Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what information his Department holds on the number of times Capita has made overpayments in relation to (a) tax-free lump sums and (b) regular pension payments for people taking their pension benefits from the Royal Mail Statutory Pensions Scheme following a calculation error in each year since 2018.

Capita, the Royal Mail Statutory Pension Scheme administrator, has made the following overpayments:

Capita has carried out several data correction exercises which required member benefits to be rectified. These data exercises account for the increased number of overpayments in certain years.

The earliest data Capita holds is from March 2019.

In terms of support, Capita contacts all impacted members and provides a full update including the reason for the overpayment and the corrective action that will take place. All members are encouraged to contact the Capita team to discuss the error and agree on the appropriate recovery actions. Where possible a repayment timeline will be agreed directly with the member which will consider their personal circumstances and affordability. Members are also guided through the review process that they can follow and are kept informed of any decisions made during this process and the next steps that are available to them.

There is a robust process in place to manage the performance of this contract.