Capita has missed the UK government’s target to bring the troubled Civil Service Pension Scheme administration to an expected level, as members continue to suffer the consequences.
The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) is demanding that the £239m contract to administer about 1.7 million pensions be brought in-house.
Last month, the union revealed the government had told it the deadline set by Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds was likely to be missed. This is now official.
The government said last month it would assess the situation once the deadline had passed and that it would use “all available commercial levers to hold Capita to account and ensure they deliver for both members and taxpayers”.
Former civil servant Steve Tessier, who retired last year after 40 years of service, is still waiting for his pension. “After months of missing its own deadlines and failing to respond in any meaningful way to repeated requests and complaints, I have absolutely no confidence in Capita,” he said. “It’s an absolute shit show. And now, after no pension for over eight months, I am starting to fear that I will never get paid. Heads should roll, but I doubt they will.”
I have no confidence in Capita. It’s an absolute shit show. After no pension for over eight months, I am starting to fear that I will never get paid. Heads should roll, but I doubt they will Steve Tessier, retired civil servant
Calls to insource pension scheme administration
Fran Heathcote, PCS general secretary, said: “The government set a clear deadline for Capita, and today that deadline has been missed. Ministers promised Parliament there would be consequences if Capita failed to deliver, so we need to know what happens now.
“Thousands of people are still waiting for pension payments, retirement quotes and other vital decisions. Ministers must now explain how they intend to hold Capita to account. The only way to restore confidence is to strip Capita of this contract and bring civil service pensions administration back in-house.”
This comes at a time when the government is planning to insource services that fail to deliver “value for money, economic and market impact, and social value goals”. The government recently published guidelines as part of its plans to “end the era of outsourcing”. All eyes will be on the Cabinet Office, which will have the final decision.
A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “The service levels following the move to Capita have been unacceptable. An urgent recovery plan is underway, and our immediate priority is to stabilise service levels and give current and former civil servants the service they deserve.
“The minister for the Cabinet Office set a deadline of the end of June for significant progress to have been made in this area. We are assessing the situation and will update in due course.”
Errors and missed milestones a major concern
The PCS also said its members working on the Civil Service Pensions Scheme contract have reported that they are being instructed to upload large volumes of data into live systems despite known system and validation issues.
“Members fear this is being done to accelerate processing and demonstrate progress against the government’s deadline, despite concerns that it could increase the risk of errors affecting pension records,” said the union.
As reported by Computer Weekly in October last year, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) warned the government about the missed IT milestones as being of concern, among other things, which Capita dismissed at the time.
The only way to restore confidence is to strip Capita of this contract and bring civil service pensions administration back in-house Fran Heathcote, PCS
A couple of months later, on 1 December, Capita took over the pension scheme, which has 1.7 million members, from MyCSP.
But by January this year, an HMRC troubleshooter had to step in to lead an “urgent recovery plan” amid difficulties following the transfer.
The problems continued, with huge delays in paying out pensions, leaving many scheme members in financial distress, including people with no other source of income receiving no pension.
Capita had not responded to questions when this article was published.
Blame game
In a February PAC meeting, Capita blamed a backlog of work inherited from previous supplier MyCSP for the problems. Capita executives told MPs it was left with 16,000 unread emails and 20 million database errors.
Facing MPs then, Chris Clements, managing director of Capita Public Services, was asked if the business process outsourcing company had been lied to. He said: “We were surprised by the nature of the backlog on going live.”
But in a letter to MPs, Duncan Watson, CEO of MyCSP – which was set up as a private and government joint venture in 2012 – hit back. He told MPs that Capita did not take advantage of MyCSP’s 12 years’ experience of administering the scheme during its takeover and that Capita’s preparations for the contract switch, such as dress rehearsals, were inadequate.
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