Jarrow civil service pensioner’s ongoing fiasco ‘hopeless’

Data from the Cabinet Office showed there were still about 6,700 people who had retired but were waiting for a pension quotation, with bereavement benefits due to about 7,600 families.

A Cabinet Office “recovery taskforce” set up in January, is now deploying auditors to review Capita’s systems and processes, and the company will be made to pay for a remedial adviser to improve its service.

The taskforce is being led by HMRC deputy chief executive Angela MacDonald, but she is retiring at the end of this month, with new pensions director Richard Vianello set to take over.

Capita took over the Public Service Pensions Scheme from MyCSP in December and said it had inherited a backlog of 86,000 cases, 49,000 more than expected, which grew to 120,000 within months.

However, MyCSP said only 36,000 of the cases it left were key service-level-related, which it said was consistent with the level it had been asked to achieve.

For Allison Williams, the question of when she will see her money or her husband will be able to retire remains uncertain.

“I’m so fed up, we feel neglected, we’ve done our service and this is how we’re treated,” she said.

“We’re like forgotten people that nobody wants anything to do with.”

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