Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he has taken to ensure that MyCSP tackles the reported backlog of problems and queries from individuals, and to ensure that payments to pensioners or their dependents will still be made promptly.

MyCSP took on responsibility for the administration of the pensioner payroll from the previous supplier in September 2014 and inherited an unexpectedly large backlog of work, as well as long-standing legacy problems.

This caused a temporary dip in performance and some pension payments have been delayed as a result. Cabinet Office is working to support MyCSP. They plan to clear the high priority backlog and restore service levels before the end of February and clear the remaining lower priority backlog by early March.

MyCSP staff are working weekends and have also put in place additional resource to deal with the backlog as quickly as possible. Cases are being prioritised by last day of service to minimise the number of missed payments, and wherever possible interim payments are being made to avoid hardship to pensioners. MyCSP are committed to providing high quality service to retired civil servants with prompt payments and high levels of customer service.

MyCSP's transformation has improved productivity by 15% year-on-year since 2012, driven down staff absenteeism and improved staff engagement. It is enabling it to deliver a wider range of services (including on-line services) to higher standards whilst almost halving the cost of pensions administration within 10 years.