Civil Service Pension Scheme

7. What recent steps her Department has taken to tackle issues impacting the civil service pension scheme.

15. What recent steps her Department has taken to tackle issues impacting the civil service pension scheme.

Current service levels are completely unacceptable, and we are holding Capita accountable by withholding payments in the short term and assessing the long-term viability of bringing the scheme in-house. We will continue to use the most stringent commercial levers we have under this contract—which was signed by the last Government—to ensure we have full accountability.

I welcome my hon. Friend to her place, and thank her for her answer. In Southampton Itchen, I have constituents who have been deprived of their pension for many months. One waited over a year even for an accurate quotation, another is yet to receive a penny after 40 years of service, and one with stage 4 cancer took three months to get any money—and even then, only after I had nagged a Minister to intervene. When I was a Southampton city councillor, we ended Capita’s contract and took those services back in-house. Is it not time for the Government to consider doing the same?