Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 8
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)
We questioned MyCSP about what it was doing to ensure its staffing level was at the level it needed to be. MyCSP told us that it has recently increased staff numbers and contact centre performance is improving as a result. It said that staffing levels in April 2025 were at their highest level since October 2023.12 Data provided by the Cabinet Office following 6 C&AG’s Report, paras 12, 3.3 7 Public Accounts Committee, Civil Service Pensions Written evidence 8 C&AG’s Report, para 2.7 9 CSP0002 10 C&AG’s Report, para 2.10 11 Q 1 12 Q 3 7 the evidence session showed that there has been an improvement in 2025 in average call waiting times, which were 25 minutes in January but had reduced to 17 minutes by May.13 However, as MyCSP explained to us in the session, from 2017 to 2024 callers were waiting for an average of just three minutes.14 There are also slightly fewer calls being abandoned in 2025, down to roughly 25% in May 2025 compared with 30% towards the end of 2024.15
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.