Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 4
49th Report - Administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme
Published 24 Oct 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Civil service pensions All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
In order to ensure a smooth transition from MyCSP to Capita it is important that appropriate consideration is given to the rights of staff members transferring across. MyCSP staff who are members of the PCS union have been on strike over the summer in protest at the lack of PCS involvement in Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) (TUPE) negotiations. MyCSP told us that the PCS union is not recognised by MyCSP for collective bargaining or otherwise, which it states is due to MyCSP being a part-mutual organisation with an elected, formal employee works council which is involved in negotiating terms, conditions and pay. It did, however, state that there were ongoing discussions between itself, Capita, the Cabinet Office and PCS about this issue. The Cabinet Office acknowledged these discussions too, while claiming that given it was not the actual employer it could merely advise and support where appropriate. It does however list staff retention as a key risk to be managed as part of the transition and identified staff shortages as being partly responsible for performance failures in 2024 and the decline in contact centre response times. recommendation The Cabinet Office should set out in its Treasury Minute response what its approach is to ensure that suppliers that it contracts with are committed to giving adequate recognition to the voice of employees, for example, through union recognition.
From: Public Accounts Committee, 49th Report - Administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme (HC 888), 24 October 2025
Government response
Latest Treasury Minutes progress report to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Forty-ninth Report of Session 2024-26
The government responded to the whole report on 4 June 2026 (deadline 24 December 2025).
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Forth-ninth report from Session 2024-26
Published 19 January 2026.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government agrees with most of the Committee's recommendations on the administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme, but disagrees with those on union recognition by suppliers and on its commercial strategy for pension administration.
- On Remedy, the government agrees and says the Cabinet Office has provided 58,400 (44%) of impacted members drawing their pension with revised options. It expects to be "in a position to communicate" timescales "during the first quarter of 2026".
- On the transition to Capita, the government agrees and says the service transitioned on 1 December. It says a rollback option with MyCSP existed until 31 December 2025, with options to extend support to the end of May 2026 "should this be required".
- On contract management, the government agrees and says a Contract Management Policy is embedded, under which the Scheme, as a gold tier contract, requires a contract manager "qualified at expert level".
- The government disagrees on union recognition, stating that under the Employment Act 1982 it is "prohibited from forcing suppliers to recognise trade unions". It disagrees on commercial strategy, citing the Procurement Act 2023 and saying in-house options are reviewed early in procurement.