Correspondence

Civil Service Pension Recovery Plan Update - 30 March 2026

Updated 30 March 2026

As we come to the end of Sprint 3, targeted action continues to resolve the service delays affecting Civil Service Pension Scheme (CSPS) members. The Civil Service Pensions Taskforce, in partnership with its administrator, Capita, is determined to restore full service as quickly as possible.

Digital experience

A number of digital enhancements are now live on the website and within the member portal (Track my case and Live Chat). These first iterations will evolve over 2026. The 2024/25 Annual Benefit Statements for around 600,000 active members are being uploaded to the member portal showing alpha benefits. Statements for previous years and for those affected by the 2015 Remedy will follow in 2026. Capita has applied a fix allowing 120,000 individuals (known as ‘multi-stint’ members) who were previously not able to register on the member portal to now do so.

Calls and emails

Call response times continue to track well and emails in the queues have been read and prioritised.

In the week commencing 20 March 2026, the average wait time was 2 minutes and 3 seconds with 70% of calls answered in less than 30 seconds. Improvements are still to be made to ensure calls are answered as per the agreed contractual rate.

The 15,000 unread emails were read and triaged by 27 February 2026.

Priority cases

407 death in service cases have been processed since transition. Cases are likely to increase as they are progressed from third parties. Within Capita, a new work instruction has been created to improve speed and completion of cases.

Ill health retirements continue to be processed. Those which Capita can process without the need for information from a third party are now below 200.

Bereavement cases should be completed by the end of May.

Any members in hardship continue to be fast tracked. All priority cases (death in service, bereavement, ill-health and financial hardship) are triaged daily and routed for immediate action.

Transition support loans

As of 17 March, 769 loan payments have been issued with a total value of £4 million. While backlogs continue to be worked through, there may be demand for ‘top-ups’ to address the continued lack of pension income. While employers have not yet requested an increase to the £10,000 maximum cap, they have indicated this may change if back payments are not processed according to schedule. To mitigate this risk, we have begun scoping how the intervention might be expanded to meet future demand.

Existing civil servants who have partially retired or a civil servant who retired from 1 January 2025, can contact their employer to access the transition support loan.

Pension scheme members not in the scope of this loan scheme, but who are at risk of experiencing financial hardship due to the delayed payment of their pension, should contact Capita and mention the financial impact of these delays. Capita will then prioritise resolution of these cases.

Voluntary Exits

Capita inherited 3,335 Voluntary Exit cases. Of these, 2,209 needed quotes. Since go-live on 1 December 2025, Capita has delivered 2,158 quotes and 643 awards. 483 remain outstanding, some of which are complex cases. Extra resources have been added to ensure completion by 31 March 2026.

Pension quotations

Capita is currently prioritising the legacy quote backlog inherited from MyCSP and other urgent cases. Consequently, quote requests submitted since the administration transition on 1 December 2025 are not yet being processed while this priority work is cleared. There are 21,000 pension quotations outstanding. Responses to common member queries around pension quotations and changing retirement date are available on the Civil Service Pensions website.

Immediate focus

The scheme is about to distribute the 2026 Pension Increase mailing which includes pensioner payslips and P60s to approximately 730,000 pensioners. As is usual, the pensioner mailing could result in an increase in calls to the contact centre which Capita is prepared for.