Members of the National Trade Union Committee have written to the Cabinet Office demanding urgent action to improve the administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme. 

The scheme serves more than 1.5m people. Prospect and the other members of the committee have written to the Cabinet Office, which looks after the scheme, saying there are growing numbers of reports that members have experienced “serious delays” in the payment of pensions and lump sums. They also cite scheme members being unable to retrieve membership details from the online portal. 

The administration contract for the scheme was returned to Capita in 2023, despite a hack at the firm that exposed the data of 6.6m people. Capita started administering the scheme on 1 December last year under a seven-year contract worth £239m, with an option to extend for a further three years. The contract returned to Capita after issues had occurred with MyCSP, the joint venture administrator that took over from Capita under an agreement made in 2012.   

In the letter sent earlier this month, the unions are asking the Cabinet Office to provide:   

“Having difficulty registering or logging in to the online portal can be frustrating and inconvenient but having no income for months while you wait for the scheme to pay your pension and lump sum can be catastrophic,” said Prospect’s deputy general secretary Steve Thomas. 

“Something seems to have gone very badly wrong. While this is not necessarily Capita’s fault, as most of these payments should have been made before they took on the contract, we need to be confident that they have a plan, including putting more resources in to clear the backlog as soon as possible,” he said.

The Cabinet Office is expected to respond to the unions’ letter but has not said when it will do so. A spokesperson said: "This remains a complex and large-scale pension scheme to administer, and we are grateful for the continued engagement of trade unions. The Cabinet Office is working closely with both employers and unions, and is continuing to monitor Capita’s services with strengthened levers to ensure a better service for both members and taxpayers." 

Conservative MP Andrew Snowdon tabled a question earlier this month asking how many members of the Civil Service Pension Scheme are waiting for retirement quotations or commencement of pension payments beyond expected timescales. Cabinet Office minister Anna Turley replied that she did not have that information but that the Cabinet Office was providing additional support to Capita to resolve the issue. 

“This looks like a real scandal and, shamefully, the government doesn’t even know how many people are affected,” said Thomas, with Prospect believing thousands could be affected by delayed pension payments. “This matter must be addressed immediately, compensation paid automatically, and steps taken to ensure this never happens again.” 

Capita put the delays down to issues at MyCSP. A spokesperson said: “At the time of contract signature, the volume of work in progress items left by the previous provider was agreed to be 37,000. Once we took over the scheme in December, however, we discovered that the backlog we were inheriting was in fact 86,000. As a result, we have experienced several times the normal volume of member queries since launch.” 

Capita said it has increased full-time employees by 50% to 500 compared with the previous provider and is working to “clear the backlog we inherited and resolve member queries as quickly as possible”. 

The spokesperson added: “We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused to our members. Our programme of enhancements for CSPS members will continue to be rolled out over the coming months which will streamline the administration process and offer more tailored support structures to members.” 

The firm wrote a letter to the chair of PAC last November, warning there could be an increase in complaints because some members have experienced long delays around McCloud remedy, work in progress backlogs and voluntary exits.

There were expected to be about 132,100 complex McCloud remediation cases after the new administrator’s go-live date, as well as pension calculations and requests for information relating to voluntary exits for about 21,000 transactions. Capita said it would put in place a “ring-fenced” team to deal with the latter. 

MyCSP has been contacted for comment.

The issues in the CSPS come after headteachers’ union NAHT wrote to the Department for Education about delays to some services in the Teachers’ Pension Scheme last October. The administration of the 2m-member teachers’ scheme was due to transfer from Capita to Tata Consultancy Services last autumn under a new 10-year contract. However, the government has pushed the full handover back until summer this year.

Three years ago, a hack at Capita meant that information about 6.6m people, including members of over 325 pension schemes, was leaked. The Information Commissioner’s Office fined Capita £14m last October for failing to ensure the security of personal data.