Civil Service Pension Scheme: Administration

Debate between Jim Shannon and Anna Turley

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Westminster Hall

[The Minister without Portfolio (Anna Turley)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I have a civil service pension, having started my career in the Home Office in 2001.

It is tradition to thank the Member who secured the debate, but I want to place on record my personal thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers) on behalf of my constituents affected by this issue and on behalf of all the constituents we have heard about today. This is a perfect example of bringing to Parliament voices that have not been heard. They have been sat in queues on phone lines, but everyone has brought their stories powerfully to Parliament and the heart of Government today. I thank my hon. Friend for that public service, which is much appreciated.

I thank all hon. Members who have raised issues on behalf of their constituents. It has been troubling to hear those stories, but it is also a testament to the system that an MP can bring the experience and voice of constituents to Government. I also want to thank and pay tribute to all the fantastic public servants who give so much in service to our country and communities.

When a civil servant retires after decades of public service, they deserve a seamless transition into the next chapter of their lives, and recognition of the contribution they have made over their career. They deserve a system that is accurate, responsive and, above all, timely. I state clearly for the record that the service experienced by members of the civil service pension scheme is absolutely unacceptable.

As the 10-year contract was signed by the previous Government in 2023, I could talk about another disastrous inheritance, but I will not. I will take responsibility and apologise because that is what today should be about: the people affected by this service. I have read the accounts of members, many of whom wrote to their MPs. I have seen that correspondence, heard the concerns and listened carefully to the individual cases raised today.

I am deeply sorry for the worry and distress this has caused so many people, particularly those dealing with bereavement, ill health and financial hardship. This is a failure: there are no two ways about it. Resolving it is a matter of utmost urgency for the Government. We are taking direct action to intervene and put things right, doing so as quickly as possible while ensuring accuracy. In response to questions raised by colleagues, I will set out our steps to undertake that.

To understand how to fix this, I want to say something quickly about how we arrived here. As I mentioned, the decision to transfer to Capita with a 10-year contract was made in 2023. The Cabinet Office will undertake a full review of the award and the management of previous pension contracts, as colleagues have asked, once we have resolved the immediate issue of service delivery. I am sure that hon. Members will share our view that the priority is to get people their money and resolve the immediate problem.

On 1 December 2025, the administration of the scheme transferred from MyCSP to Capita. Although the core payroll for 730,000 existing pensioners continues to be paid correctly and on time, the transition for new retirees has been a mess, with a large number of members significantly impacted. The main driver of the delays is the high volume of work that Capita inherited from MyCSP, approximately 86,000 work in progress cases, which was more than twice the volume planned for and anticipated during the due diligence and planning period.

In addition to the work in progress cases, the handover included 15,000 unread email messages. There were delays in loading and correctly mapping the vast amounts of data transferred from MyCSP to Capita. Technical issues were identified in setting up and receiving data interfaces between employers and the new administrator. As of the week commencing 19 January, Capita reporting showed approximately 8,500 recently retired members are waiting for their first monthly pension payment.

Although some of those individuals have now received their one-off tax-free lump sum, the delay in implementing regular pension benefit payments is causing genuine hardship, especially for those relying on their pension payment to pay for basics such as rent, food, mortgages and heating, as we have heard. Shockingly, the report also showed 6,300 open cases relating to deaths, where members have passed and bereaved families are trying to understand and settle financial affairs. I do not underestimate the trauma for many families of having to deal with that. That includes 300 sensitive death in service cases, adding huge financial worries for grieving families, which is simply unacceptable.

Member data is held by employers and fed through monthly to Capita via a secure interface. That enables pension records to be updated for any changes to personal data, employment terms and contracts. A transition of that scale requires the handover of huge amounts of complex personal data. More positively, Capita has now received the data required from the previous administrator. However, the switch of provider means that members are now required to register on a new portal. As colleagues have highlighted, there have been huge problems with the portal.

In addressing all those live issues, we must also understand the complexity of the civil service pension scheme. It is made up of five different pension schemes, and it has approximately 1.7 million members and 320 employers. It is the third largest public sector scheme, and it deals with an average of more than 3,000 retirements and more than 2,700 bereavement cases every month. That is the scale of the challenge.

