Civil servants to protest at Capita common assembly amid pension disaster

Civil servants will exhibit at Capita’s annual common assembly, demanding the provider to be stripped of the pension administration contract.

The Civil Service Pension Scheme (CSPS) administration, which manages the pensions of 1.7 million present and former civil servants, has been in chaos since Capita took over the contract in December.

The Public and Business Companies (PCS) union is calling on members and supporters to assemble in Sheldon Sq., London on the morning of Might 18 to demand the federal government finish Capita’s contract and produce the work in-house.

On 1 December, Capita formally took over the CSPS from MYCSP after profitable the contract in 2023, when the Cupboard Workplace awarded Capita a seven-year contract value £239m.

Regardless of an 18-month interval to organize for takeover, there have been warnings that Capita wouldn’t be prepared on the take-over date. The harshest warning got here from MPs in a report from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in October, which mentioned there was a “actual threat” that Capita wouldn’t be able to take over the administration of the scheme on time. However Capita hit again claiming this was inaccurate and “not reflective of the present state of the transition”.

Capita took over on time, however the authorities was compelled to convey a troubleshooter in from HMRC to guide an “pressing restoration plan” by January because the pension scheme skilled difficulties. This included an extra 150 Capita workers and short-term monetary help for folks struggling hardship.

On the time, Capita mentioned that it anticipated to revive service ranges for essentially the most pressing instances by the tip of February. However the service remains to be experiencing extreme difficulties with civil servants left in monetary hardship. Issues have seen 1000’s of civil servants face monetary hardship due to extreme delays in receiving their pensions.

In a PAC listening to in February, Capita mentioned it was “overwhelmed” by round 16,000 unread emails and 20 million database errors unexpectedly left to it by the earlier administrator.

However in a letter final month, Duncan Watson, CEO on the earlier administrator MyCSP, hit again. He advised MPs, amongst different issues, that Capita didn’t make the most of MyCSP’s 12 years’ expertise administering the scheme, and that the incoming provider’s preparations for the contract change, akin to gown rehearsals, had been insufficient. The PCS union had been inspired that its calls for to convey the service in-house could possibly be achieved after the Authorities ditched Capita from the Royal Mail Statutory pension scheme contract.

The reasoning for Capita being dropped from the contract was, in keeping with the Cupboard Workplace, its “failure to satisfy key supply milestones”.

Cupboard Workplace minister Nick Thomas-Symonds went additional. “Capita had an 18-month planning window to organize for the transition,” he mentioned. “They did not ship quite a few milestones, together with a failure to implement the required IT automation. The Cupboard Workplace repeatedly flagged delays in transition milestones.”

Again in October 2025, when PAC warned the federal government about the exact same “missed milestone” points in relation to Capita’s CSPS administration, the federal government took a distinct method.

The PCS union can be energised by Cupboard Workplace Parliamentary secretary Chris Ward’s declare in February that “the age of outsourcing will finish”, and introduced plans to in-source companies.

“For many years, successive governments have been, at finest, ambivalent about whether or not public companies are delivered in-house,” he mentioned. “At worst, we’ve had outsourcing by default, with public companies hollowed out and bought off to the bottom bidder. That period ends at present.”

The federal government launched a Public Curiosity Take a look at, requiring all departments to evaluate whether or not a service may be delivered extra successfully in-house earlier than any outsourcing resolution is made. This may apply to service contracts of £1m and above, protecting over 95% of central authorities spend.

“All departments should additionally publish insourcing methods to make the most important wave of insourcing in a technology a actuality,” mentioned Ward.

See particulars concerning the deliberate PCS demonstration right here.