Pensions collapse slammed by TUC

Opening last week’s TUC pensions conference, the TUC assistant general secretary, Kate Bell, attacked the  misguided privatisation of pension administration in the Civil Service Pension Scheme and said that scheme members deserve proper compensation. 

A theme of the conference, which was addressed by pensions minister Torsten Bell, was that professional and competent administration is vital to every pension scheme.

The work of PCS and MPs, particularly the public administration and constitutional affairs committee (PACAC), has prompted a government commitment to reviewing the crisis in the civil service scheme to include reflecting on the consequences of depending on a restricted market in services to large schemes and making it very hard to change provider.

The public accounts committee chair has written to the civil service chief operating officer and asked that the Cabinet Office set out its overall commercial strategy for pension administration, including consideration of the benefits and costs of administering the scheme in-house. PCS is very clear that the scale of the service failure is such that ending the contract and bringing the operation back in-house would be entirely justified.

It is clear that it will take months to return to normality, with continuing delays in payments, and difficulty in making important, life-changing decisions.

When Capita was announced as the successful bidder, emphasis was placed on the company's vision to digitise the administration of the scheme, so the loss of the online portal for an extended period has been particularly disappointing. Following this the experience of scheme members with periods of discontinuous service or service with more than one employer, was that they were unable to register on the member hub. We now understand that this will be fixed by 13 March. To access the portal when it is fully available scheme members can register at www.civilservicepensionscheme.org.uk