Let me outline exactly what we are doing to address the problems as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Although it is a corporate failure, the Government are stepping in, and I thank the many civil servants who are working hard 24/7 to resolve this issue. My officials, along with expert colleagues from across the civil service, are working closely with senior leaders at Capita and have agreed a way forward with a full recovery plan. I am grateful to them for their hard work. We have appointed Angela MacDonald, second permanent secretary and deputy chief executive of HMRC, to lead a recovery taskforce. The team is working alongside Capita and departmental leaders to execute a plan organised into intensive three-week sprints.

On resources, we are deploying a 150-person civil service surge team specifically to clear the correspondence logjam. Capita therefore now has more than 650 staff dedicated to this contact, an increase of more than 50% in resourcing compared with the previous provider. Since 26 January, the recovery team has received data on all outstanding cases.

On the transitional help loans, we have authorised Government Departments to provide interest-free bridging loans of £5,000 and, in exceptional cases, of up to £10,000 for those in immediate need. The Department is working to get the money to those impacted within days, not weeks. We are prioritising the most urgent cases. We are working with Capita to ensure that the systems and resources are in place to deal with ill health, bereavement and financial hardship cases, alongside arrangements to clear the backlog. Those cases are our absolute priority.

On the member portal, there was already a plan to roll out greater functionality. That includes “track my case”, which allows members to see the end-to-end progress of their queries; digital requirements processes, which includes the facility for members to track the progress of their retirement application; and a lifestyle modeller, an interactive calculator to help members under the age of 55 to plan for the income they need in retirement. We will provide regular updates on the portal so that scheme members and MPs can see the progress being made to improve the service. I endeavour to ensure updates are made regularly to the House.

We expect to restore service levels for death in service cases and ill health retirement cases by the end of February. I make that pledge to Members. More widely, our current plan is that we are working to bring most aspects of the service back with expected service levels by June, but we will keep that under constant review and continue to look for opportunities to accelerate progress.

[Jim Shannon]

I spoke to the Minister before the debate started, and she indicated that hon. Members might have an access number and an email address. Will she provide those?

[Anna Turley]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s flagging that point, and I was coming to that. I have taken the quite unusual step of bringing a print-out for colleagues, which will be available at the end of the debate and will be shared with colleagues more widely. It has an email address on it. I am keen that hon. Members bring their cases directly to us. Of course, we are addressing the wider issues, but it is a cause of great concern to me that, where cases are raised with Members of Parliament, they should be brought straight to our attention.

The McCloud pension sector remedy work was raised. We know how important it is for the many members awaiting an update. We have agreed a separately resourced project to deliver the remedy with Capita. Many of these cases are very complex, and we hope the majority will be issued by April ’27. We are working with the Pensions Regulator, and we will provide progress updates to the members affected and to MPs.

The new contract with Capita includes a number of key performance indicators, which colleagues have rightly raised, with financial penalties to be applied where they are not achieved. We reserve all commercial rights at present. We have already withheld millions of pounds of payments for failure to meet transitional milestones. We continue to contractually monitor service level key performance indicators linked to payments, and we have refused to waive service levels, ensuring that Capita remains contractually liable for performance.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) asked whether there was a cause for termination. There is an option to terminate in any contract of this kind. These are complex and commercial requirements, and terminating the contract and moving to another provider would mean another massive upheaval of data and everything else. I am sure colleagues share my view that the priority right now is to resolve people’s immediate concerns and issues, make sure people get their money and undertake a review of exactly what happened. However, everything is on the table. As I said, we will do a full review of these contracts, but our priority is to get people the support that they deserve. It has now been two months since Capita took on the new contract, and we are very clear that members of the pension scheme deserve so much better. Our focus is on taking fast action to resolve the most critical issues for impacted individuals while simultaneously ensuring a detailed recovery plan that brings the commercial contract back within service level agreements as quickly as possible.

I want to reassure every member of the pension scheme that their pension is safe and their data is secure. We are working, and will continue to work, tirelessly with Capita to support the recovery programme until such time as we are wholly satisfied that the service is fully recovered. We are committed to ensuring that every member is treated fairly and with respect, and that no one suffers a permanent financial loss due to these administrative failures. We are holding Capita to account and are going to kick backside, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said. We are making sure that members are at the heart of the recovery plan, and we will use every commercial lever at our disposal to ensure that Capita delivers effectively.

