Watchdog sticks probe into Capita's handling of 1.7 million member civil service pension scheme

Capita has repeatedly "broken" promises to resolve the "chaos" engulfing the Civil Service Pension Scheme (CSPS) following its takeover of the administration – a move that left thousands of retired public sector workers unpaid.

So says Parliamentary spending watchdog, the Public Accounts Committee, which this week launched an inquiry into the handover of the ten-year £239 million contract in December from previous incumbent MyCSP.

As The Register exclusively revealed, the troubles began early on as members of CSPS – which manages pensions for 1.7 million people – complained of unrecognized passwords and usernames on the portal Capita developed. Capita said it inherited 132,100 complex remediation cases, and claimed the work-in-progress backlog from the prior system was more than double the 37,000 items when it won the deal in 2023.

Capita ran to Microsoft for support, and promised the use AI and automation, in addition to its 500 full-time employees working on the project, would resolve the issues by March. …