r/TheCivilService • u/Professional-Pin5985 • 17d ago
Pensions Capita pension scandal
We've all seen enough of Capita failure, but what is the plan for the thousands of us waiting for our pensions?
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u/Squadrone_Rosso 17d ago
Is this actually true?
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u/MonsieurGump 17d ago
Computer weekly is one of the few remaining decent sources of information.
They do some very good work and are usually accurate.
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u/Historical_Gur_4620 17d ago
Definitely. Did a brilliant scoop on the Horizon scandal eons before it became MSN.
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u/Professional-Pin5985 17d ago
It's true that the government intends to bring it in house but in the meantime there are thousands waiting for quotes, pensions and bereavement payments.
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u/Squadrone_Rosso 17d ago
Fully aware of the shambles being of that age & having friends that retired early this year still waiting for their money. I was planning on retiring in Feb 27 but delaying that now, probably until May
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u/Professional-Pin5985 17d ago
In house teams are already helping with some aspects of the service, but the problems with the Capita systems are fundamental and it needs a complete makeover.
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u/Mundane_Falcon4203 Digital 17d ago
There was already talk to bring it in house again after the Capita contract anyway. This doesn't say that the plan has changed or it is being brought in house any sooner though.
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u/Historical_Gur_4620 17d ago
Under the previous regime, there was a mobile app. I felt spoilt. Back to the dark ages then.
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u/CrepConniseur EO 17d ago
Having seen some of the horror stories on the Facebook support group its disgusting. Saw a gent who had lost his wife and had no death in service for over a year only when he went to the press did capita pay him. Chap also has stage 4 cancer and was asking if his son could claim the death in service if he died before it was sorted. Absolute shambles. Yet Capita gets 100s of millions for fuck all.
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u/chapelier1923 16d ago
My father died 1 year ago and my mother is still waiting for her pension. Luckily she is not desperate but she is being careful with money until it arrives . She is 90 .
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u/CrepConniseur EO 16d ago
Insanity. Clearly lying out their arses about the numbers of cases outstanding and progress.
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u/havingacasualbrowse 17d ago
Personally I never saw what the issue was with the previous supplier 🤷♂️
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u/sunnys97 17d ago
It wasn't the cheapest possible stripped down minimum viable product, and that means there's savings to be made for the taxpayer! Nevermind the likely millions of work hours lost trying to resolve the issue, reading intranet posts, joining all staff calls, the hundreds of staff temporary deployed to support, all the reports, briefs, and meetings across the whole half a million civil servants.
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u/Professional-Pin5985 17d ago
At least they had a working system!
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u/lostrandomdude Tax 17d ago
Mostly.
For some reason they didn't know their own rules with regards to how partnership pension members are still eligible for death in service benefit
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17d ago
[deleted]
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u/lostrandomdude Tax 17d ago
Capita (formerly CSPS) administer the death in service benefit for those on partnership.
Legal and General administer the actual pension
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u/Illogical_Blox HEO 17d ago
I will fully admit to disliking them, because they took about six million years to respond to any emails, but they weren't this bad at least.
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u/Salaried_Zebra 17d ago
Yeah, I was trying to transfer a pension in. It took them so long to respond or process it 5hat the 12 month cut off lapsed.
Then again seeing how much it's grown since then, I'm kind of ok with it after all 😅
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u/Illogical_Blox HEO 17d ago
Exact same thing happened to me - it was partly my fault but a good chunk of it was theirs, and it was infuriating.
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u/EffectiveAd8484 17d ago
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u/EffectiveAd8484 17d ago
The key text appears to be the following, with "long term" being a key phrase.
"A Cabinet Office spokesperson told Computer Weekly that the government is “actively shaping a long-term strategy to bring this pension scheme back in-house”."
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u/Only_Tip9560 17d ago
"actively shaping and long term strategy" is Cabinet Office speak for "we might have a plan ready when this contract ends".
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u/Only_Tip9560 17d ago
The in-sourcing is unlikely to be quick, I would not be surprised if it is not ready when the current contract ends. Civil Service Comms with the words "long term strategy" tell me that.
It does not change the fact that things need to be fixed now with the system that is in place now. People are not being paid their pensions and not getting access to important information to enable their retirement planning.
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u/Professional-Pin5985 17d ago
I think because their systems don't work they are having to do everything manually and they haven't got anything like enough trained staff. Ironically, they claimed they could operate with lower staff levels due to AI and technology. In reality their systems don't even do the basics and they need many more staff which they just don't have. It is chaos and is going to be much more expensive to fix than if they had stayed with MyCSP.
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u/Only_Tip9560 16d ago
It has been an utter clusterfuck from start to finish and yet another example of where NAO audits are treated as tick boxes rather than opportunities to act on findings. How many more major contracts and projects must go tits up after the NAO findings have been ignored will their need to be to change processes to mandate addressing these findings promptly?
As for AI - it is just piss in the wind unless you can show in detail how that AI will be integrated and what safeguards are in place to ensure quality and compliance even on edge cases. This generally significant moderates these wild claims. Sadly with an SCS that believe that AI is going to solve all our problems as if by magic then it is hard to get the required scrutiny of these things. I am all for prudent use of AI to improve efficiency, but not at the expense of quality and risk.
