Capita has 2,501 Civil Service Pension Scheme (CSPS) cases that have been outstanding for over 100 days, with the Government Actuary’s Department (GAD) set to provide additional support on some of the oldest and most complex cases.

In its latest taskforce update, Civil Service Pensions said Capita had 2,501 cases across bereavement, death in service, ill health retirement and retirement payments that were more than 100 days old.

Of these, 1,201 cases had all the information required for Capita to make a payment or complete the relevant task, while a further 1,300 were awaiting information from a member, representative, employer or another third party.

Civil Service Pensions director, Richard Vianello, said the scheme was already supporting Capita with some complex quotes and had asked the administrator to provide details of ill health retirement and death-in-service cases that were more than 150 days old.

He added that he wanted to understand why payments had not yet been made, what information was missing, and where cases had become stuck in Capita’s processes.

Once those cases had been completed and put into payment, Vianello said Capita would be asked to provide similar information on cases more than 100 days old.

Civil Service Pensions has also agreed with Capita that GAD will deploy a number of staff to help address some of the oldest and most complex cases.

Vianello noted that some of these cases had already been old when they were transferred from the previous administrator, MyCSP, and that, in some instances, members had been waiting for several years.

“It is not right that members have been waiting so long,” he continued.

“We will work with Capita to put these right and into payment as soon as possible.”

The largest backlog identified in the update was in bereavement cases, where 1,082 cases were more than 100 days old despite Capita having all the information required to make payment. A further 779 bereavement cases were awaiting a third-party response.

For death-in-service cases, 45 had been outstanding for more than 100 days despite Capita having the information needed to calculate and pay the award, while another 242 were awaiting information.

There were also six ill health retirement cases more than 100 days old where Capita was able to begin making payments, alongside 12 awaiting further information.

For retirement payments, 68 cases had all the information required but remained outstanding after more than 100 days, while 267 were awaiting information from a third party.

The last taskforce revealed that Civil Service Pensions had appointed an external auditor to review Capita’s administration of the CSPS.

Vianello confirmed that future taskforce updates would provide more granular information on older cases, rather than relying on headline figures for total work on hand, which can fluctuate as new applications arrive and existing cases are processed.

The next update is also expected to set out when Capita anticipates making payments in cases where it already holds complete information.

Meanwhile, Civil Service Pensions has agreed that Capita can begin using credit reference agencies for identity verification, which Vianello claimed should make the end-to-end process “smoother and considerably faster” for most members awaiting payments.

Capita has also introduced a bulk processing tool that covers retirement quotes, retirement payments, and bereavement cases.

Around 4,800 cases were processed through the tool last week and paid according to members’ entitlements, according to the update.

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