Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether all payments of pensions payable to retired civil servants resident overseas are up to date; and whether the MyCSP mutual venture system and its associated information technology are working efficiently.

MyCSP Ltd took over administration of the Civil Service pensioner payroll in September 2014. The majority of the 658,000 pensioners - 14,000 of them are overseas - have been paid accurately and on time since September.

During the transfer MyCSP unexpectedly inherited 5,579 cases from the previous supplier where payments had been delayed or missed. MyCSP has now cleared all but 740 of these. 109 of the remaining cases are overseas pensioners awaiting payments because new banking mandates need to be completed to allow processing by the new paying bank. MyCSP is working to clear the remaining cases where payments are due before Christmas (but are in some cases dependent on employers or pensioner members for the necessary information to do so). Where delayed payment is causing hardship MyCSP has been making emergency interim payments to members.

The recent service issues are not a result of the mutual joint-venture (MJV) model. In fact, the mutual joint venture has enabled investment in new technology to replace legacy systems. This transformation will allow MyCSP to deliver a wider range of services (including online services) to higher standards whilst almost halving the cost of pensions administration over 10 years.

Since mutualisation, MyCSP has improved productivity by 15% year-on-year, driven down staff absenteeism and has improved both staff engagement and customer satisfaction, despite inheriting legacy systems.