Capita is expected to miss the June 30 deadline to have the Civil Service Pension Scheme (CSPS) administration running as it should, according to trade union.
The Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) said it was told by the Cabinet Office that it expected Capita to miss the deadline set by Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds.
The contract has been beset by problems. Following more than 40 years of service, former civil servant Steve Tessier is still waiting for his pension more than six months after retiring, saying he is increasingly concluding that Capita and the Cabinet Office “took a risk” with people’s money.
“The more I learn of the warnings that were given well before the 1 Dec 25 transfer, [the more it] suggests that someone thought they knew better and took a risk with my money, and that of thousands of fellow retirees and their dependents. Sickening, if so,” said Tessier.
He added that there is “absolutely no surprise” to him that Capita is set to miss the deadline this month, “not least because I am still waiting for my pension”. He stated that judging from civil services groups on social media, there are “still a lot of people in the same boat”.
Thousands of current and former civil servants are affected. According to the PCS, 607 MPs have received at least one email from constituents about this crisis, with more than 3,134 emails sent in total.
“I have no confidence that the Cabinet Office or Capita have reliable enough data to judge either,” added Tessier.
Tessier spent most of his 40-year civil service career at the Ministry of Defence, which included a spell on secondment at Nato.
As reported by Computer Weekly in October last year, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) warned the government about the missed IT milestones as being of concern, among other things, which Capita rubbished at the time.
A couple of months later, on 1 December, Capita took over the pension scheme, which has 1.7 million members, from MyCSP, in line with the £239m contract awarded in 2023.
Government rescue
But by January this year, an HMRC troubleshooter had to step in to lead an “urgent recovery plan” amid difficulties following the transfer.
The problems continued, with huge delays in providing pensions, leaving many scheme members in financial distress, including people with no other source of income receiving no pension.
The PCS said it was informed that “not only will the service fail to meet contractual standards by the ministerial deadline, but the extensive recovery operation established to prop up the failing contractor will also need to continue beyond that date”.
The Cabinet Office would not confirm this, with a spokesperson stating: “The service levels following the move to Capita have been unacceptable. An urgent recovery plan is underway, and our immediate priority is to stabilise service levels and give current and former civil servants the service they deserve.
“To this end, the minister for the Cabinet Office Nick Thomas-Symonds set a deadline of the end of June for significant progress to have been made in this area, and we will assess the situation at the end of the month.”
The spokesperson added: “We will continue to use all available commercial levers to hold Capita to account and ensure they deliver for both members and taxpayers.
Capita had not responded to questions by the time this article was published.
Blame game
In a February PAC meeting, Capita blamed a backlog of work inherited from previous supplier MyCSP for the problems. Capita executives told MPs it was left with 16,000 unread emails and 20 million database errors.
Facing MPs then, Chris Clements, managing director of Capita Public Services, was asked if the business process outsourcing company had been lied. He said: “We were surprised by the nature of the backlog on going live.”
But in a letter to MPs, Duncan Watson, CEO at MyCSP – which was set up as a private and government joint venture in 2012 – hit back. He told MPs that Capita did not take advantage of MyCSP’s 12 years’ experience administering the scheme during its takeover and that Capita’s preparations for the contract switch, such as dress rehearsals, were inadequate.
Fran Heathcote, PCS general secretary, said news of the expected missed target this month “is beyond disappointing, but I can’t say it’s surprising”, adding: “Capita has missed deadline after deadline, yet civil servants and pension scheme members continue to pay the price for those failures.
“Minor financial penalties mean little when you look at the size of the contracts they’ve been rewarded. They’re certainly no comfort if you’re facing financial hardship because you’ve retired and your pension hasn’t been paid. Ministers must now take immediate steps to bring the administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme back into the civil service.”
Minister Thomas-Symonds stripped Capita of its Royal Mail Pension scheme contract in April, citing Capita’s failure “to deliver numerous milestones” as the reason.
As revealed by Computer Weekly last month, ministers refused to sign off a contract to Capita because of the supplier’s civil service pension administration problems.
Computer Weekly understands a £563m contract that Capita had all but sewn up with the Cabinet Office was cancelled after ministers refused to approve it due to Capita’s CSPS administration failures.
According to sources, Capita was set to be awarded the Learning Frameworks 2.0 contract, which will replace existing learning and development contracts held by KPMG, but the government has cancelled the procurement and will bring the service in-house.
