Capita lacked ‘element and thoroughness’ in planning botched Civil Service Pension Scheme takeover
Capita didn’t benefit from MyCSP’s 12 years’ expertise administering the Civil Service Pension Scheme (CSPS) throughout its takeover, in keeping with the boss of outgoing agency.
In a letter to MPs, Duncan Watson, CEO at MyCSP – which was arrange as a non-public and authorities three way partnership in 2012 – additionally mentioned Capita’s preparations for the contract change, corresponding to costume rehearsals, have been insufficient.
MPs on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) try to unravel the issues which have seen hundreds of civil servants face monetary hardship due to extreme delays in receiving their pensions.
Throughout latest PAC hearings investigating issues with the CSPS administration, Capita bosses informed MPs that most of the points have been brought on by the backlog of labor left to it by MyCSP.
In 2023, the Cupboard Workplace awarded Capita a seven-year contract value £239m for the administration of the CSPS, which has 1.7 million members. The takeover from the earlier administrator, MyCSP, occurred on 1 December 2025. In the next month, amid delays and issues, an HMRC troubleshooter was introduced in to steer an “pressing restoration plan”.
In a February PAC assembly, Capita informed MPs it was left with 16,000 unread emails and 20 million database errors.
Going through MPs then, Chris Clements, managing director of Capita Public Providers, was requested if the enterprise course of outsourcing firm had been lied to concerning the backlog. He mentioned: “We have been stunned by the character of the backlog on going dwell.”
In a later PAC listening to that includes Capita executives, committee chair Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP pointed some blame in the direction of MyCSP and its authorities associate, the Cupboard Workplace: “We should do not forget that the Cupboard Workplace and MyCSP, respectively, are additionally chargeable for the scheme and the state that it’s presently in.”
One former civil servant affected by the lengthy delays echoed this view, including: “Capita’s line on the mess left by MyCSP has been the identical since this primary kicked off, they usually might effectively have some extent. But when so, then MyCSP should be held accountable for handing over a shitshow, and the Cupboard Workplace wants to elucidate why the chance was not adequately thought-about or mitigated of their due diligence course of.”
MyCSP hits again
However in a letter to Clifton-Brown, following revelations from Capita, the MyCSP CEO threw doubt on Capita’s claims. He mentioned the corporate has no file of the database errors that Capta talked about in a PAC listening to, including that the 16,000 unread emails highlighted by Capita have been the results of a “blackout” interval when MyCSP may log them however not act on them.
He wrote: “All through the transition interval, the MyCSP crew labored collaboratively and brazenly with each Capita and Cupboard Workplace. In doing so, my crew met the deliverables and actions agreed with Cupboard Workplace to help the transition as set out within the ‘exit plan’ and ‘handover plan’, which paperwork MyCSP’s obligations to help the transition of the scheme to Capita.”
In his letter, Watson criticised Capita’s actions when making ready for the takeover. “The MyCSP transition crew felt that Capita’s discovery actions didn’t totally leverage the just about 12 years of expertise MyCSP had of operating the scheme,” he wrote. “MyCSP articulated considerations about this by way of a number of key dangers reported to and mentioned with Cupboard Workplace as a part of the formal transition governance.
“The second key lesson is the vital significance of detailed and strong planning of the interval main as much as and together with ‘cutover’ to the brand new administrator. We don’t consider that these actions have been carried out to the extent of element and thoroughness required for such a serious transition. Consequently, the dangers related to not having a sturdy transition/cutover course of in place weren’t totally understood or mitigated previous to transition.”
He informed the PAC that the MyCSP crew have been invited to take part in a costume rehearsal of the info migration ingredient however “weren’t included in any subsequent costume rehearsal actions or any parallel operating of operations”.
“In our expertise, this isn’t thought-about regular follow for a transition of this scale,” mentioned Watson. “In MyCSP’s view, a extra intensive programme of costume rehearsals and parallel operating involving each events might have helped to additional mitigate transition threat.”
Watson reiterated that MyCSP initially raised considerations with Cupboard Workplace about Capita’s readiness to tackle the scheme in July 2025.
It was October final yr when a PAC report mentioned there was a “actual threat” that Capita wouldn’t be able to tackle the administration of the CSPS on time, however the outsourcer hit again claiming it was “not reflective of the present state of the transition” and inaccurate.
Laptop Weekly contacted Capita for remark, however it had not responded by the point this text was printed.
