Update, 9 September 2026: there is finally an end in sight on quotes, with a number attached to it. The Cabinet Office update of 7 September reports that Capita had about 4,000 quotations left at the end of June, issued 3,087 by the end of August, and has about 900 still outstanding. The scheme says Capita is now to report on when those will clear. Two things to note. Capita had committed to clearing that backlog within six weeks of the end of June, which would have been mid August, so the commitment was missed and about 900 members are the remainder. And separately, from July Capita committed to issuing new quotes within six weeks of receipt, which is the first service standard published for quotes rather than a backlog count. Read the 900 as what is left of one specific backlog, not as everyone waiting: the 17,014 in the table below counts a wider population including future retirement dates, and the two are not the same measurement.
Earlier updates on this page (9 August back to 20 May 2026)
- 9 August 2026: Taskforce Update #14, published by the Director of Civil Service Pensions on 6 August 2026, reported 17,014 members waiting for a retirement quote and 13,047 bereavement cases for Capita to resolve. Read the quote figure carefully: it counts future retirement dates as well as past ones, so it is a wider measure than the 9,463 reported for 20 July, which counted only quotes for dates that had already passed. The two are not the same measurement and the jump between them is not a like for like increase. On the 2015 Remedy, the update was explicit that Capita had not begun the recalculations and that a plan and timescale had only then been requested. There was still no target date for clearing the backlog as a whole.
- 28 July 2026: The Cabinet Office recovery plan update of 27 July reported that, as at 20 July, 9,463 retirement quotes were still to be issued, against about 25,000 in mid June. Of those, 6,500 were within Capita’s control and 2,936 sat with employers awaiting data. Note this 6,500 is not the same 6,500 as in the 2 July entry below: that one counted members whose retirement date had already passed, out of a much larger total. Capita was waiting on families to return paperwork in 3,099 bereavement cases.
- 3 July 2026: The Public and Commercial Services union called for Capita’s contract to be stripped and the work brought back in house after the 30 June deadline was missed. Reported figures included about 16,000 unread emails inherited from the previous administrator and around 13,000 cases more than a year old.
- 2 July 2026: Capita missed the 30 June deadline to restore the scheme to contractual service levels. In mid June about 25,000 members were awaiting quotations, including roughly 6,500 for past retirement dates.
- 22 May 2026: The PCS Annual Conference passed two motions, one seeking a public inquiry into the outsourcing of scheme administration, one directing the union to seek an urgent ministerial meeting.
- 20 May 2026: A joint Public Accounts Committee and Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee hearing was confirmed for 8 July 2026. A 35 minute portal fault on 30 March exposed 138 members’ statements; the Information Commissioner’s Office was notified.
- Earlier still: 19 May, annual benefit statements reloaded to the portal and a commitment to issue more than 2,500 quotes a week to end June. 16 May, the government confirmed it was withholding milestone payments and that more than £8.25 million in interest free hardship loans had gone to over 1,500 members. 13 May, around 23,000 quotations outstanding and hardship loans at £7.2 million to over 1,300 members.
What this article covers
- Does: Explain what is actually outstanding and in which queue, how long the law says a quotation should take, the interest the scheme pays automatically on a late pension, the tax trap on a large backdated payment, and the formal escalation route with the compensation the Pensions Ombudsman awards.
- Doesn’t: Cover the scheme rules themselves, which sit in the Civil Service Pension Scheme guide, or the McCloud remedy mechanics, which are in the Civil Service McCloud remedy guide. The administrator’s performance, the contract and the parliamentary scrutiny are covered in Capita missed its deadline. This page takes no position on the contract or on how the scheme should be run.
- If you need advice: Speak to a regulated financial adviser, or contact MoneyHelper for free, government backed guidance.
If you are waiting on a Civil Service pension and cannot get a straight answer about when it will arrive, the honest position is this: no one has published a date for clearing the backlog, and the scheme itself has not given one. What has been published is a set of figures showing which queue you are in, and a set of rules about what you are owed while you wait. This page sticks to those two, because they are the parts that are settled.
