Capita pension portal ‘fiasco’ forces Cabinet Office into damage control

Steven

Capita pension portal ‘fiasco’ forces Cabinet Office into damage control

Summary

The Cabinet Office and Capita have admitted “serious issues” with the new Civil Service Pension Scheme (CSPS) portal after thousands of members experienced login problems, missing or incorrect data, long waits for customer service and delayed pension payments. Around 8,500 newly retired civil servants have had payments delayed; some people have reportedly waited up to nine months for money they are legally due.

The Cabinet Office has appointed Angela MacDonald from HMRC to oversee an urgent recovery plan and Capita says it is deploying a 150-strong “surge team” to clear correspondence backlogs and speed up processing, bringing the total workforce on the scheme to over 650. The organisations say they will prioritise bereavement, ill-health and hardship cases and are working on interim support measures for those affected.

The debacle follows Capita winning a £239m contract to run the CSPS and comes after historic security breaches and prior complaints about the portal’s launch and stability.

Key Points

  1. Capita’s takeover of the Civil Service Pension Scheme has led to widespread portal failures and administrative delays.
  2. Approximately 8,500 newly retired civil servants have had pension payments delayed; some cases date back nine months.
  3. The Cabinet Office has assigned Angela MacDonald (HMRC) to oversee an urgent recovery plan and promised interim support measures.
  4. Capita is adding 150 extra staff to a surge team to tackle correspondence backlogs and processing delays, increasing the workforce to over 650.
  5. Priority is being given to bereavement, ill-health retirements and hardship situations, with a pledge to restore full bereavement services by 12 February.
  6. Unions label the situation a “fiasco” and are calling for better resourcing — some want the scheme brought back in-house.

Context and relevance

This is important because it highlights the risks of outsourcing core public services — especially those that affect vulnerable people dependent on timely payments. Capita has a history of security incidents and failed launches with pension systems, making this latest failure particularly worrying for civil servants, pensioners and departments responsible for oversight.

The story ties into broader trends: government outsourcing of critical IT services, heightened scrutiny after past data breaches, and the political sensitivity of pension payments during cost-of-living pressures. For anyone tracking public-sector IT, procurement risk or pensions administration, this is a material incident with real human impact.

Why should I read this?

Short version: people are missing legally owed cash, the government had to step in, and the contractor with a dodgy track record is scrambling. If you care about pension security, outsourcing failures, or whether taxpayers are getting value for money — or you know someone affected — this is worth a quick read. We’ve done the digging so you don’t have to wade through the full mess.

Source

Source: https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2026/01/29/capita_pension_portal_update/