{"id":682646,"date":"2026-07-09T16:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T16:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/682646\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T16:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T16:54:08","slug":"civil-service-pension-scheme-a-few-months-away-from-recovery-mps-told","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/682646\/","title":{"rendered":"Civil Service Pension Scheme \u2018a few months\u2019 away from recovery, MPs told"},"content":{"rendered":"

Restoring the Civil Service Pension Scheme to \u201cnormal\u201d service levels is likely to take another \u201cfew months\u201d, MPs have been warned as further details of issues faced by administrator Capita emerge.<\/p>\n

Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds gave the recovery estimate to a joint session of parliament\u2019s Public Accounts Committee and Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee yesterday. \u00a0<\/p>\n

MPs also heard that after two missed deadlines for returning to \u201cnormal\u201d, there is currently twice as much casework ongoing in CSPS than would be expected in a scheme of its size. \u00a0<\/p>\n

On Monday, Thomas-Symonds announced a package of enforcement measures<\/a> following Capita\u2019s failure to meet its end-of-June deadline for restoring service levels. Yesterday, he acknowledged\u00a0that significantly more time will be needed. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the next few months our focus is on exerting robust operational and commercial pressure to clear the remaining backlogs and recover the service,\u201d he said. \u201cBut for the longer term, I do think the episode has vividly exposed the severe limitations of outsourcing the Civil Service Pension Scheme.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Angela MacDonald, who is currently leading the Cabinet Office\u2019s Pensions Taskforce, told the session that as of 30 June, Capita had 111,700 \u201cpieces of work sat inside the scheme\u201d. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The firm inherited a 90,000-strong casework backlog from previous administrator MyCSP when it took on the scheme in December last year. In recent months thousands of retired civil servants \u2013 and relatives of officials who died in service \u2013 have faced delays in receiving payments. \u00a0<\/p>\n

MacDonald told MPs that the current backlog of scheme-related work was \u201cdouble where we should be\u201d. She said a normal head of work in a scheme like the CSPS would be about 55,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cabinet Office permanent secretary Cat Little was asked for her estimation of a \u201creasonable timescale\u201d for returning the CSPS normal operating levels.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI have asked Capita to provide us with a fully confident rectification plan which has detailed assumptions and asks the very simple question: Why is it going to be different and believable this time?\u201d she replied. \u201cThey are going to provide us with that detailed plan on 14 July.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Little said her understanding is that the firm will commit to returning some categories of CSPS related work to \u201cnormal service levels\u201d by 1 September, with \u201cmore complex cases\u201d following in October. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have got to take the rectification plan that Capita give to us and we are going to have to assure every single detail and assumption in it, to stress test whether or not we\u2019ve got confidence in it,\u201d she said. \u201cThat is exactly why the minister has asked us to bring in independent auditors as well, so that we can actually look at the underlying systems and assumptions that are driving that plan.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Little told MPs that Capita is expected to miss 16 of the 21 key performance measures for the CSPS administration contract this month. The KPIs it is expected to meet are understood to relate to \u201congoing payroll\u201d.<\/p>\n

Failure to deliver on tech commitments<\/p>\n

Little told MPs she has confidence in Capita\u2019s transparency, but not in the quality of its data and management information related to the scheme. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to do a lot of work with Capita to make sure we have confidence and assurance in the information that we are being given,\u201d she said. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The perm sec said that as part of its contract Capita was supposed to have delivered a system with Microsoft business analytics platform Power BI self service and enabled with machine intelligence \u201cfrom day one\u201d but that had not materialised. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo there are lags in the data that we need and the quality of what we\u2019re getting still needs significant assurance,\u201d she said.\u00a0\u201cWe were given very, very strong assurances that this technology would be available by now. It became very clear post-transition that that was not going to happen within the timescales that we were given assurances about.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Little told MPs that the Cabinet Office is still waiting for \u201ca good, confident technology rectification plan that we have confidence in\u201d from Capita. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich is exactly why we\u2019re having to bring in a remedial adviser to give advice on why this hasn\u2019t been delivered and what confidence we have that it can be,\u201d she said. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Capita’s \u2018reputational hit\u2019 from CSPS failings\u00a0<\/p>\n

MPs also heard from senior officials at Capita yesterday afternoon, when group chief executive Adolfo Hernandez acknowledged the firm\u2019s failings related to the CSPS are \u201chaving a very negative impact on our reputation\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His words were borne out in a trading update issued by the firm this morning, which predicted that additional expenses related to its work on the \u00a3239m CSPS contract<\/a> could hit 2026 profits by up to \u00a340m.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEfforts to restore service levels on this contract mean that the Pension Solutions division will incur a number of additional costs in 2026,\u201d the statement said. \u201cThis includes surge resource costs and remediation costs on [the] Civil Service Pension Scheme contract and the likely impact from costs against KPI performance.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Paymaster general Thomas-Symonds confirmed on Monday that \u00a39.9m has already been withheld from Capita over the flawed administration transfer.\u00a0 He was also adamant that \u201cevery single penny\u201dof the government\u2019s \u201csurge\u201d costs would be clawed back from the firm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yesterday, government chief commercial officer Andrew Forzani told MPs that the\u00a0\u00a39.9m figure relates only to Capita \u201cfailing the transition\u201d and that penalites for the firm\u2019s failure to meet monthly KPIs will come on top.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been deducting monies every single month for failed service delivery,\u201d he said. \u201cWe haven\u2019t declared those numbers because we are in dispute with Capita about [them].\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Forzani said one of the purposes of bringing in independent auditors was to reach agreement on the data.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Capita has increased the number of staff deployed on the CSPS contract as part of \u00a0its efforts to deal with the crisis, but a further financial battlefield will be costs related to the Cabinet Office\u2019s deployment of additional civil service staff. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Angela MacDonald told MPs yesterday that the cost of her Pensions Taskforce, which includes 140 \u201csurge\u201d civil servants, will be \u00a312.5m for 2026-27.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Capita has pledged to cover the cost of the taskforce from May, but not from when it went live in February.<\/p>\n

At yesterday\u2019s session, Public Accounts Committee chair Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown pressed Capita CEO Hernandez to commit to covering the entirety of the government\u2019s surge costs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hernandez replied: \u201cThere are a number of variables here. There\u2019s a lot of decisions that need to be made. There is no isolated decisions. There are decisions that pertain to this particular investment. There are decisions about others. I think we need to have a commercial discussion [and] put them all together.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hernandez said he had heard the various calls for Capita to pay the surge cost, but suggested that it would be a matter for future negotiation. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we sit around the table, this will be taken favourably,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we haven\u2019t sat around the table. It would be a little bit irresponsible for me to make a commitment.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Clifton-Brown dismissed the response as \u201can appalling reply\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Restoring the Civil Service Pension Scheme to \u201cnormal\u201d service levels is likely to take another \u201cfew months\u201d, MPs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":682647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[84,4176,4174,4175,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-682646","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\/682646","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=682646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}