousands of members locked out of their retirement savings.<\/p>\n

The Cabinet Office made the rare intervention as civil service pensioners planned to protest about the disruption to payouts at Capita\u2019s annual general meeting on Monday. The Public and Commercial Services Union organised the protest to call for the government to terminate Capita\u2019s contract and renationalise the administration of pensions for 1.7 million scheme members.<\/p>\n

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Capita<\/a> has drawn the ire of pensioners since taking on the scheme after they faced major difficulties accessing their retirement savings owing to errors and processing issues. The company is struggling with a caseload that it has largely blamed on its predecessor, stating in March that it had \u201cinherited a significant volume of outstanding work\u201d, comprising a backlog of more than 86,000 cases. The Times understands Capita was instructed in July 2025 to prepare for volumes of up to 100,000.<\/p>\n

Government departments have been disbursing interest-free loans to recent retirees facing financial difficulties and have so far issued lending worth more than \u00a37 million. The bereaved spouses of former government staff have also faced months of delay receiving their payments.<\/p>\n

One source said: \u201cThey are still having considerable difficulties with the contact centre and the IT still isn\u2019t doing all of the things that Capita promised. Pensions are getting into payments now but there are still problems with people being able to get in touch and the proper escalation of delayed cases.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Angela MacDonald, the second permanent secretary of HMRC, who has been leading a taskforce put in place to support Capita, is set to retire in July. A senior civil servant will be hired to take up a role with direct responsibility for restoring the proper management of the pensions scheme when MacDonald departs. A source said that a senior appointment for pensions was a \u201csensible move\u201d.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for the Cabinet Office said: \u201cThe service levels following the move to Capita have been unacceptable. An urgent recovery plan is underway and our immediate priority is to stabilise the service and give current and former civil servants the service they deserve.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis emergency intervention will continue to be prioritised and led by the Cabinet Office.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister, has demanded Capita restore service levels by the end of June. The Cabinet Office spokesman said the department will use \u201call available commercial levers to hold Capita to account\u201d to ensure \u201cthey deliver for both members and taxpayers\u201d.<\/p>\n

Capita said: \u201cWe continue to work with the Cabinet Office to establish normal service levels. Additional trained resource remains in place, and our focus is on ensuring members of the civil service pension scheme receive the service they expect and deserve. We are sorry for the worry and frustration any delays are causing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The chairman of Capita was called in for questioning by one of the most senior civil servants in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[84,4176,4174,4175,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-595036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}