Ongoing civil service pension fiasco 'hopeless'
Alison WilliamsA former civil servant has said her pension problems are still ongoing, with the management company responsible missing a government-agreed deadline for a normal level of service.
Alison Williams, 66, from Jarrow, worked for the civil service for almost 30 years and retired in January, but her husband postponed his own retirement earlier this year to ensure they could still pay their mortgage.
Thousands of civil servants have been left in limbo after pension scheme operator Capita took over from company MyCSP in December.
Capita said it "recognised the service has not been good enough and we are sorry for the distress and inconvenience experienced".
The company indicated a normal level of service would be reached by the end of September, three months later than the June deadline imposed by the government.
Williams said she had been paid two "small amounts" of money with no explanation where it was from, but when she phoned Capita, they said it was from a pension scheme relating to five years of her employment.
When she asked where the rest of her pension payments were, they had no record she had ever claimed them and she had to resubmit all her paperwork, she said.
Last week, she joined a small group of other civil service pensioners who travelled to Westminster to protest against the level of service they had received.
"It's ridiculously poor and hopeless - it's been dire from day one," she said.
'Forgotten people'
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."
