PCS exposes the human cost of Capita's incompetence and demands immediate and radical action

TUC LESE, alongside Sian Elliot, TUC Director of Organising and Public Services, joined a protest outside Parliament, 7 July, organised by PCS as part of its campaign to expose the shameful shambles of the administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme by outsourcer, Capita. TUC LESE previously joined a protest outside Capita’s AGM in Paddington, 12 May. Read more from PCS 

Capita took over the administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme, 1 December 2025, and it became responsible for administering the pensions of 1.5 million current and former public service workers. The previous operation of the scheme by MyCSP was already troubled but within weeks Capita had created a snowballing crisis of missed payments, delayed quotes, lost data and IT systems collapse. The Cabinet Office announced an urgent recovery plan, 28 January. A ‘surge team’ of civil servants led by HMRC second permanent secretary Angela MacDonald was parachuted in. Initial findings suggested 8,500 retired civil servants had not received payments they were entitled to and there were 6,300 open bereavement-related cases un-resolved. The crisis has rolled on and now an unknown number of civil servants have delayed their retirement plans to avoid the chaos.  

A pension in retirement should be a source of stability, but Capita’s incompetence has caused immense harm and anxiety to thousands of people and families. 

Occupational pensions are not charity, they are deferred earnings that people have earned, often over decades. It is shameful that thousands of retired civil servants have not received what they are entitled to. And it is inhuman that thousands of grieving families have had a horrendous experience trying to resolve death in service benefits at the most sensitive time. 

The administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme should be done by the public sector by civil servants - publicly controlled and publicly accountable. Outsourcing has failed in practice, and it is wrong in principle. 

The union movement warned that privatisation and outsourcing would lead to worse services and rip off profits. The evidence is damning. The collapse of Carllion. G4S walking away from providing 10,400 security guards at the London Olympic and Paralympic games because it couldn’t cope, so the government had to call in the Military. Sodexo and 7 other companies failing to provide probation services that the nation depended upon, and so it was taken back into the public sector, after wasting £470m of public money to provide a much worse service. And now Capita’s Civil Service Pensions rolling car crash.  

The government has promised the biggest wave of insourcing in a generation. Unions are demanding an increased pace of change and an end to outsourcing. The government has hinted it will take the administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme back in-house to resolve the crisis, which will be a union win.. 

But it is unfathomable that in March 2026 the Department for Work and Pensions decided to award Capita a £370 million 10-year shared service contract to provide HR, finance, and payroll services to the DWP, the Ministry of Justice, the Home Office, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The Public Accounts Committee chair, a Conservative MP, has asked Cabinet Office if anyone bothered telling the DWP about Capita’s shambolic administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme before handing over the keys to the payroll of tens of thousands of public service workers. 

End outsourcing now isn’t just a slogan. It is a principled and evidence based demand.