It is amazing that civil servants who amongst other things are guardians of standards in pensions are being to hung out to dry while their pensions remain unpaid , claims unprocessed. There is action that needs to be taken by Capita before the end of June, it should never have got to this and this is being documented outside the pension bubble.
PCS stands for the Public and Commercial Services Union, they are not holding back. Sadly this is getting virtually no air in the pension press some of whom seem more interested in the winners of their award ceremonies.
The civil service’s biggest union will demand a public inquiry into the process which saw Capita win the contract to administer the Civil Service Pension Scheme.
Delegates at PCS’s annual conference yesterday backed a motion asking the union’s leadership to call for a public probe into the Civil Service Pension Scheme outsourcing process.
The motion also commits the union to campaign for a
“strengthened statutory and contractual framework for all critical payment and pension services”.
Delegates also voted for a motion asking the union’s leaders to
“urgently seek a meeting with the minister for the Cabinet Office to demand insourcing”
of the civil service pensions contract.
“We are writing to the paymaster general calling on him to take the same steps as he took with the Royal Mail and to cancel the civil service pensions contract,”
she said.
Giving an opening address on the conference’s first day, general secretary Fran Heathcote noted that Labour had promised the
“biggest wave of insourcing in a generation”,
and said this had barely yet registered as even a “ripple”.
“Instead, we have seen civil service pensions given to Capita – and it’s a shambles,”
she said.
“But despite that, the government is now in the process of giving Capita the contract for managing the payroll of 250,000 civil servants. What could possibly go wrong?”
A Cabinet Office spokesperson said:
“The service levels following the move to Capita have been unacceptable. An urgent recovery plan is underway, and our immediate priority is to stabilise the service and give current and former civil servants the service they deserve.
“The Cabinet Office will continue to use all available commercial levers to hold Capita to account and ensure they deliver for both members and taxpayers.”
TPR to regulate this administration?
While all this is going on at the DWP and other Government Departments, I hear that the administration of the State Pension continues to be an issue for those becoming pensioners.
Arguments that administration should be a regulated activity become louder, but will they be echoed by the millions of taxpayers for whom “pension” is something paid by the DWP or their Government funded employer?
Will we give this hornet’s net to another Government owned regulator – the Pensions Regulator? Currently it does not regulate pension administration – maybe that’s a little delicate!