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16 February 2026

Public Accounts Committee Questions Capita Bosses

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on 12th February questioned Richard Holroyd, Chief Executive of Capita Public Services, and Chris Clements, Managing Director of Capita Pension Solutions, regarding the widespread disruption affecting thousands of Civil Service Pension Scheme (CSPS) members since Capita assumed responsibility for administering the scheme in early December.

Since the transition, serious issues have prevented many members from accessing essential pension services. These include delays to pension quotes, lumpsum payments, and regular pension payments, particularly for newly retired members, but also for those affected by death-in-service and ill-health retirement cases. Long waits on customer service lines and problems accessing the online portal have made the situation worse.

The Public Accounts Committee heard that the backlog currently stands at around 120,000 cases, according to the Cabinet Office, with 8,500 scheme members who have yet to receive expected payments and a further 6,300 cases relating to scheme members who have died.

Chief Executive of Capita Public Services, Richard Holroyd, told the Committee that of the open cases, 86,000 were inherited from MyCSP, as were 15,000 unread emails, but added that “We now own this problem. It is ours to fix and ours to fix at pace.”

Capita reported that it initially expected around 7,000 customer calls per week but received 25,000 during one week of January. To cope with demand, Capita has expanded its contact centre workforce and is now supported by 150 HMRC surge staff, bringing the total team to approximately 750, up from 400 before the transition.

Chris Clements said that while bereavement and hardship calls are being prioritised and answered quickly, other callers continue to experience “unacceptable” wait times. He confirmed that payments for the most serious cases should be completed by the end of February, with normal service levels restored by the end of March.

Capita working alongside the Cabinet Office have now set out a plan that they hope will reduce the backlog. A series of key target dates have been put in place:

End of February:

  • All lump sums paid.
  • Death-in-service cases returned to normal levels.
  • 80% of calls answered within 80 seconds.
  • Email backlog cleared.

Mid-March:

  • Priority voluntary exit cases completed.

End of March:

  • All contracted Service Level Agreements met.
  • “Track my case” portal feature live.
  • Remaining system features delivered.

CSPA welcomes the structured plan and the additional staffing, but we continue to call for much clearer communications from Capita. Many members contacting us are unable to obtain even basic information about the status of their queries, pension processing or payments, an issue that is contributing significantly to frustration and distress.

We will continue to monitor progress closely and advocate for members affected by delays.

You can watch the full PAC hearing on: Parliamentlive.tv – Public Accounts Committee

Transitional support loans are being made available to those who have retired in the last 12 months via departments. These are intended to support individuals experiencing delays to their pension payments due to the handover of the Civil Service Pension Scheme’s administration from MyCSP to Capita. Pension Scheme members who retired more than 12 months ago s

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