Administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme

The scheme

The Civil Service Pension Scheme is a public service pension. It pays a promised pension at retirement based on length of service and salary.

The scheme has 1.7 million members at 31 March 2025. Of these:

• 741,944 were pensioners
• 606,054 were active members making contributions to the scheme
• 355,529 were deferred members. These members no longer make contributions to the scheme and the scheme does not yet pay them a pension.

The scheme has 299 employers, including 205 public sector organisations and 94 private sector employers.

Administering the scheme

The Cabinet Office outsources administration of the scheme.

The administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme transferred from MyCSP to Capita on 1 December 2025.

Prior to the transfer:

• The NAO carried out anInvestigation into the administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme in June 2025 before the administration transferred to
• The Public Accounts Committee also published areport on the administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme in October 2025, which highlighted concerns that Capita would not be ready to take over administration as planned.
  • Delays

The government has acknowledged that there have been delays following the transfer and said on 19 January 2026:

At this time Capita has not provided this information to the Cabinet Office. The focus is on working with the Cabinet Office in order to resolve queries and delays and to move to a stable service as quickly as possible.

We acknowledge and recognise that there are delays and are working closely with Capita in order to move to the expected service levels as quickly as possible. This includes providing additional support to Capita, increasing staffing by c50% over and above the number that transferred from MyCSP. It is also prioritising urgent cases.

There have also been a number of recent PQs on the issue.

The scheme recently published an article for members setting out the background to the delays. It includes information on what members should do if their case is urgent.

Westminster Hall debate

There was a Westminster Hall debate on the administration of the civil service pension scheme on 4 February 2026. The Minister, Anna Turley, said “This is a failure” and outlined the government’s recovery plan. The Minister also urged Members of Parliament to raise constituency cases directly with the government.

Recovery plan

The government published details of its recovery plan on 9 February 2026. The plan included three “sprints” each lasting three weeks.

• Sprint 1 ran to 6 February 2026 and included a support loan scheme for people experiencing hardship. The loans are for £5,000 and up to £10,000 in exceptional circumstances on an interest free basis. The sprint also included the government and Capita mobilising additional surge teams.
• Sprint 2 ran to 22 February 2026 and aimed to restore normal service levels for “the most critical cohorts: death-in-service cases and ill-health retirement cases by end February 2026.”
• Sprint 3 is between 2 March and 20 March 2026 which aims to resolve priority backlogs and ensure the system is prepared for long-term stability.

The government published a recovery plan update on 2 March 2026. It said significant milestones had been reached including:

• The call answer rate increased to 99% in the last week of February compared to 27% in January.
• Standard service levels had been restored for death-in-service and ill-health retirement cases.