The administration backlog at the Civil Service Pension Scheme means experts from Government Actuary's Department have been called in to deal with 'aged cases', in addition to the surge team made up of 140 civil servants. The Cabinet Office has said it is working on a plan to move CSPS administration in-house in the long term.  

GAD experts have been called in "to assist with 'aged cases', many of which date back to when MyCSP administered the scheme", the Public and Commercial Services Union said in an update about a meeting it held with the Cabinet Office. It is not clear how many GAD staff members have been assigned.  

The GAD experts are drafted in on top of 140 civil servants supporting struggling administrator Capita to get on top of a huge backlog on cases, after missing a deadline of 30 June for restoring normal service. PCS is currently awaiting details of the first report following the appointment of consultants Grant Thornton. The union told mallowstreet it remains concerned about the lack of progress.  

 

"We have yet to be convinced that there has been significant progress in clearing the pensions backlog or in delivering a satisfactory service for the future," a spokesperson said. 

 

The union does not have a specific timeframe for when it expects the backlog to be cleared, noting that "Capita has missed every governmental deadline given to them, so there is no clarity on that front".  
 

Cabinet Office working on plan to bring CSPS admin back in-house 

The union is also due to meet with the new Cabinet Office minister, Sally Jameson, "for a detailed account of progress", after Jameson's predecessor said in July that his team was testing the long-term feasibility of a full in-house delivery model. mallowstreet understands that no date has been set for this.
   

 

The Cabinet Office has confirmed that the long-term plan is to bring the CSPS administration in-house. A spokesperson said: "The service levels following the move to Capita have been completely unacceptable. Our immediate priority is to stabilise the service to give current and former Civil Servants the service they deserve. While robust commercial levers will continue to be applied in the short term, the government intends to move forward the biggest wave of insourcing in a generation and is actively shaping a long-term strategy to bring this pension scheme back in-house." 

 

Capita was awarded the CSPS administration contract in November 2023 for 10 years. It took over from MyCSP in December last year, inheriting a backlog of 86,000 items and 15,000 unopened emails, resulting in 90,000 items; a scheme of this size would normally have about 55,000, according to Angela MacDonald, who led the surge team put in place to support Capita. MyCSP was the government's first mutual joint venture, launched in 2012 with Equiniti Paymaster.
 

The backlog at the scheme has had many civil servants without pension income or their families without death benefits for months, while others decided to delay retirement given the current turmoil.  

Of the current backlog cases, 1,677 are more than 100 days old, including 1,069 bereavements and over 300 death in service cases. The majority of older cases require additional information from a third party, according to Richard Vianello, the civil service pensions director in the Cabinet Office. 

Things were made worse recently, when Capita issued annual benefit statements over a shorter time period than normal. It meant the online portal struggled as many people accessed it at the same time.

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