I thank all hon. Members who brought the voices of their constituents to the Chamber today. I have brought a handout for colleagues, and I urge anyone with constituency cases to raise them with us. We will do our best to accelerate them, but I am conscious that we have to resolve this matter not just for those who are brought to our attention but for absolutely everyone. We will hold further drop-ins to assist hon. Members and their teams, and we are doing our absolute best to make sure people get their money as quickly as possible. The House has my word, and that of my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office that we will not rest until the service is stabilised and our civil servants receive the support that they have earned after so many years of dedicated service—for which, once again, we thank them.

Post-SSI Support Package: Redcar

Debate between Jim Shannon and Anna Turley

Tuesday 19th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Anna Turley]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. I have met a number of contractors, many of whom have service of over 30 years in the steel industry, having worked in catering and on the site itself. They have all provided as much value to the steel industry as others, and they deserve equal treatment. I will go on to talk about one of the successful experiences that we have had. Again, I hope that lessons can be learned to make sure that there is not a two-tier system for contractors and the full-time employed.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

We sometimes overlook one important issue. This is not just about jobs; it is about the financial, emotional and physical impact on families as they wonder how they are going to pay their bills and mortgages. Does the hon. Lady think that the Government should provide help for people to get through this hard time and make sure that they can cope at a time of stress?

[Anna Turley]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We pushed for the Government funding to go towards crisis loans and crisis management, and the taskforce has been excellent at putting in place support for mortgage payments and transport issues and for ensuring that people can pay their bills. I want to make sure that that is replicated when addressing the problems in Port Talbot and elsewhere and that they learn from our experience in Redcar. That is not to diminish, however, the devastating consequences of what has happened. There were huge challenges over Christmas. Many people got through Christmas and provided for their families, but, looking ahead, we have to press on and give them the long-term help and support they need to get back into work. The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely important point.

One of the most important factors in the response has been the flexibility of the funding available through the support package. It ensured that people were not limited in the courses to which they had access, as would usually be the case, and that specialist and professional training ordinarily paid for by employers was now funded by Government for these priority workers. That flexibility was coupled with the relaxation of certain rules, such as the Jobcentre Plus 16-hour limit for training or education, and the fact that applicants were not restricted to just one course or to those that were relevant only to previous employment or experience, which was an issue at the beginning of the process. Such barriers would have got in the way of accessing opportunities. The DWP and BIS should look at that at a national level in order to widen access and opportunity to all.

Jobcentre Plus organised rapid response sessions just three days after liquidation, and it saw more than 2,000 people in the course of just a few weeks. It then worked with the National Careers Service to organise the subsequent individual one-to-one skills sessions, which have helped to inform training needs.

There has also been an unprecedented level of contact between colleges in my area and employers, with further education providers in my constituency contacting more than 2,500 separate companies directly. That has ensured that employers were made aware of the funding and training that local colleges had available to fill vacancies that the businesses were advertising. There have been three jobs fairs, one which took place just two weeks after the announcement, and we understand that they have filled about 200 vacancies, although the Minister may have some more up-to-date statistics.

There are also plans to engage more large-scale companies locally, particularly those that may be six months to a year away from starting up, to ensure that we shift the focus from immediate recruitment to creating bespoke training packages so that people can get the skills they need down the line, when those companies come on board and invest in our area. I want to take this opportunity to thank the countless local businesses that have got on board quickly and been extremely helpful and forthcoming in the support they have provided to those workers and apprentices affected.

Despite positive collaboration and partnership at local level, however, the success of a venture such as this can only truly be measured by the experience of those who are on the receiving end of the support. I want to set out some of the challenges we have faced so that the lessons can be taken up by Government. At an early taskforce meeting, it transpired that no agency or individual had a full and comprehensive list of all those who had been affected by the closure of SSI. The taskforce had to re-collect information on names, addresses, skill sets and qualifications. We need to ensure that data sharing is seen as an early priority in the unfortunate event of another area being affected. We also need accurate and longitudinal information on who has accessed help and support, who is in work and where that work is located geographically.

