I'm still waiting for my civil service pension after almost two years: STEVE WEBB replies

I applied for my civil service pension in October 2024 ready to retire in April 2025 and I am still waiting for payment. What can I do?Steve Webb replies: Unfortunately, you are one of tens of thousands of civil servants who have been hit by a series of problems with the administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme.Although it would be tempting for me to put all the blame the current administrators, Capita, I see that you had already been waiting for your pension application to be processed for more than a year before Capita took over at the end of last year.Whilst they should clearly have sorted things out by now, your case is part of the backlog which Capita inherited when they took over from the previous administrators, MyCSP. Tens of thousands of civil servants have been hit by a series of problems with the administration of their pension schemeBefore dealing with the specifics of this case, it may be worth me setting out what anyone can do if they have a problem with the administration of their pension.The first step you should always take is to complain directly to the scheme itself. All schemes are expected to have an Internal Dispute Resolution Procedure (IDRP) and this should be your first port of call.In some cases, this is a single stage process, but sometimes there is a second stage complaints process for those who remain unhappy with the initial response to their complaint.Unfortunately, one of the problems I have found in practice is that companies who are pretty inefficient at administration have a habit of being pretty inefficient at complaint handling as well, so this is not likely to be a quick process.In making your complaint, it is helpful to distinguish two different kinds of loss you may have suffered from the alleged maladministration.• Actual monetary loss, if the delay caused you to be out of pocket.• ‘Distress and inconvenience’, where compensation is awarded on a sliding scale according to severity.For example, if someone’s divorce had to be put on hold because they couldn’t get a pension valuation, this could clearly cause considerable distress.Or, you may simply have had a lot of hassle chasing things up, writing letters, lying awake at night worrying and so on.Once you’ve exhausted the internal procedure you can then go to the Pensions Ombudsman.Unfortunately, although the Pensions Ombudsman is trying to turn things round, volumes of complaints remain high and cases can take a long time to deal with.The latest annual report suggests that about one in four cases is still being worked on more than nine months after the initial complaint, though in general these are likely to be the more complex cases.In short, the Ombudsman process is more likely to be about getting redress in the long-term rather than any short cut to your immediate problem.In terms of your options now, I would strongly recommend that you make a complaint via your local MP.Many pension providers will have fast-track complaints handling processes for letters to their CEO or letters from MPs.Unfortunately, the scale of the problem means that Capita are now dealing with many hundreds of similar complaints.The Minister for the Cabinet Office told the House of Commons on 6 July that there were around 1,900 ‘outstanding constituent cases’ at that point.Although he said that Capita had dealt with 700 such cases in the previous week, around 500 fresh complaints had come in, so they are running to stand still.There is no doubt that when Capita took over the administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme it was in a mess.There had been an expectation of some backlog of outstanding cases, but the Minister said that the company had failed to put in place the systems to get on top of this.Capita, he said, 'was completely unprepared and its system was overwhelmed, which resulted in a backlog that skyrocketed to a staggering 120,000 unresolved cases'.Steps are being taken to get the situation under control, including drafting in hundreds of civil servants to help process outstanding cases, but progress is painfully slow.This whole sorry saga raises serious questions about how these large public sector contracts are awarded, but also the challenges any government faces when there are very few providers in the market who could take on the administration of a scheme with millions of members.A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: 'Capita has failed to meet their critical end of June deadline, repeatedly missing recovery targets and delivering a service that is completely unacceptable to both members and taxpayers. 'This government is now drawing a line in the sand. While we will continue to apply robust commercial levers, including withholding payments, to hold them firmly to account, we are looking beyond short-term fixes. 'We have set out our intention to advance the biggest wave of insourcing in a generation, and we are now actively shaping a long-term strategy to bring this pension scheme back in-house.'A Capita spokesperson said: ‘We continue to work at pace to resolve the operational issues in collaboration with the Cabinet Office.‘Despite the progress made to date, we recognise the service has not been good enough, particularly for members waiting on bereavement, retirement, and quotation cases, and we are sorry for the distress and inconvenience experienced by those members.‘We now have the processes, automation and technology in place to work through the backlog.‘We remain committed to working through the backlog as quickly as possible, protecting members, and ensuring new cases are processed within contractual service times.’A MyCSP spokesperson said: ‘MyCSP completed a comprehensive handover of the pension scheme with the new provider which was overseen by the Cabinet Office.‘All outstanding work items were fully disclosed, discussed and reviewed with Cabinet Office senior management prior to commencement of the handover process.Throughout its tenure administering the scheme, MyCSP consistently met the service levels set by the Cabinet Office, as independently confirmed in the National Audit Office’s assessment of performance.’ Ask Steve Webb a pension question Former Pensions Minister Steve Webb is This Is Money's Agony Uncle.He is ready to answer your questions, whether you are still saving, in the process of stopping work, or juggling your finances in retirement.Steve left the Department of Work and Pensions after the May 2015 election. He is now a partner at actuary and consulting firm Lane Clark & Peacock.If you would like to ask Steve a question about pensions, please email him at pensionquestions@thisismoney.co.uk.Steve will do his best to reply to your message in a forthcoming column, but he won't be able to answer everyone or correspond privately with readers. Nothing in his replies constitutes regulated financial advice. Published questions are sometimes edited for brevity or other reasons.Please include a daytime contact number with your message - this will be kept confidential and not used for marketing purposes.If Steve is unable to answer your question, you can also contact MoneyHelper, a Government-backed organisation which gives free assistance on pensions to the public. It can be found here and its number is 0800 011 3797.Steve receives many questions about state pension forecasts and COPE ¿ the Contracted Out Pension Equivalent. 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