In short
- There is no published completion date. The only dates on record are Capita’s own, given to a parliamentary committee on 8 July 2026: the bulk of retirement cases by 1 September and normal service by 30 September.
- “Overdue” covers four different queues with very different sizes and very different answers. Which one you are in changes what happens next.
- A quotation you asked for has a legal deadline of two months. Putting a pension into payment does not have an equivalent statutory deadline, which is a real gap rather than an oversight in this article.
- Interest is paid automatically at Bank of England base rate plus 1% where full benefits arrive more than a month after your retirement date. You do not have to ask for it.
- A large backdated payment can push you into a higher tax band in the year it lands, because PAYE taxes it in the year it is paid. HMRC can spread it back over the years it was earned, but only if it is asked.
- The Ombudsman awards for delay start at £500 and rise through £1,000 and £2,000. A Civil Service case decided in February 2026 produced £1,000.
First, which queue are you actually in?
“Overdue Civil Service pension” gets used for four separate things. The published figures track them separately, and the answers differ, so it is worth being clear which one applies to you. These are the numbers from Taskforce Update #14, dated 6 August 2026, except where stated.
| What you are waiting for | How many | What is known about timing |
|---|---|---|
| A retirement quote you requested | 17,014 members, including quotes for future retirement dates | No completion date published. Capita told a committee it expects the bulk of retirement cases cleared by 1 September 2026 |
| A pension payment that has not started or is short | 3,127 delayed payments, of which 1,800 were more than 30 days late (figure given in evidence on 8 July 2026) | No completion date. Interest applies automatically, see below |
| A bereavement or death benefit claim | 13,047 cases for Capita to resolve. Of the death in service cases, 203 were over four months old and 175 sat with Capita to progress | No completion date. In a large share of cases the file is waiting on paperwork from the family |
| A McCloud (2015 Remedy) recalculation | Not quantified | Not started. The scheme has asked Capita for a plan and timescales and is reviewing them |
A word on the quote figure, because it has been widely misread. The 17,014 counts members waiting for a retirement quote including those for future dates. The 9,463 figure reported for 20 July counted only quotes for retirement dates that had already passed. They measure different things, so the difference between them is not a straightforward increase in the backlog. Anywhere you see the two compared directly, treat the comparison with caution.
On the 2015 Remedy, Richard Vianello, Director of Civil Service Pensions, is unusually direct in Update #14: “I am also aware that more members are starting to contact Capita with queries about the 2015 Remedy (McCloud). Please do not call the contact centre for information at this stage, as Capita have yet to work through the recalculations. I have asked for a plan, and timescales for completion, and will review this alongside the overall remediation plan.” If your question is a McCloud question, that is the current answer, and calling will not change it.
Update, 24 August 2026: there is now a figure that answers this page’s question directly, and it is the first one the scheme has published that does. Taskforce update #15, issued on 20 August, stops publishing the totals in the table above and starts publishing cases over 100 days old instead, split by whether Capita can pay them now or is waiting on someone else. Richard Vianello gives the reason plainly: the old totals mix new cases with overdue ones, so “the data does not clearly set out how old cases are, and how long it will take to get those members or their families the money that is owed”.
Where your case sits on the new basis. Among cases more than 100 days old, Capita says it has everything it needs to pay 1,082 bereavement cases, 45 death in service, 6 ill-health retirement and 68 retirement payments. Waiting on a third party, meaning you, your representative or an employer, are 779, 242, 12 and 267 respectively. That split is the practical one for you. If your case is in the first group there is nothing further for you to send, and Vianello has said the next update will publish when Capita expects to pay them. If it is in the second, something is outstanding from your side or your former employer’s, and chasing that is the fastest thing you can do.
Do not subtract these from the numbers in the table above. They count different populations: the table counts everyone waiting, these count only cases past 100 days. A smaller number here is not the backlog falling. The update also brought changes aimed at speed rather than at queue length, including identity checks moving to credit referencing agencies and a bulk processing tool that put around 4,800 cases through in one week; those are covered in Capita missed its deadline. Source: Civil Service Pensions Taskforce update #15, 20 August 2026.
