The National Audit Office (NAO) has opened an audit of how the Civil Service Pension Scheme was handed to Capita and how it has been run since. It is listed as work in progress, with a report due in winter 2026/27.
If you are still waiting for a quote, a payment or a bereavement claim, this is not the thing that settles your case. An audit looks at how a contract was managed and how public money was spent, and your own problem still has to go somewhere else.
In short
- The NAO has listed an audit called Transfer of the Civil Service Pension Scheme to Capita, scheduled for winter 2026/27.
- It will examine how the Cabinet Office managed the change of administrator, and how Capita has run the scheme since December 2025.
- It will not look at individual pension calculations. The NAO tells members with questions about their own pension to contact the administrator.
- The NAO puts the contract at £239 million over seven years, and says £22.1 million in transitional support loans had been paid to more than 3,900 members by August 2026.
- Your own complaint still goes through the scheme’s two-stage dispute process, and after that to the Pensions Ombudsman.
What the NAO has announced
The audit appears on the NAO’s list of work in progress, and Civil Service World reported it on 2 October. The NAO’s own summary of the background is blunt: “Despite a two-year transition period to prepare for taking over the scheme, Capita has struggled to administer the scheme effectively following the transfer. Key service levels have been repeatedly missed, leaving many members struggling to access the information they need to plan for their retirement.”
It goes on: “Other members who were due to have retired have been forced to amend their plans as they did not receive the payments they were entitled to on time.” The Cabinet Office, it says, has had to introduce transitional support loans for those members, with £22.1 million paid out to more than 3,900 of them by August 2026.
What the NAO audit covers
The scope is one sentence: “The audit will examine how the Cabinet Office has managed the transition of administrator for the Civil Service Pension Scheme and how the service has been administered by Capita since December 2025.” The NAO then lists three things it will consider:
- the state of the scheme and the transition arrangements when Capita went live in December 2025;
- how Capita has performed since then, and the effect on members;
- how the Cabinet Office has carried out its oversight of the scheme, both before and after the move.
So the department is being examined as well as the contractor. The Cabinet Office awarded the contract, and the third question is about its own oversight.
What the audit will not do
The NAO is explicit: “The scope of this investigation will not include looking at individual pension calculations. Scheme members who have any questions or concerns about their own pension should contact their pension administrator.”
That follows from what the NAO is. It describes itself as “independent of government and the civil service”, reporting to Parliament on how public money has been spent. It also says: “We do not question government policy objectives.” Here it is auditing the system, not individual cases. Nor is it the same thing as the technical audit and the remedial adviser’s report, after which the Cabinet Office says it will decide its next commercial steps.
The NAO has reported on this scheme before
In June 2025 the NAO published an investigation into the administration of the scheme under the previous administrator, MyCSP. Complaints had risen by 43% between 2016/17 and 2024/25, to 4,780. The target was to answer at least 80% of calls within 30 seconds; over the two years before the report, MyCSP managed 43% at best, and in November 2024 callers waited an average of 24 minutes.
That report also looked ahead to the handover, six months before it happened. The NAO’s press release said Capita had “so far missed three key milestones” in the transition, which had led the Cabinet Office to withhold £9.6 million in transition payments. The head of the NAO, Gareth Davies, said then: “Cabinet Office must reflect on the lessons learnt from MyCSP’s administration of the scheme, ensuring key performance indicators are monitored and enforced, and that important service improvements are introduced by Capita.”
The new audit, the NAO says, “will build on” that report.
Where things stand while the audit runs
The scheme’s recovery plan update of 1 October counts the cases more than 100 days old as at 30 September: 1,311 bereavement cases, 332 death in service cases, 277 delayed payments and 8 ill health retirements. Capita had told MPs it would restore services to standard contractual levels, with some minor exceptions, by 30 September. The update does not say whether it did. That evidence, it says, “will be viewed alongside the rectification plan by the end of October”.
