Prospect, the civil service trade union, has issued a new call for Capita to be sacked from the Civil Service Pension Scheme administration contract after it missed a key deadline to resolve long-running issues with the scheme.
Capita has been struggling to address a severe backlog of outstanding pension payments and other issues regarding the Civil Service Pension Scheme since it took over the administration contract at the end of last year.
The government plans to bring in independent auditors and a “remedial adviser” who will “force service rectification directly”, according to the Civil Service’s chief operating officer Cat Little. It has already withheld contractual payments of almost £10m.
In a statement to parliament yesterday (6 July), Cabinet Office minister and paymaster general Nick Thomas-Symonds said progress had been made in clearing the backlog of outstanding requests and delayed payments, but this was largely due to “significant additional capability” provided by the government, including more than 140 additional staff.
The government has also been providing hardship loans to members affected by the delays to pension payments.
“Capita had committed to clearing the quotes backlog by today [6 July], but I am afraid that the reality remains very different,” Thomas-Symonds said, adding that there were more than 6,700 quotations for past retirement dates that had not been provided as of the end of June, and more than 4,100 bereavement cases yet to be resolved.
“These are the most harrowing stories, affecting devastated scheme members and grieving families,” the minister said. “My officials have forcefully escalated those systemic back-office failures directly to Capita’s senior leadership, demanding an immediate investigation and resolution.”
Thomas-Symonds also pledged to recover the government’s costs from Capita.
‘Shambolic’ transfer causing ‘hardship’
Prospect deputy general secretary Steve Thomas said the transfer of the administration contract had been “shambolic” and caused “real hardship” for some Civil Service Pension Scheme members.
“The government has worked hard to try and rescue the situation, and we thank them for their efforts, but it is right that they are now imposing these sanctions and considering bringing this service back in-house,” Thomas added.
“In the short term, Capita must urgently return this service to the required standard, and must be held to account if they are unable to do so. But it is now obvious to all that civil service pensions are simply too important to be left in the hands of a company with such a dismal record of failure; it is time to sack Capita and take our members’ pensions back from this hopeless company.”
In a message to Civil Service staff, Cat Little said the government was considering “how scheme members can best be served in the long term”, including the potential insourcing of administration. Thomas-Symonds told parliament that ”if I could insource this operation today, I would do so”.
However, speaking in parliament yesterday, Conservative MP and shadow cabinet office minister Mike Wood said there was “little in the government’s record to suggest that they are capable of running this scheme any less incompetently than the current operators”.
He also questioned why Capita had continued to win government contracts even after ministers began publicly criticising the company regarding the Civil Service Pension Scheme.
In a statement, Capita said: “We continue to work at pace to resolve the operational issues in collaboration with the Cabinet Office. Despite the progress made to date, we recognise the service has not been good enough, particularly for members waiting on bereavement, retirement and quotation cases, and we are sorry for the distress and inconvenience experienced by those members. We now have the processes, automation and technology in place to work through the backlog.
“Capita is assessing the implications of the matters contained in the statement and, if required, will update the market as soon as it is able to do so.”