Update, 9 September 2026: a fortnight on, that split has moved hard, and it has moved the same way in every category. The 7 September update repeats the exercise, and the group Capita can pay has largely been paid while the group waiting on someone else has not shifted at all.
| Cases over 100 days old | Capita can pay: 24 Aug to 7 Sep | Waiting on a third party: 24 Aug to 7 Sep |
|---|---|---|
| Bereavement | 1,082 to 266 | 779 to 803 |
| Death in service | 45 to 41 | 242 to 267 |
| Ill health retirement | 6 to 1 | 12 to 11 |
| Retirement payments | 68 to 66 | 267 to 222 |
| All four together | 1,201 to 374 | 1,300 to 1,303 |
The payable column fell by more than two thirds. The waiting-on-someone-else column moved by three cases. So the share of the over 100 day backlog that is blocked on a third party has gone from about half to roughly four fifths, and on the 7 September figures the whole over 100 day pile is 1,677 cases. What that means for you is simple enough: if you are still waiting past 100 days, the odds are now much higher that something is outstanding from you, your representative or a former employer than that Capita is sitting on a payable case. That is the group where chasing changes the timing. The totals for August are ours, added from the two published components; September publishes its own totals and they match the same arithmetic. One caveat that applies to every line: these are counts at a date, not claims closed, because cases cross the 100 day line in both directions. Source: Civil Service Pension Recovery Plan Update, 7 September 2026.
How long is a quotation legally allowed to take?
This one has a hard answer. Under the Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Disclosure of Information) Regulations 2013, a scheme that receives a request for a statement of benefits must provide it “as soon as practicable but no more than two months after the date the request is made”. That is regulation 16, and it applies to defined benefit schemes like the Civil Service scheme where the member has not already had the same information in the previous twelve months.
So if you requested a quotation more than two months ago and it has not arrived, the scheme is outside the statutory timescale. That is a fact you can state in a complaint, and it is the single most useful sentence on this page for anyone writing one.
Putting a pension into payment is different, and the gap is worth naming. The Disclosure Regulations govern deadlines for information, not for money. There does not appear to be an equivalent standalone statutory deadline requiring a scheme to put a pension into payment within a fixed period once someone retires. What exists instead is the scheme’s own benchmark, which is one month from the retirement date, used as the trigger for paying interest. That is a scheme rule rather than a statutory duty, but it is the closest thing to a published standard and it is the one the scheme measures itself against.
The interest you are owed, without asking for it
This is the part most coverage of the backlog leaves out. The scheme has a standing arrangement to pay interest on late retirement payments, and it is automatic.
- When it applies: where full benefits are paid more than one month after your retirement date.
- The rate: Bank of England base rate plus 1%, for the period between your retirement date and the date your full benefits are actually paid.
- Which retirements: those processed and paid by Capita from 1 December 2025. It is the administrator that actually pays the benefits that determines eligibility, not the one that handled the original request.
- What you have to do: nothing. The scheme sets up the regular monthly pension and any arrears first, then calculates the interest and applies it from the date the original payment should have been made. Members receive written confirmation of the amount and the date.
- Tax on the interest: income tax is not generally deducted from the interest at source, but it can still form part of your taxable income and may need declaring if you file a Self Assessment return. Basic rate deduction applies for people not resident in the UK.
There is a separate mechanism with a confusingly similar name, the actuarial “late payment supplement”, which adjusts benefits where someone draws their pension after normal pension age for scheme design reasons. That is a different thing from the interest described here and the two should not be run together.
If you need money now
Interest arrives with the pension, which does not help if the problem is this month’s mortgage. The recovery programme has run a separate hardship route.
Interest free transitional support loans have been offered by employers to members who left the Civil Service after 1 January 2025 and are waiting on a payment. As at the 27 April 2026 recovery plan update, £7.2 million had gone to more than 1,300 members, with loans of up to £10,000 depending on need. Later reporting refers to a higher ceiling in exceptional cases and to interim lump sum payments for members who have retired but are not yet receiving an ongoing pension. Those later figures come from secondary reporting rather than the scheme’s own publications, so treat the exact amounts as indicative until the scheme restates them.
