Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 25
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)
Noting the seemingly small concentration of suppliers, we queried with the Cabinet Office if the market for pension providers is too small and, if so, what it is going to do to ensure that it has more options in future contract tenders. The Cabinet Office responded that the market is quite small, with few outsourced providers. In light of the small market of pension providers and the need across government to apply the McCloud remedy across several pension schemes, the Cabinet Office stated that it is currently reviewing the market to understand how to encourage new entrants and ensure market resilience.56 Following our evidence the session, the Cabinet Office wrote to us and stated that it has started engaging with the Crown Commercial Service to understand what it may do to shape the market in future procurements.57
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.