Capita is starting a bulk issue of delayed pension quotes for Civil Service Pension Scheme members, unions have been told. The Public and Commercial Services Union continues to call for insourcing the scheme’s administration and will support a protest outside the administrator’s shareholder meeting this month. 

The news that Capita is issuing delayed pension quotes means members who notified their retirement date in the first months of 2026 “are unlikely to have pension finalisation and payment until July, a wait of over six months”, the PCS union said.  

It said that more than 1,500 transition support loans – for people left without income because of the pension delays – have now been made by employers to retiring scheme members and that the duration of the loan scheme will be extended to offer some protection to those retiring this year, “with many expected to reach the current limit of £10,000”. 

Capita previously said it recognises the seriousness of the matters raised and is taking steps to address these issues.  

“Our focus is on ensuring members of the Civil Service Pension Scheme receive the service they expect and deserve, in line with the plan agreed with the Cabinet Office, and in spite of the challenging environment and complex nature of the backlog inherited,” it said in April. 

The administrator blames its predecessor MyCSP for what it says is a backlog, but MyCSP has rejected this accusation. 

Capita has offered to cover the cost of the surge resource deployed by the Cabinet Office to address the CSPS delays but the situation is complicated as Angela MacDonald, who leads the government’s emergency intervention, is retiring in July, according to PCS. A new director of pensions role has been created within the Cabinet Office as a result, according to the union. 

It added that two parliamentary committees are combining to look at what caused the issues at CSPS.  

For the union, the culprit is clear. “This level of repeated service failure is the consequence of the introduction of privatisation to the administration of the scheme in 2012,” it argued. “PCS is calling on the government to act decisively by ending Capita’s involvement as the scheme administrator and bring the service back in-house, as it has done in the case of the Royal Mail Statutory Scheme.”  

PCS said it will support a protest at Capita’s AGM on 18 May.  

The union is also pointing to “growing calls” - it is unclear by whom – for a payroll contract covering more than half of the civil service not to be given to Capita.  

The government announced in March that it had awarded the payroll contract to Capita. This was ongoing despite issues at CSPS, including a data breach, the Teachers’ Pension Scheme and the Royal Mail Statutory Pension Scheme. Last month, ministers cancelled a contract with Capita for the RMSPS saying key milestones had been missed.