My farm animals and I are suffering because of Capita
Andrew, a partially retired civil servant at the National Highways, explains how Capita’s misadministration of the civil service pensions scheme has caused him extreme stress and financial hardship.
I worked proudly as an onroad traffic officer for National Highways for over two decades.
About four years ago, I partially retired because of a couple of incidents at work. I went off with stress. I started looking into full retirement, but haven’t made any progress with it.
I ended up being on the phone for an hour and a half trying to get through to Capita. They gave a special link for their portal but it didn’t work, so you end up going round in bloody circles. I was so fed up, I rang my MP, who called me back and promised to take the issue up.
But this intervention made no difference – I was still having issues with the portal, which simply doesn’t work.
At the moment, I’m still just trying to see what full retirement would look like for me. But if I want to do that, it’ll take at least six months. How bloody ridiculous is that?
When I eventually managed to speak to a person from Capita, I told them directly that I’m considering walking off the edge of a bridge because the wife is likely to get a death pension quicker than my civil service pension. I’ve had enough.
Read Samaritans guidance if you're worrying about someone else or supporting someone with suicidal thoughts.
I don’t know what to do. I’ve borrowed some money off a friend to try and see me over. But this friend needs that money back, so what can I do? I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Things are getting desperate. I run a smallholding here, so everyone – including the animals I look after – are suffering.
I don’t know what else to do. I can barely cope with the stress – it is too much. My MP is very sympathetic but nobody at Capita or in the Cabinet Office seems particularly interested in sorting this out.
The government needs to do something urgently. People are suffering, and I’m not even one of the worst cases.
Capita is more interested in its shareholders – and giving them plenty of profits – than the people who actually put money into their pension and want to get on with life.
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