The loans are issued by employers rather than by Capita or the Cabinet Office, so the route in is your former department’s HR or payroll team, and it helps to ask for the transitional support loan by name. They are loans, not grants, and are repaid once the pension or lump sum is processed.
The tax trap on a big backdated payment
If your pension has been delayed for a long stretch, the arrears arrive as one lump. PAYE will tax that lump in the year it is paid, which can push a year’s income into a higher band even though the money was earned across several years.
HMRC’s own manuals set out the alternative. Its Self Assessment Manual records that “Taxable pension is the amount to which the pensioner is entitled in the tax year. A payment of arrears of pension may be a substantial sum covering a number of tax years and the statutory (accruals) basis should thus be applied on request where it is to a taxpayer’s advantage.” The same manual describes what HMRC then does: amend the return for the year the arrears were received, and raise a separate charge for the earlier years.
The operative phrase is on request. The relating back is not automatic, and the scheme’s paymaster cannot do it for you, because it can only operate PAYE on the year of payment. If a large backdated Civil Service pension payment is heading your way, this is the point at which a conversation with HMRC, or with an accountant if your affairs are not simple, is worth more than a conversation with the pension scheme.
One warning on sources, since this comes up constantly in search results. A number of tax articles cite “Section 569 of ITEPA 2003” as the legal basis for spreading arrears back. That section deals with the territorial scope of PAYE on pensions and says nothing about relating arrears to earlier years. The sourcing that holds up is HMRC’s Self Assessment Manual at SAM20030 and SAM121160.
How to escalate, and what it is worth
The scheme runs a two stage Internal Dispute Resolution procedure, and the Pensions Ombudsman sits after it.
- Stage 1. Capita investigates, as the scheme manager has arranged for it to handle stage one. You have three years from when the issue happened, or from when you became aware of it. The scheme aims to complete stage one within two months, against a regulatory expectation of four.
- Stage 2. The Cabinet Office investigates, acting as scheme manager on behalf of the Minister for the Civil Service. It states that stage two is likely to take four months.
- The Pensions Ombudsman. Free, independent, and the end of the road. The three year clock runs from the event complained about, or from when you reasonably became aware of it.
You would normally be expected to finish the internal procedure before the Ombudsman takes a case, but that expectation is not absolute: the exception covers situations where the scheme has not responded within a reasonable time, or where continuing internally would clearly be pointless. If your complaint is precisely that nobody is responding, that exception is the relevant one.
The Ombudsman can direct payment for distress and inconvenience as well as for money you have actually lost. Its published bands are:
| Level | Award | Broadly, what it reflects |
|---|---|---|
| Nominal | No award | Minimal distress, a single occasion, an apology is adequate |
| Significant | £500 | Significant distress on one or more occasions, short term effect, the scheme took reasonable steps to put it right |
| Serious | £1,000 | Materially affected the member, several occasions, lasting effect over a prolonged period, the scheme was slow to put it right |
| Severe | £2,000 | Chronic situations, repeated or compounded errors over a prolonged period, member prevented from making informed decisions at critical times |
| Exceptional | More than £2,000 | Severe factors plus an aggravating one, such as a wilful or reckless respondent or grave health consequences |
Two caveats on those figures. The Ombudsman’s factsheet setting them out is dated September 2018 and now carries a banner saying it is under review as at March 2026, so the bands are current but may move. And how well the scheme handled your internal complaint is itself one of the factors that feeds the award, which is a practical reason to keep the paperwork.
For what this looks like in practice, a determination in February 2026 concerning the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme was partly upheld, with the Ombudsman directing that the two respondents each pay £500, £1,000 in total, in recognition of serious distress and inconvenience caused by their respective delays. A separate 2026 case involving a different public sector scheme is a reminder that where an employer’s own administrative delay causes the loss, liability can attach to the employer rather than to the scheme administrator.
Common questions
When will the backlog actually be cleared?
No completion date has been published for the backlog as a whole, and the taskforce update of 6 August 2026 does not give one. The only dates on record are Capita’s own, given at the parliamentary evidence session on 8 July 2026: the bulk of retirement related cases by 1 September 2026 and a return to normal contractual service by 30 September 2026. Neither has been independently confirmed as met. The next taskforce update is due in September.
