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:

• 740,944 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 National Audit Office carried out an investigation into the administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme in June 2025.
• The Public Accounts Committee also published a report 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.

Government response to the delays

The government set out an update to the delays on 6 July 2026 which included information on the current backlog and how the government has intervened to support the scheme.

In sum, the government said that Capita did not meet the end of June deadline to restore service levels as agreed, and that it was continuing to apply stringent commercial levers, including by withholding £9.9 million in payments. The government also said that it was exercising its right to deploy independent auditors to review the administration of the scheme, and that it would provide an update on the findings of the audit to Parliament in October. The statement is reproduced in full below:

I want to provide the House with an important update on the administration of the civil service pension scheme. Capita was awarded this contract in November 2023. It had two years of transition to prepare, and its senior leadership gave me explicit personal assurances ahead of the handover that they were fully capable of managing the workload and that they were ready for a successful transition. Indeed, the chief executive promised that technological improvements would create a flagship use case for the largest AI-enabled pension scheme in the country. It is clear that non-delivery of technology has been a fundamental part of Capita’s inability to deliver. The reality is that it was completely unprepared and its system was overwhelmed, which resulted in a backlog that skyrocketed to a staggering 120,000 unresolved cases.

In response, I intervened immediately and established the Cabinet Office pensions recovery taskforce. Capita committed to two critical recovery targets: an end of April milestone to clear the inherited arrears, and an end of June milestone by which point it promised a complete return to standard contractually required levels. Capita missed its own April milestone. The end of June deadline has arrived, and I regret to inform the House that Capita has failed to meet that milestone, too. Seven months on from taking over operations, too many pension scheme members still face unacceptable delays after years of dedicated public service.

Since my last statement on this matter, thousands of quotations have been issued and pensions put into payment. Capita had committed to clearing the quotes backlog by today, but I am afraid that the reality remains very different. As of the end of June, there are still more than 6,700 quotations outstanding for past retirement dates, and more than 4,100 bereavement cases on which Capita could take action. These are the most harrowing stories, affecting devastated scheme members and grieving families. My officials have forcefully escalated those systemic back-office failures directly to Capita’s senior leadership, demanding an immediate investigation and resolution.

I have to be frank with the House: what progress has been achieved is due to the significant additional capability provided by the Cabinet Office pensions recovery taskforce, and a team of more than 140 officials whom I have “surged” into the process. Let me also say that public money will not fund Capita’s failings. We will recover every single penny of these surge costs directly from Capita, and I will not remove a single member of the team until the service is permanently fixed and fully restored.

Across core areas of pension payments, quotations and complaints, the operational reality remains deeply concerning, and although the speed of quote issuance has accelerated over the past month, it still leaves more than 6,700 outstanding quotes to be processed, as of the end of June, for past retirement dates.

Let me turn to the subject of parliamentary correspondence. The volume of MP complaints remains too high—there are more than 1,900 outstanding constituent cases. I understand that Capita resolved nearly 700 last week, but another 500 or so complaints were raised, so this remains all too current an issue. When I last reported to the House, the figure stood at 1,500. The growth of the backlog is completely unacceptable. Capita has clearly failed to manage the correspondence effectively, to the extent that I have had to ask the pensions recovery taskforce to step in. Indeed, the situation has been so faltering that the Parliamentary Secretary at the Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Test (Satvir Kaur), has written to Mr Speaker about it.

Because of Capita’s persistent failures, alongside a wider, completely unacceptable failure in its overall MP engagement, demonstrated—as was reported to me by Members from across the House—by a poorly co-ordinated MP drop-in session at the end of May, I had to intervene again. I ordered the pensions recovery taskforce to take direct operational control and establish virtual surgeries for MPs and caseworkers running every weekday. I hope that has provided at least a direct route for parliamentary offices to try to secure updates. Since I launched that initiative in May, we have delivered more than 250 virtual surgeries, supporting more than 150 Members from across the House.

