Civil service pensions- what a fucking farce!

[MissCooCooMcgoo]

My mum died in March. They were notified literally on the day by her manager. We are now in July and they have been the most unhelpful, frustrating people I have ever had the misfortune to deal with!

I called 4 weeks ago and they assured me they had everything from me they needed only to chase today to be told they want more information including my decree absolute from my first marriage? WHY do they need this information from 14 years ago?

My mum kept her information updated and they have me down as the beneficiary with my married name of the last 12 years.

Anyone else had to deal with this shitshow? They should be ashamed. All of this is hard enough as it is.

Did you miss out on a CS promotion recently or something? You sound very bitter

An article in the Times this morning. It does sound as if Capita’s approach to the backlog may be to keep asking irrelevant questions so that they can delay paying out, which fits with your experience, OP. It must be so distressing for you and everyone in the same boat.

www.thetimes.com/article/8a1f2bfa-4e9f-4924-a3f1-98605d0f7017?shareToken=596d761b3f49b323fa32f61f87989ac7

Is it worth letting your MP know about this?. It sounds terrible.

The government are claiming the cost back from Capita.

They are terrible. I’ve been trying to collate my pension info and even trying to create an account and log in was an absolute drama. So sorry you’re having to deal with this x

This thread is classic.

A private company (Capital) are doing a shite job administering CS pensions.
Civil servants on the thread tell us it worked well when admin was internal.
It then turns into a pile-on about how the CS is inefficient and the staff lazy.

You couldn’t make it up! There is a terrible, inaccurate narrative in this country that public sector = shit and private sector = brilliant. It’s codswallop.

I hope it soon gets resolved for you op, it’s a disgrace.

@KateSixer People have been remarkably polite in the face of your shitposting. Considering the number of deleted comments you have, I'm surprised you haven't been banned altogether as you are contributing only hatred and bigotry on a thread started by a recently bereaved OP.

That didn't take long🙄

It’s an absolute shitshow.

Someone from my team retired in February and still hasn’t received their pension. An ex colleague retired (43 years service), and has just lost the house she was hoping to retire in because her lump sum payment hasn’t been calculated or paid; she’d given a year notice of her plans.

@MissCooCooMcgoo apparently there are a number of groups on Facebook who are really helpful and provide advice. Might be worth joining.

There’s a petition that’s doing the rounds as well - not sure it will make a difference but.

www.megaphone.org.uk/petitions/stop-the-civil-service-pension-crisis-bring-pension-administration-back-in-house?trk=feed_main-feed-card_feed-article-content

To continue the derailing. I have been in the CS for over 30 years. Yes it can be difficult to expel useless staff due to the raft of HR protections and there are some pockets of inefficiencies but the anti public sector brigade are very out of date. It’s very target and results driven in the several areas I work across.
If we’re using our own experience I will say that of my five siblings I was the only one to go to university. The others work in varied parts of the private sector. Three of them definitely have higher paid and more relaxed roles with far more benefits. So I’m OK with the over protective HR and unions and generous maternity benefits and pensions. Otherwise why stay?

OP. All the information coming from the Capita task team and pressure groups is about what ‘pot’ of applicants your claim has landed in. They are addressing backlogs according to which category and your category should be a priority one with some movement soon according to latest updates.
No point in trying to get an MP or consumer rights type champion on board. They already have thousands of escalations and it doesn’t appear to affect the process.

I did apologise for thread drifting. My comments could and probably should have been in a separate thread.

However none of my comments including the deleted ones were abusive (unlike some I have received). People are obviously free to disagree. I don't actually know the exact reason some of my posts were deleted (irrelevancy to the OPs thread perhaps) but while some posters evidently found them contentious and objectionable (as is their right) they were not abusive (which is what I assume you mean).

Anyway no more from me on this thread.

I think you need to take your baseless assumptions elsewhere love and stop derailing.

I can certainly confirm that civil service pensions were efficient when in-house. I retired in 2019 and experienced no delays an all in getting my pension.

Didn't get a callback, not really surprised.

Did get another letter asking for the same things again. That's 3 times i've been sent duplicated letters asking for information i've already sent and when I call they confirm they have!

I did however find out why they want mums decree absolute. Paid into a widower pension apparently so they need to confirm when the marriage ended.

Why all these government departments aren't all joined up i shall never know all these things are public record.

My dad was a civil servant and died in 1992 I think his lump sum was about 20k for each of us 3 kids

No, most death benefit lump sums from pension schemes are discretionary because this ensures they are exempt from IHT. Usually they are paid out in accordance with the member’s expression of wishes form, but they don’t have to be.

From next April, these benefits will be subject to IHT regardless of whether they are discretionary or not.

I have a civil service pension. We are getting regular emails about how shit capita are and how many thousands of people are waiting.
I'm also part of a class lawsuit against capita as they 'lost' our confidential information.
How they can still be in business