A statement to Parliament is due too. On 9 September the Cabinet Office minister told MPs she intended to give “a substantive update in October”, once the technical audit and the remedial adviser’s report were in. No date has been published. Capita said on 2 October that it “accepts that performance remains below the standards that scheme members and the Government rightly expect”. A Cabinet Office spokesperson told Civil Service World: “We welcome the NAO’s work in this area and will work collaboratively with them.”
We keep the running figures in Capita missed its deadline, and the practical steps for an overdue case in When will I get my overdue Civil Service pension?
What happens when the report comes out
The NAO is led by the Comptroller and Auditor General, who “is an officer of the House of Commons”, and its reports go to Parliament. The NAO explains the next step like this: “The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) takes evidence from senior government officials relating to many of our reports. PAC usually publishes its own report and recommendations which the government must respond to publicly.”
The committee has already questioned Capita and the Cabinet Office about the scheme this year, including at the joint hearing on 8 July. Whether it takes evidence again on the new report, and when, has not been announced.
If your own pension is the problem
The audit changes nothing about where an individual case goes.
- Start with the scheme. If a complaint to the administrator does not settle it, the scheme has a two-stage internal dispute resolution process. Capita investigates at Stage 1 and the Cabinet Office at Stage 2. The scheme says it aims to complete Stage 1 within two months, and an appeal should be raised within three years of the problem.
- Then the Pensions Ombudsman. It describes itself as a “free to access, independent service”, and it expects you to have tried to complete the scheme’s own process first. Its guidance says it may also be able to help if the other party “refuses to engage with or acknowledge your complaint”. You generally have three years.
- If the delay has left you short of money and you are still in work, the 1 October update reminds active members that transition support loans are available through their employer.
- MoneyHelper offers free, impartial, government-backed guidance on pensions: moneyhelper.org.uk
Frequently asked questions
Will the NAO look at my individual Civil Service pension case?
No. The NAO says the audit will not include looking at individual pension calculations, and that members with questions about their own pension should contact the administrator. Your route is the scheme’s complaints and dispute process, then the Pensions Ombudsman.
When will the NAO report on Capita and the Civil Service Pension Scheme be published?
The NAO lists it as scheduled for winter 2026/27. It has not given a date.
Is this the same as the technical audit the government has talked about?
No. Those are the technical audit and the remedial adviser’s report that the Cabinet Office says its next commercial steps will follow, once they are submitted this month. The NAO is independent of government and reports to Parliament.
Can the NAO take the contract away from Capita?
The NAO reports on how public money has been spent; it does not run the contract. Decisions about the contract sit with the Cabinet Office, which awarded it. What Parliament does with the report is a matter for the Public Accounts Committee.
Does the audit mean my pension is at risk?
No. What you are owed is set by the scheme’s rules, not by who administers it. The audit is about delays and service, and about how the handover was managed.
Pension Plain’s take
A report due this winter will not speed up a single case this autumn, and it is not meant to. Its value is the record. The NAO warned about missed milestones in June 2025, six months before the handover, and the handover went ahead in December. The useful question for the audit is what was done with that warning, and the scope suggests the NAO intends to ask it of the Cabinet Office as much as of Capita. For anyone still waiting, the dates that matter are nearer: the minister’s statement and the 30 September evidence, both expected this month.
Pension Plain is not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. This is information, not advice.
Sources
- National Audit Office, Transfer of the Civil Service Pension Scheme to Capita (work in progress, scheduled winter 2026/27).
- National Audit Office, Investigation into the administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme, 16 June 2025, and its press release.
- National Audit Office, Support for Parliament, on how its reports are used, and About us.
- Civil Service Pension Scheme, Recovery plan update #18 (headed “Directors update #18”), 1 October 2026.
- Civil Service Pension Scheme, Internal Dispute Resolution.
- The Pensions Ombudsman, How to complain about a pension problem.
- Capita, statement on the NAO review, 2 October 2026.
- UK Parliament, written ministerial statement HCWS324, Civil Service Pension Scheme, 9 September 2026.