There were also well-documented problems with accessing the central Government money announced by Ministers. It took hard work from the chair of the local taskforce to convince risk-averse Whitehall mandarins that support for apprentices and the use of the funding to incentivise recruitment did not constitute state aid. I hope that BIS has learned to be more ambitious in the way it supports enterprise than this episode has demonstrated.

Unfortunately, there have also been widespread delays in accessing training, as some of the agencies involved struggled to deal with the massively increased demand. Further education funding has been reduced by 14% in the past five years. Although the £3 million available to local Teesside colleges for courses is excellent, the challenges in upscaling rapidly to cope with the levels of demand have led to delays for those accessing courses.

For example, a constituent of mine with 31 years’ experience in the steelworks applied for training no less than three months ago. Since then, he has been passed from agency to agency and is now on the verge of missing the deadline for the next wave of training courses in February. I have received many similar concerns about delays to accessing training. I have even had cases where ex-SSI workers have been forced to attend existing college courses with 16 to 18-year-old students, which is disruptive for all parties involved. Others are on courses between the hours of 9 am and 5pm, but have been told that they must attend the jobcentre during those hours. Of course, the organisation and administrative challenges that come with dealing with thousands of requests after years of cutbacks is huge, but the human impact of such delays is tragic.

Unfortunately, despite the good work done by many jobcentre staff, numerous constituents have contacted me to raise the dehumanising treatment they have received in jobcentres. Many of these workers have never been out of work, and for many of them, as for so many in my constituency, the experience of being on the dole is horrendous. For example, we were assured originally that ex-SSI employees who claimed jobseeker’s allowance would be afforded a 13-week period of grace, which is a mechanism available to all job coaches to allow individuals with extensive experience in a particular field to have some time to focus on applying for jobs in that sector. However, my constituents—I stress, not exclusively those affected by SSI—have been threatened with sanctions if they do not apply for work in bars or retail as early as two weeks into their claim. Many right hon. and hon. Members have spoken about widespread problems in Jobcentre Plus. The issues about sanctions must be addressed. Sanctions should not be used as a mechanism to force claimants to apply for jobs that are not relevant in this instance; such jobs should be a last resort.

Another challenge we face is the confusions on pensions. Ex-SSI employees were left shellshocked to find that the money leaving their monthly pay packets had not in fact ended up in a pension fund. I am now pleased to say that the continued dialogue between the official receiver and the Community trade union has resulted in all the contributions—both employee and employer contributions—being received by Scottish Widows, and they are now being applied to employees’ pension accounts on a month-by-month basis. The continued weekly dialogue between the official receiver and the Community trade union has ensured that there is continued communication and that problems on the site are worked through. I want to commend the Community union for all it has done to support its members at this difficult time.

One of the other challenges we face is dealing with the fact that a number of other companies on Teesside have made workers redundant, including Boulby Potash and Air Products, since the SSI announcement. As a result, an initiative to help people find work following the closure of SSI is being rolled out across the Tees valley. This resource hub brings together a number of agencies to provide advice and support to anyone who has been made redundant or who is out of work. Advice will be available on a wide range of topics, including CV writing, new career opportunities, interview techniques, trade union representation and money management. That is exactly the kind of learning that I want tonight’s debate to share more widely.

Another achievement has been the Insolvency Service’s decision to grant employee status to agency workers, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) mentioned. We fought to ensure that the 29 workers from Jo Hand Recruitment were in full receipt of their statutory redundancy pay, holiday pay and notice pay. I just wonder how many more of these injustices are happening around the country outside the SSI spotlight.

In conclusion, we are only three months in and we still have a mountain to climb. Many people have not had the help and support they require. Our challenge is to find them and to ensure that they get the support they need to rebuild their lives. Ultimately, the challenge of bringing jobs and economic regeneration to our area is a long-term one, but given the kind of resilience and determination that has been shown in Teesside during the past few months, the challenges are not insurmountable. With the right help and flexibility from Departments and with the devolution of power and funding to local stakeholders, I see no reason why we cannot overcome this tragedy and build a bright future for our town. We know our challenges, and we are showing we can find solutions. I sincerely hope the Government will support us.