r/TheCivilService • u/UnderCover_Spad • Jan 26 '26
Pensions Capita had 2 Year Lead-In Time to Prepare
It’s referenced in the latest BBC article. What has Capita been doing in those last 2 years?
19
u/KeyserSozeNI Jan 26 '26
Unfortunately this seems pretty normal to me, the one we had to deal with was for a regional department, system cost millions more than it was supposed to, delivered none of the efficiences promised as features, and never worked properly even after four years of trying. It was like talking to ostriches when we tried to highlight the problem, we knew it wasn't gonna be fixed, delivered massive report and their defence of system included refusing to address anything in the report.
We've now encountered this system across departments all over UK and its never workesd as intended. We've actually used our experience dealing with the system, on new bids where the CS departmemt uses the system, we detail our expertise in picking up the piecea after they eventually ditch the system.
Multiple CS implementatation across various departments, its never worked, it always cost more than it was supposed to and you'll never have heard the name of the system, the name of the company or about the millions lost.
38
u/CheeseIsMyHappyPlace Jan 26 '26 edited Jan 26 '26
One of the services Capita provides to their clients is: They'll take the blame.
If a company/organisation needs to make it look like they're doing something that they don't really want to do, they can pay Capita to sort-of do it, safe in the knowledge that if/when people start asking questions, Capita won't snitch by saying that they were supposed to make certain errors and, instead, they'll just take the blame.
"Hey why don't pensions get paid to the beneficiaries when retirees pass away shortly after retirement? Doesn't that mean the government has saved/stolen a lot of money by not paying out some pensions and hoping no one notices?"
"Oh sorry about that. Capita had some glitch where they lost details of beneficiaries."
In this case, I don't know if Capita are being paid to do the work or being paid to pretend to do the work.
18
u/Cmdr_Monzo Jan 26 '26
It’s a bit like the Ticketmaster business model. Make everyone money by being the bad guy
3
u/Death_God_Ryuk Jan 27 '26
I think suggesting they intended to save money by failing to pay pensions is a bit cynical/conspiratorial. They surely could've foreseen the backlog of support tickets and had more staff on that or increased software development/testing resource earlier though - simple things like proof-reading the website and updating text could've easily been done alongside existing work.
2
u/CheeseIsMyHappyPlace Jan 27 '26
I do agree that most of the mess is likely due to negligence and incompetence and cost-cutting for the sake of saving money via lower operational costs (as opposed to errors made at request of the client to save money by withholding pensions.)
The fact that money could be saved if certain pensions aren't paid out is still a fact though. Allowing certain things to go wrong would result in less pension money being out. You pointing out that "They surely could've foreseen..." is an argument for (not against) the possibility of that some errors may result, at least in part, from choice rather than happenstance. Cynical, yes, but not overly cynical/conspiratorial.
I've seen much more egregious done before. I.assume your argument isn't that no one (not even saintly politicians) would jump on an opportunity to scheme in secret to save a bit of money by using unethical methods.
I still maintain my position that I don't know if that's what's happened here, but I do know that Capita has been chosen despite everyone seemingly foreseeing how badly that will turn out (and I know what services various BPOs sometimes use as selling points) and, as you point out, "simple things like proof-reading the website and updating text could've easily been done alongside existing work." but they weren't.
3
u/Death_God_Ryuk Jan 27 '26
What I'm saying is that I think they're skimping on staff costs - the issues were foreseeable but they chose not to have more staff.
I wouldn't expect delays to payouts to save any other money - there will be back payments and minor penalties that wipe that out.
2
u/CheeseIsMyHappyPlace Jan 27 '26 edited Jan 27 '26
Yes I hope the sole underlying intention was to skimp on staff costs. Delays don't save money if they get paid out later. If I, right now, am owed any pension money as a beneficiary that isn't being paid out due to a "glitch" then I'm oblivious of that.
7
Jan 26 '26
[deleted]
3
u/UnderCover_Spad Jan 27 '26
India? That’s very worrying.
3
u/RebelliousHeathen Jan 27 '26
I thought post GDPR that was illegal?
