Civil Servant Pension Scheme

Civil servants who have given decades of service to this country should not be left worrying about whether their pension will arrive on time. Yet for too many people, that is now the reality.

Repeated failures in pension administration are causing real distress and uncertainty for those who deserve security in retirement. Newly retired civil servants have spoken about struggling to pay bills and buy food, forced to dip into their savings because delays in the system have left them without an income for months.

What were initially dismissed as “teething troubles” have become systemic problems. With a backlog of around 86,000 cases and long delays continuing, it is clear that urgent action is needed to restore confidence in the Civil Service Pension Scheme.

Warnings were issued long before the situation reached this point. The Public Accounts Committee raised concerns that Capita would not be ready to take over full administration in December 2025 and questioned whether sufficient staffing and resources were in place. It also highlighted weaknesses in contract management and oversight. Sadly, those warnings now appear to have been well founded.

Capita has acknowledged serious issues affecting members’ ability to access services. These include delays to pension quotes and payments for newly retired members, long waits for customer service calls to be answered, and difficulties using the online portal.

Those facing hardship must be prioritised. Retirees waiting for payment and families dealing with bereavement should not be left navigating a broken system.

Alongside this, thousands of pensioners affected by the McCloud Remedy are still waiting for information about their entitlements. This is completely unacceptable. People have the right to clarity about the pensions they earned through years of public service.

At the heart of this crisis are 1.7 million current and former civil servants who simply want peace of mind: the assurance that their pension will be handled competently, fairly and with dignity.

These issues were raised in Parliament during a Westminster Hall debate on Civil Service Pension Scheme administration on 4 February 2026. Speaking in the debate, Liberal Democrat MP Cameron Thomas said:

“At the heart of this issue are 1.7 million current and former civil servants who just want peace of mind from knowing that the pensions they have earned through years of public service will be handled fairly, with dignity and, if at all possible, with a base level of competence. In the light of this situation, what steps are the Government taking to support individuals who have mortgages to pay, families to feed and all manner of expenses for which they are currently being denied payment?”

Other Liberal Democrat MPs, including Richard Foord, Edward Morello and David Chadwick, also spoke in the debate to highlight the scale and seriousness of the problem. You can read the whole debate here. 

The issue has also been taken up in the House of Lords, with Liberal Democrat peer Mark Pack publishing an article on the growing crisis.  

Civil servants have spent their working lives serving the public. They should not be punished by an administrative system that fails them at the point when they most need support. The Government and those responsible for running the scheme must act urgently to fix these failures, reduce the backlog and ensure people receive the pensions they are owed - in full and on time.

Anything less is a failure of basic responsibility to those who have given so much in service of others.