Let me now turn to the steps that I am taking to protect scheme members. I have no doubt that all Members will agree with me that the service that Capita has provided has been dreadful. We need to take further robust measures. First, I will continue to apply the most stringent commercial levers. We are executing robust, continuous action with immediate financial consequences. We have already hit Capita’s bottom line by withholding £9.9 million in payments, because the Government will only ever pay for what is successfully delivered.

I find this failure remarkable in the light of the personal assurances given to me by the chief executive ahead of the transfer. Those assurances have not been met. Core outputs are deficient, and Capita is failing even to make basic functionality work. I know that many Members are calling for the immediate termination of the contract and the insourcing of the service, but if I were to terminate the contract straightaway, that would clearly cause severe disruption to the payroll. I have to manage this so that the payroll is operated effectively; what I cannot do is create an immediate, catastrophic operational vacuum. I cannot replace a complex pension operation overnight. However, I have instructed my officials to bring together a broad range of stakeholders and experts to consider, in line with the Government’s strategy, how scheme members can best be served by a long-term, durable delivery of the scheme. Let no one think that I or the Government are accepting the status quo.

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.

That future is being actively shaped by the Government’s announcement on 17 June of a new public interest test that will end outsourcing by default. From April 2027, all contracts over £1 million in value must be assessed for in-house viability before renewal, and Departments exceeding £100 million in annual spend must develop five-year insourcing strategies. This framework builds the exact long-term capability that we need, shifting our focus from short-term pricing to service quality and operational resilience. To ensure full accountability, we are executing our contractual right to deploy independent auditors immediately to conduct a technical review of systems, data integrity and compliance with statutory duties. We are also beginning the process to appoint a remedial adviser, at Capita’s expense, to force rectification directly on the ground.

I am not ruling out further interventions, but we need to build the unvarnished evidence base that will serve as a strict prerequisite for further formal escalation, including potential litigation or step-in remedies, should performance fail to improve. In October, the House will receive a further update on the findings of the independent audit, the performance of the remedial adviser and the longer-term structural options being considered, including meeting our manifesto commitment by bringing the scheme in-house.

Let me finish by saying this. Public servants who dedicated their working lives to this country deserve absolute financial security and unwavering dignity in retirement, not corporate failure, empty promises and severe administrative failure. I hope the House will see the uncompromising line in the sand that I am drawing today. I will continue to apply commercial pressure and ensure full accountability, and we will find a way forward that delivers for the people who deliver for this country. I commend this statement to the House.

Recovery plan and taskforce

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 ran to 20 March 2026 and aimed to resolve priority backlogs and ensure the system is prepared for long-term stability.

The government has published a number of updates regarding the progress of the recovery plan. In its most recent update on 13 July 2026, it said that:

• 6,700 members are still waiting for a quotation
• There are 618 outstanding death in service cases and 429 outstanding ill health retirement cases
• In bereavement cases, benefits are due to 7,603 families. Capita is awaiting confirmation of further information from 3,033 families/representatives. 4,570 are with Capita to progress and Capita has committed to clearing these bereavement cases within two months (by early September).

The government said that it was exercising its contractual rights to intervene by deploying independent auditors to review Capita’s systems and appointing a remedial advisor to enforce operational rectification.

Parliamentary activity

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

Public Accounts Committee inquiry

The Public Accounts Committee has an ongoing inquiry into the Civil Service Pension Scheme. On 8 July 2026 the committee held a joint oral evidence session with the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee to take evidence from Cabinet Office Minister Nick Thomas Symonds MP, government officials, and Capita’s senior leadership.

Written statement

Prior to the 6 July 2026 written statement, the minister announced on 22 April 2026 that the contract for Capita to administer the new Royal Mail statutory pension scheme had been terminated following Capita’s failure to meet key transition milestones.

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.

Support for scheme members

The government is offering interest-free bridging loans for members who are struggling to access their pension. In an update from the Civil Service Pensions Taskforce on 28 May 2026, it was announced that the maximum loan amount would be increased to £20,000, available in exceptional circumstances.

The scheme publishes regular updates for members on the progress made in reducing the backlog.