Asked by: Adam Dance (Liberal Democrat - Yeovil)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of the need to take further action following Capita's confirmation of a data breach on the Civil Service Pension Scheme portal in April 2026.
Answered by Satvir Kaur - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme is the responsibility of the Cabinet Office. The Cabinet Office awarded the contract to administer the Civil Service Pension Scheme to Capita in November 2023 under the previous government.
The issues and delays facing a number of civil servants and pension scheme members in receiving their pension quotes are unacceptable. I want to reassure you that this Government has taken firm action to help put things right as soon as possible. We have agreed a clear recovery plan with Capita, which includes specific milestones and accountability targets for delivery. Existing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) have been enhanced and strengthened to deliver improved performance and higher penalties for failure, including financial penalties. These have already been applied in respect to Capita's performance with recent issues and delays in administering the Civil Service Pension Scheme.
The Cabinet Office has addressed the data breach of 30 March 2026, where a technical failure during a surge of 60,000 access requests allowed 138 members to view others' benefit statements. Investigations confirmed this was a session management malfunction and not a cyber-attack.
Following the Cabinet Office’s notification to the Information Commissioner’s Office, Capita performed a root cause analysis and strengthened system controls to prevent a recurrence. The Cabinet Office has further mandated that Capita provide formal accounts to the Public Accounts Committee and the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee to ensure the provider remains fully accountable for the security of member information.
Asked by: Adam Dance (Liberal Democrat - Yeovil)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate he has made of the number of retired civil servants that have been required to repay overpaid pension benefits due to administrative errors made by civil service pension providers in the last ten years; and what assessment he has made of the potential impact of these instances on the people affected.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme is the responsibility of the Cabinet Office. While the scheme does not publicly report overpayments due to administrator errors, in the last ten years overpayments caused solely by ‘administrative errors’, resulted in a total of 381.
The scheme follows the HM Treasury guidance on “Managing Public Money” which requires the scheme, where possible, to recover any money that a member is not entitled to. Recognising that recovery of overpayments may cause distress we work closely with individual members to ensure that payment recovery plans are affordable, take account of hardship and minimise the impact for the member both in terms of finances and wellbeing. This usually includes setting payment plans to recover monies owed over a reasonable period of time.
Asked by: Adam Dance (Liberal Democrat - Yeovil)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate he has made of the number of cases in which retired civil servants have been ordered to repay pension benefits due to administrative errors made by civil service pension providers; and what assessment he has made of the potential impact of those cases on those retired civil servants.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme is the responsibility of the Cabinet Office. However, the government has a duty to recover overpaid public money to ensure the scheme remains fair and sustainable for all taxpayers.
The Civil Service Pension Scheme pays out 732,000 pensions per month, and processes in excess of 1,000,000 member transactions each month. There have been, on average, 40 cases a year where human or administrative error led to a member being overpaid since 2014. While many overpayments in the scheme occur due to the late notification of a member's death, these specific cases do not relate to processing mistakes. Under current contracts, if the scheme cannot recover these funds from the member, it seeks recovery from the pension administrator.
We recognise that being asked to repay funds can be stressful. To manage the impact on retired civil servants, the scheme administrator works individually with those affected to create manageable recovery plans. These plans focus on the member's specific ability to pay, often spreading repayments over a long period to ensure that no undue financial hardship is caused.