Hundreds of retirees ready for funds after Capita took over scheme | EUROtoday

Some former state workers throughout the nation have been left with no earnings this month after the corporate managing civil service pensions didn’t pay them.

The Civil Service Pension Scheme, which manages the pensions of 1.7 million public sector staff within the UK, has been unable to supply lump sums or common funds to many individuals since Capita took over administration of the scheme in December.

Capita mentioned it had been left with a a lot greater backlog of circumstances than initially agreed and apologised to these affected.

One retiree, Steve Duell, mentioned that he must borrow to pay his payments if he doesn’t obtain his pension by the top of the month.

The 65-year-old from Hull retired on 1 January after 40 years on the Land Registry.

He ought to have acquired a lump sum shortly afterwards however has acquired no data in any respect about his retirement bundle.

Steve has made quite a few makes an attempt to contact the directors, together with spending almost 15 hours on the telephone on maintain, he advised the BBC.

“We’ve got no money, and we’ve got lots of financial commitments.

“We have to repay automotive loans and make mortgage funds.

We organized to get constructing work completed on the home, on the idea of anticipating a lump sum at begin of January,” he told the BBC.

The outsourcing services firm, Capita, took over the contract in December after a lead-in time of two years. It administers pensions for public sector institutions including HMRC, the MOD, the Welsh government, the Scottish government, Transport Scotland, the Crown Prosecution Service, Defra and the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office.

Paul McKenna, from Liverpool, spent most of his working life working with the Inland Revenue and HMRC.

Now aged 59, he planned to retire early on health grounds, after having a heart bypass operation. He gave the required five months’ notice to start his pension, before finishing work on 30 November.

He had hoped to use his lump sum to pay off his mortgage, then live off his pension payments, but is still waiting.

“The fear has been affecting my sleep, it is dangerous for my angina.

“I’m supposed to be getting married in September, but this has left me with lots of uncertainty,” he mentioned.

When he telephoned he waited for an hour on maintain earlier than being given the message: ‘The constructing is on fireplace and we have needed to evacuate’.”

He said that happened twice, before getting through, only to be told his case was with the “resolutions group”.

Capita has previously faced criticism over their management of teachers’ pensions in England and Wales, and has lost that contract to rival Tata.

Until the end of November 2025, the Civil Service Pension Scheme was administered by a company called MyCSP. The contract was taken over by Capita on 1 December, in a seven-year deal worth £239m.

Capita launched a new online portal, for customers to access projections of their expected pensions and lump sum payments. But the portal launch was plagued with problems.

In a statement to the BBC Capita said that when they took over they had expected a backlog of 37,000 cases, but the actual number of outstanding cases was 86,000. Capita says it now has over 500 people working on the project, double that of the previous provider.

“Our groups are working tirelessly to clear the backlog we inherited and resolve member queries as rapidly as doable. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience induced to our members,” Capita said in a statement.

Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee warned in October that Capita would not be ready for the planned takeover.

Committee chair Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, said at the time: “It is deeply irritating for this committee to be scrutinising a difficulty that should be as seamlessly run as civil service pensions.

“Scheme members who have dedicated their careers to public service ought to be secure in the knowledge that it is under sound administration.”

Responsibility for managing the administrator contract rests with the Cabinet Office. A Cabinet Office spokesperson mentioned it remained “committed to working with Capita to ensure the scheme’s success and [to] safeguard the interests of all members.

“We are conscious of the problems some members have confronted and we’ve instructed Capita to repair them urgently,” the spokesperson added.

“We have been assured that Capita is rolling out focused fixes to raised meet the calls for of members and employers.”

Fran Heathcote, general secretary of the PCS union, which represents civil servants said: “This fiasco is extraordinarily distressing for many who have labored and paid into their pension all their working lives.

“We believe that this work should be run by the civil service, under ministerial control, so that it can be properly resourced and pensions paid on time.”