Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that people with advanced and terminal illnesses receive the Civil Service Pensions in a timely manner.

The Cabinet Office awarded Capita the contract to administer the Civil Service Pension Scheme in November 2023 under the previous government. The current delays facing scheme members are entirely unacceptable, and this Government has taken firm action to resolve them through a clear recovery plan with strict delivery milestones. We have deployed additional resources to expedite priority cases, ensuring that serving and former staff receive the high standard of service they deserve. Regular progress updates remain available to members via the pension portal and GOV.UK.

We are making Capita work to restore, to contractual levels, administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme following its failed transition in December last year. Capita committed to restoring the service by the end of June. The Government is now undertaking a comprehensive assessment of the latest data provided by Capita post the end of June commitment.

We remain committed to holding Capita accountable. Should underperformance occur and the agreed firm end of June deadline not be met, the Government will not hesitate to take firm action, all commercial levers will be used and all options will be considered.

I can confirm that when the scheme administrator receives an application from a member suffering from serious ill health, they should be prioritising these cases as a matter of urgency and look to resolve them.

Capita were initially instructed to prioritise and clear the most urgent cases such as Death in Service and Ill-Health during February and March. While Capita previously assured us that performance standards for Death in Service and Ill-Health were being met by mid-March, recent information continues to demonstrate unacceptable delays in some ill-health retirement and death-in-service cases. We have urgently escalated this to Capita, who are actively investigating the underlying data and reasons for these continued delays.