My retirement quote is months late. Is that allowed?
The Disclosure Regulations 2013 require a statement of benefits requested by a member to be provided as soon as practicable and no more than two months after the request. Beyond two months, the scheme is outside the statutory timescale, and saying so plainly is a reasonable thing to include in a complaint.
Do I get interest on a late pension, and do I have to claim it?
Interest is paid where full benefits arrive more than a month after your retirement date, at Bank of England base rate plus 1% for the period of the delay, for retirements processed and paid by Capita from 1 December 2025. It is applied automatically once the regular pension and arrears are in place, and members are sent written confirmation of the amount and date. There is no claim to make.
Why am I being told not to call about McCloud?
Because the recalculations have not begun. Taskforce Update #14 of 6 August 2026 states that Capita has yet to work through them and that the scheme has asked for a plan and timescales, which it will review alongside the wider remediation plan. Until that plan exists there is no case specific answer for the contact centre to give.
Will a big backdated payment push me into a higher tax band?
It can, because PAYE taxes the payment in the year it is made rather than the years it relates to. HMRC’s Self Assessment Manual provides for the statutory accruals basis to be applied on request, so that arrears are assessed against the years they were actually earned. It is not automatic and the pension scheme cannot do it for you, so it has to be raised with HMRC.
Can I go straight to the Pensions Ombudsman?
Normally the internal procedure has to be exhausted first. The exception is where the scheme has not responded within a reasonable time, or where continuing internally would clearly be pointless, which is worth knowing if the complaint is that nothing is happening at all.
Does any of this reduce the pension I eventually get?
No. The delays are administrative. Benefits accrued under whichever section you are in, alpha, classic, classic plus, premium or nuvos, are set by the scheme rules and are not changed by how long the processing takes. What is delayed is the calculation and the payment, not the entitlement, and interest is added on top where the payment is late.
Pension Plain’s take
The most useful thing anyone waiting can know is that two of the four queues have firm rules attached and two do not. A quotation has a two month statutory deadline. A late pension attracts interest automatically at base rate plus 1%. Those are stateable, checkable entitlements, and they do not depend on anyone at the scheme agreeing with you.
Bereavement cases and McCloud recalculations have no equivalent. Bereavement work is often waiting on paperwork from families, which means the file genuinely cannot move until forms come back. McCloud has not started at all, and the scheme has said so plainly rather than implying otherwise, which is more candour than these updates usually carry.
The gap worth flagging is the one nobody legislated for. There is a hard deadline for telling someone what their pension will be, and no equivalent hard deadline for actually paying it. In a normal year that asymmetry never surfaces. In a year like this one it is the whole problem.
Information, not advice. This article describes the current administrative position affecting the Civil Service Pension Scheme and the rules that apply to affected members. It is not regulated financial advice and does not take account of your personal circumstances. For decisions that depend on your situation, speak to a regulated financial adviser or to MoneyHelper. Pension Plain is not authorised or regulated by the FCA. Figures are from Civil Service Pensions Taskforce Update #14 of 6 August 2026 unless stated otherwise, and are correct as at 9 August 2026.
Key official sources
- Civil Service Pension Recovery Plan Update, 7 September 2026 (GOV.UK).
- Civil Service Pension Recovery Plan Update, 24 August 2026 (GOV.UK).
- Civil Service Pensions Taskforce Update #14, 6 August 2026 (member hub).
- Interest on delayed retirement payments (member hub).
- Disclosure of Information Regulations 2013, regulation 16 (legislation.gov.uk).
- Civil Service Pensions: Internal Dispute Resolution.
- The Pensions Ombudsman: redress for non-financial injustice.
- HMRC Self Assessment Manual, SAM121160 (arrears of pension and the accruals basis).
- House of Commons Library, CBP-10479, 20 July 2026.
- Pension Plain: Capita missed its deadline (the administrator, the contract and the scrutiny).
- Pension Plain: Civil Service Pension Scheme: the plain English guide.
- Pension Plain: Civil Service pension death benefits: how to claim.
- MoneyHelper (free, impartial pension guidance).