Update for Civil Service Pensions Scheme (CSPS) members

What has happened

Capita took over the administration of the Civil Service Pensions Scheme (CSPS) on 1 December 2025. As part of the transition, we inherited a significant volume of outstanding work from the previous provider, including a backlog of 86,000 work-in-progress cases and more than 15,000 unread emails. This caused issues that have affected some members’ ability to access some services, as well as delays to some pension quotes and payments for newly retired members.

Progress update 

We are making progress towards restoring the service to expected normal levels, training and deploying additional staff and working closely with the Cabinet Office and HMRC.

All previously unread emails, more than 15,000 in total, have now been reviewed and indexed. The phone lines are at normal service levels; over the last two weeks over 70% of calls are being answered within 30 seconds.

Priority cases

All death-in-service and ill-health retirement cases where there are no third-party dependencies are within normal service levels.  All inherited cases with lump sums due have been paid where there are no dependencies on third parties.

Any members in hardship continue to be fast tracked. All priority cases (death in service, bereavement, ill-health and financial hardship) are triaged and routed for immediate action.

The portal

On the portal, to date, we’ve had over 250,000 registrations. The secure member portal gives access to payslips and P60s and allows members to do simple tasks such as change of address and nomination of beneficiaries.  

We have started to upload 2025 Annual Benefits Statements to the portal.

A new tool called Track My Case has been going live since 18 March. This will give members clearer visibility of the status of their case and help reduce enquiries into the contact centre. We have also just launched our first member chat bot, which will automate several processes including registration help, password reset help, and username reminder.

We are now rolling out the ‘multi-stint’ functionality which will, for the first time, enable members who have multiple periods of service in the civil service to register for the member portal and access all information about their pension digitally.  This should be fully rolled out by late March. 

Getting in touch

If your query is non-urgent, we encourage you to raise an online enquiry via the pensions portal, allowing us to continue to prioritise urgent cases through the telephone helpline.

The portal should be working smoothly for members; if you have difficulty registering for the portal, or using the portal once logged in, please contact us, either by message or via the telephone helpline.

Our commitment

We know that delays can create stress and worry for members. We take this responsibility and each case very seriously, and we will continue to provide clear, timely updates as our work progresses. 

Once again, we sincerely apologise to those experiencing difficulties and are very grateful for your patience.

23 January 2026

Civil Service Pensions Scheme (CSPS) members update

Capita took over the administration of the Civil Service Pensions Scheme (CSPS) on 1 December 2025. As part of the transition, we inherited a significant volume of outstanding work from the previous provider, including a backlog of 86,000 work in progress cases. As a result of this there have been serious issues affecting members’ ability to access some services, including delays to pension quotes and payments for newly retired members, long waits on customer service calls, and difficulties accessing the portal. 

We are doing everything we can to reduce this backlog and resume normal service levels, and are working closely with the Cabinet Office and HMRC, to resolve these issues as a matter of urgency.

What we are doing 

We have taken immediate steps to strengthen the service:

• Dedicated teams are in place to work specifically on inherited cases to reduce waiting times as quickly as possible.
• We are prioritising cases where there are bereavements, members going into retirement and hardship situations.
• Increasing capacity – Capita has over 500 full-time equivalent colleagues working on CSPS. Across January and February, we are increasing resources to handle more cases and deliver better response times at the contact centre. 
• Introducing new tools and features – Over the coming months, members will gain access to services such as Track My Case and Retire Online, providing greater clarity and control over their case and retirement options. 2025 Annual Benefits Statements will be available on the portal shortly.

We expect to restore service levels for the most urgent cases by the end of February, before full recovery of the remaining priority cases.

As we work through longstanding cases, members are likely to experience slower response times. 

If your query is less urgent, we encourage you to raise an online enquiry via the pensions portal, allowing us to prioritise urgent cases through the telephone helpline. More details on this are included in the “Frequently Asked Questions” below.

Please be assured that if you are having difficulty accessing the portal or your details appear incomplete, your data is not lost. We are working to resolve these issues and will notify all members as soon as the portal is fully operational.