Capita bosses got a pasting from MPs today over a civil service pensions scandal which has led to ‘heartbreaking’ cases of hardship.
Two senior executives, Richard Holroyd and Chris Clements of Capita Public Services, apologised for the customer service meltdown, which has seen some pensioners left without an income for months, and they promised to fix it.
But during their appearance at the public accounts committee at Westminster, the pair blamed previous administrator MyCSP for the huge backlog of cases they inherited – including more than 15,000 unread emails.
The Daily Mail and This is Money revealed this week that the case backlog has swelled to 120,000, forcing the Government to issue emergency loans to former staff, since Capita took over at the start of December.
We have since received another influx of messages from distressed employees, some desperate for payments and lump sums to pay essential bills, who have waited hours on the phone to get through to Capita.
Richard Holroyd, chief executive officer, pictured left, and Chris Clements, managing director of Capita Public Services, right, at the public accounts committee hearing on 12 February
The civil service scheme is one of Britain’s most generous, because members receive final salary or career average salary-linked pensions which are guaranteed until they die.
Capita boss Richard Holroyd said receiving so many unread emails in a handover was ‘unheard of’, and the firm had also discovered corrupted data and a cache of 12,000 ‘voluntary exit’ cases which had not been loaded onto the system.
He nevertheless told the hearing: ‘My apologies to all members of the scheme. We own this problem and we will fix it.’
Mr Holroyd confirmed Capita might be subject to financial penalties but said it was focusing on addressing the current issues before discussing that with the Cabinet Office, which oversees the civil service pension contract.
He also held out the hope of compensation for people caught up in the chaos in cases where Capita was found to be at fault, though it would be a matter for the Cabinet Office where problems were down to MyCSP.
Cases where Capita might pay compensation could ‘potentially’ include Jason Gould, a retired prison officer who has been waiting for his lump sum and pension since December, Mr Holroyd told the Daily Mail when we pressed him about this case outside the committee room.
Chair Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, said his committee had warned in November there was a ‘clear risk’ that Capita would not be ready to take over administration of civil service pensions, and ‘our predictions have sadly have become a reality’.
‘Over the past few months we’ve heard heartbreaking stories of the hardship suffered by the current and former civil servants since Capita’s takeover of the scheme,’ he told the hearing.
‘Many of these people have been left without any income and the departments are scrambling to organise hardship loans to help those affected.
‘Reaching retirement is a significant milestone in anyone’s life but instead this time has become marred by stress and anxiety to many current and former civil servants who have dedicated their careers to public service across this country.’
Sir Geoffrey pressed Mr Holroyd on what Capita knew about the huge case backlog in advance of taking over from MyCSP, and what it should have known and what it did about it.
‘You were surprised, I get that. But why were you surprised? Were you lied to about the information that you’d been given or did you not ask the right questions?’ he asked.
Mr Holroyd replied: ‘We asked and were making clear that we were concerned about the level of the backlog because we could tell that it may not be as we were anticipating.’
He declined to comment on the ‘veracity’ of the answers Capita received, but added: ‘What’s apparent to us and became apparent to us at “go live” [the start of the contract on 1 December] was that the information we were given was not the whole picture.’
Sir Geoffrey said the ‘proof of the pudding’ would be in the written correspondence that Capita was going to have to produce to the Cabinet Office.
Anna Dixon, Labour MP for Shipley, said: ‘Many of us as MPs were very well aware even before the transition of the problems that people who have worked their lives in public service were finding with MyCSP.
‘And obviously there was this promise that things would get better, yet for many of them things have got a lot worse.’
She went on: ‘I took part in a Westminster Hall debate with many other fellow members and it was really heartbreaking hearing the litany of individual cases that all of us were handling.
‘For example, a constituent of mine made a claim back in May, [and] was having these difficulties with MyCSP, long waits on the phone, unanswered emails, documents going missing.’
She told Mr Holroyd: ‘Given that we already knew that I do find it very surprising that you in this transition period didn’t know.’
Reaching retirement is a significant milestone in anyone’s life but instead this time has become marred by stress and anxiety to many current and former civil servants
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, chair of the public accounts committee
Ms Dixon added: ‘Clearly those problems have continued with the portal not allowing logins, phone conversations getting cut off mid-phone call, and obviously underlying all of this is that financial hardship, [and] extreme worry about how people are going to pay their bills.’
The Capita bosses told MPs that phone calls about priority cases were now being answered quickly, with average waiting time for a call about a bereavement less than a minute – see its full statement about current service levels below.
They urged people to use the ‘get in touch’ button, which lets you fill in a form, on the scheme website, because messages from that source are being sorted by AI with the most serious sent straight away to human staff who would deal with them.
At the urging of MPS, Mr Holroyd and Mr Clements promised to move this button from the bottom of the web page to the top as soon as possible, and ideally today.
The Daily Mail is continuing to urge Capita to address the many complaints raised by our readers in recent weeks, including a dossier of severe cases which we have supplied to the company.
Some of our readers watched the public accounts committee hearing online, including Daniel O’Brien who is waiting for news about his pension to find out if he can retire.
He felt frustrated about a lack of answers about when ‘bog standard’ retirement cases will be sorted out.
‘I was supposed to retire in March. I have already delayed it to April but looks like I might have to contact my HR department to put it back again. Just a phone call or email would be nice as they don’t respond to any correspondence.’
Transition: Capita took over the civil service pension scheme from MyCSP last December
Former civil servant Andrew Jones, who asked for his name to be changed, is waiting for a response to a form he filled in about his retirement after we highlighted his case in a recent story.
‘The phone calls are appalling and they have had over two months to sort the phone system out and they have not done so,’ he said after watching today’s hearing.
‘Even knowing the information they are not acting upon that information. I have provided that paperwork and they have not carried out the processing of actioning that, and they are not communicating if the paperwork is correct or not.’
MyCSP, a partnership between employee partners who own 25 per cent and the company Equiniti, said: ‘MyCSP completed a comprehensive handover of the pension scheme with the new provider which was overseen by the Cabinet Office.
‘All outstanding work items, including items paused during the agreed blackout period, were fully disclosed, discussed and reviewed with Cabinet Office senior management prior to commencement of the handover process.
‘Over the course of its tenure administering the scheme, MyCSP consistently met the service levels set by the Cabinet Office as independently confirmed in the National Audit Office’s assessment of performance.
‘From 2017 to 2025, MyCSP met 1,425 of 1,444 (98.7 per cent) of CSPS key service level performance measures and 5,342 of 5,444 (98.1 per cent) of other non-key service Levels. Overall, MyCSP processed 99.7 per cent of all individual requests within agreed service levels.’
The Cabinet Office reiterated its previous statement, which said: ‘The service levels following the move to Capita have been unacceptable.
‘An urgent recovery plan is under way, and our immediate priority is to stabilise the service and give current and former civil servants the service they deserve.
‘An interest-free loan is being made available via departments to provide immediate financial support where it is needed.’
Watch the public accounts committee hearing here.
Have you been affected? Email: [email protected]
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