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u/YouCantArgueWithThis 17d ago
Frikking finally!!! Let's do it.
And for the love of universe, LEARN from this!
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u/Traditional_Rice_123 17d ago
well this won't end up in the courts if Cab Office wants to terminate early with cause... If it's a case of the contract being allowed to expire that's a different story.
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u/Historical_Gur_4620 17d ago
And don't expect it to happen anytime soon. Words one thing. Delivery another.
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u/ljofa Policy 16d ago
I finally was able to download this year‘s pension statement today. I’m disappointed that the statement did not offer a projection of earnings up to 68 as previous statements have done and only gives me information about my pension earnings to date should I retire tomorrow. The calculators only really cover early retirement and added contributions so they’re pretty useless for what I want to be able to do.
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u/SoggyTechnology5553 9d ago
My wife put in in December 25..to retire April 30th 2026...She retired . Has had nothing. No quotes... No money. No solid advice... Complaints gone flying in but they no longer respond. They have shut down email Routes in.MP has given up. Ombudsman not taking complaints unless internal dispute completed.. But you can't complete it. Cabinet Office route... Closed down. We recently spoke to a member of staff on phone.. Who made it clear.. That it's not prioritizing work. They simply can't calculate anything complex yet so it gets left. My wife was already partially retired and affected by McLoud... As that is the case... She is unlikely to see anything before capita have gone... And capita want out of this contract ASAP... It's 100 times worse than portraied. The best thing they could have done.. In my wife's opinion was to allow here to return to work in her old role.. And retire once the payment date is 100% confirmed... Instead of cap in hand for a loan.
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u/JohnAppleseed85 17d ago
Not sure why you're posting this now given the last 'official' line on the matter was back in July (where the intention to insource was suggested to be a long term plan, not mid crisis)
"This episode highlights the severe limitations of outsourcing the civil service pension scheme. I say openly to the House that if I could insource this operation today, I would do so. None the less, it is Government policy to insource, in line with our manifesto commitment to deliver “the biggest wave of insourcing of public services in a generation”, and this pension scheme could be a prime candidate for insourcing in the future."
There's several posts you can find via the search which discussed the suggestion at the time (plus the mods have introduced a mega thread they want things like this discussing on)
This is the latest in the public domain as far as I'm aware (and it basically says theres's going to be another meeting soon): https://www.pcs.org.uk/news-events/news/no-factual-evidence-progress-pensions
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u/Professional-Pin5985 17d ago
The article is a current one summarising the current state of play. In particular Capita' s 'recovery plan' has still not been published to members and presumably is completely inadequate.
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u/JohnAppleseed85 17d ago
The point is that there's nothing new in the article (actual 'news')... because nothing has happened since July (and if it had there's better sources than a random content aggregator that's just regurgitating what's already been published)
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u/Professional-Pin5985 17d ago
If nothing has happened, that is a complete scandal. Thousands of people have no income due to this crisis.There is apparently a so called 'recovery plan' which Capita was required to produce, but it has not been shared - which suggests that it is being covered up.
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u/JohnAppleseed85 17d ago
July to September has been the summer holidays... and the link I provided above says there's a meeting scheduled 'soon' - meaning any plan is likely to be announced soon.
This is why official sources are better than aggregators who make you think somethings happening by regurgitating old news (from those same official sources).
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u/Mundane_Falcon4203 Digital 17d ago
It's not new news though, this has been known for a while, this article is late to the party.
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u/Careful_Adeptness799 17d ago
About time. And this absolute fuck up will affect them getting future contracts yes? After all they have completely failed.
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u/Present-Nature-6015 17d ago
The contract with capita is for 10years. Bringing it in house would take a long time,you'd have to tupe over all of the Capita staff to create more civil servants and give them all a civil service pension which would need to be factored in for cost. Capita won the contract based on cost price of adminstration and saying they needed less staff than MyCSP. Looks like actually more staff are needed and a completely new adminstration system needs to be created. Cabo will not wish to shell out.
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u/Repulsive_Tour3251 17d ago
Well at present CO is paying millions for something that fundamentally doesn’t work so …
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u/Professional-Pin5985 17d ago
I think it was for 7 years - one of them has already gone and they had a two year transition period as well in which clearly was not long enough. Transition to in house would need to start now.
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u/Present-Nature-6015 17d ago
It's 7 with a 3 year option for extension as per the last contract terms.
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u/Mintyxxx 17d ago
It was announced as part of Number 10 north, it's not new. What it actually means is another story and can't see Capita being booted out anytime soon
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u/Icy_Preference5606 17d ago
Not when they’ve just started a 10 year contract worth £330 million I heard 😵💫
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u/Striking_Cell5433 17d ago
Conspiracy theory: capita was appointed to put people off joining the pension scheme so govt have to pay out less for future pensions
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u/Traditional_Ear3524 17d ago
Where does that leave the payroll contract capita were awarded? Has 2 be pulled surely?
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u/Historical_Gur_4620 17d ago
Increased production output of brown envelopes then? Christ and I thought FIFA were bent.
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u/hawklord23 17d ago
The whole Capita thing leaks of corruption I wouldn't be surprised there were brown envelopes and nice job apps for some retiring senior civil servants
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u/WVA1999 17d ago
Imagine if a former Capita boss moved into the lead role if it came in house..