The Cabinet Office is set to deploy a team of independent auditors to assess the ongoing crisis in the Civil Service Pension Scheme following administrator Capita\u2019s failure to hit a key deadline for restoring service levels. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Paymaster general Nick Thomas-Symonds told MPs last night that the work, which is being billed as an \u201cimmediate technical intervention\u201d, will look at Capita\u2019s systems, data integrity and compliance with statutory duties on the backlog-plagued scheme.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The minister said the work is designed to \u201censure full accountability\u201d and that a \u201cremedial adviser\u201d is also being appointed at Capita\u2019s expense. Their job will be to \u201cforce rectification directly on the ground\u201d, according to the Cabinet Office.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The latest interventions follow Capita\u2019s failure to meet its 30 June deadline<\/a> to restore the CSPS service to contractual levels following its December takeover of the scheme. Thomas-Symonds stated that further interventions could not be ruled out and reiterated ministerial colleague Ruth Anderson\u2019s suggestion last week that administration of the pension scheme could be brought back in-house<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to build the unvarnished evidence base that will serve as a strict prerequisite for further formal escalation, including potential litigation or step-in remedies, should performance fail to improve,\u201d he said. \u201cIn October, the House will receive a further update on the findings of the independent audit, the performance of the remedial adviser and the longer-term structural options being considered, including meeting our manifesto commitment by bringing the scheme in-house.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Thousands of civil servants have faced delays to their regular pension payments or lump sums since Capita took over CSPS administration from MyCSP just over seven months ago. It inherited around 90,000 work-in-progress cases from the previous provider, but the backlog of cases grew to 120,000 within a matter of weeks<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n MPs were told yesterday that following its failure to meet last month\u2019s service-restoration deadline and an earlier target in April, Capita has set a new target for clearing a significant part of the backlog.\u00a0<\/p>\n Thomas-Symonds told MPs: \u201cCapita\u2019s current working assumption is that the remaining backlog of over 6,700 quotations for past retirement dates and the 4,100 actionable bereavement cases will be systemically cleared through the rest of July and August. I hope this House will hold it to that timetable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The paymaster general told MPs that the Cabinet Office has so far withheld \u00a39.9m from Capita for its failure to meet contract requirements. According to the Cabinet Office, that money relates to transition contract payments.\u00a0<\/p>\n Thomas-Symonds also pledged that Capita would pay for the cost of the Pensions Taskforce and the surge team of civil servants set up in January after problems related to the scheme\u2019s change of administration emerged. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI have to be frank with the House: what progress has been achieved is due to the significant additional capability provided by the Cabinet Office pensions recovery taskforce, and a team of more than 140 officials whom I have \u2018surged\u2019 into the process,\u201d he said. \u201cPublic money will not fund Capita\u2019s failings. We will recover every single penny of these surge costs directly from Capita, and I will not remove a single member of the team until the service is permanently fixed and fully restored.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Legal Aid Agency chief to join pensions team\u00a0<\/p>\n Last week the Cabinet Office announced the appointment of Richard Vianello as director responsible for leading on the CSPS and Royal Mail pension scheme, taking on the baton from Angela MacDonald, who retires this month<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Yesterday, Cabinet Office permanent secretary Cat Little told staff that Legal Aid Agency chief executive Jane Harbottle is also being drafted in to \u201cprovide permanent operational command\u201d as director general responsible for pensions. \u00a0<\/p>\n She will work with Vianello and John Fitzpatrick, currently director of the Cabinet Office\u2019s public inquiry response unit, to \u201cco-lead day-to-day steady-state operations\u201d, Little said. \u00a0<\/p>\n The perm sec said the new \u201cpermanent team\u201d would succeed MacDonald\u2019s \u201cemergency\u201d taskforce. \u00a0<\/p>\n Momentum grows for pension-scheme insourcing\u00a0<\/p>\n Speaking in parliament yesterday, Thomas-Symonds made repeated references to the government\u2019s 2024 general election manifesto commitment to deliver the \u201cthe biggest wave of insourcing of public services in a generation\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n