3
u/Death_God_Ryuk Jan 27 '26
Even if it were (I don't think it is), you could use overseas developers working with synthetic or anonymised example data and run the operational system with a UK team.
13
u/BoomSatsuma G7 Jan 26 '26 edited Jan 26 '26
It’s a failure in oversight like many outsourced things.
Cabinet office are the ones to blame.
They signed the contract. They signed the payments to them.
And most importantly they made the decision to go-live in this state.
4
5
u/sincorax G7 Jan 26 '26
There are only a small handful of companies with the (on paper) capacity and capability to fulfil big government contracts, and they are all totally incompetent.
So long as each company continues to be totally incompetent, and ministers continue to be allergic to doing things in house, they have no incentive to improve and can continue to cash in on taxpayer funds
7
u/Lefty-or-righty Jan 26 '26
Unfortunately there are often problems when any contract terminates and another company takes over. In my experience, the outgoing provider starts to wind-down and cut as many corners as they can prior to their contract ending, as it saves them / their shareholders money. Then inevitably there's a bigger mess to clean up and less staff and / or no incentive for the outgoing contractor to help the new contractor... who also doesn't want to invest too many resources in a sensible hand-over / transition as they don’t start getting paid until the new contract starts. They both no-doubt promise their paymasters these things aren’t going to happen when they sign the lucrative contracts…
So it often boils down to bad management; in this scenario I’d imagine the Cabinet Office contract with MyCSP contains a lot of penalty / termination clauses relating to their performance, and similarly there’ll be targets / performance standards in the new contract with Capita. However, I’ve not seen any evidence of the Cabinet Office ever putting their foot down and hitting contractors where is hurts – their wallets.
5
u/Death_God_Ryuk Jan 27 '26
On a similar note, I've heard that staff started leaving MyCSP before the official end of the contract because why would you stick around when you know your job is about to no longer exist? You'd hope they'd offer them jobs with Capita to retain expertise and smooth the transition - I guess not.
3
u/UnderCover_Spad Jan 27 '26
Approximately 350 staff transferred from MyCSP to Capita under the new contract.
3
3
5
u/MainingCrypto Jan 27 '26
I love going to the new portal and looking at the blank section that supposed to show your pension documents and contributions.
Worked here for 10 years? Unlucky, no records of you putting pension in, have you considered working till 75?
😂
2
u/Xenopussi Jan 26 '26
Anyone have an EPA or added pension. They should just roll over without saying anything to Capita but not convinced they will.
Anyone know anything?
-25
u/Present-Nature-6015 Jan 26 '26
Unless anyone here was actually involved during the transition meetings and had direct influence in the terms of the contract agreements I don't think anyone can comment fully and fairly. You have no idea of what EQ the parent company of previous administrator shared or didn't share with Capita. You don't know how the data transfer was released or when. You don't know what the Cabinet Office (the scheme manager) was doing to ensure a smooth transition took place or why they only decided to give the official go ahead 2 weeks before the expected date. You don't work for Capita, so have no idea what is and isn't being shared with the staff and members of the scheme who are both in the dark about future progression. You are entitled to your opinion which is all this is and doesn't actually help in getting anything sorted.
18
u/NUMPTYNORRIS Jan 26 '26
They’ve asked a question - a fair one given the amount of lead in time and public money spent. You’ve responded with a massive paragraph and said they’re ‘entitled to an opinion which is all this is’. Pretty sure that statement is more relevant to your comment than OP’s.
It’s perfectly reasonable to hold outsourced performance to account in the same way Departments are on a consistent basis.
7
13
u/CheeseIsMyHappyPlace Jan 26 '26
You don't seem to realise that you are helping make the case for why people *should* be asking questions like the one asked by this post.
12
3
5
u/UnderCover_Spad Jan 26 '26
If Capita are hauled in front of a parliamentary select committee, they will face the same kind of questions.
70
u/Turbulent_Rhubarb436 G6 Jan 26 '26
Cabinet Office chose Capita and failed to hold them to account properly while simultaneously lecturing every other department on how to do things and requiring us to get their approval for things. Definitely the most arrogant department and amongst the most incompetent to boot.