Question
I thank the Minister for her statement. Elizabeth from Carpenders Park served as a Ministry of Justice usher for 23 years before retiring in January. Months later, she has still not received a single pension payment. That is despite spending more than two hours sitting in queues on the phone while simultaneously being prevented from using the pensions portal due to the high volume of inquiries. I am conscious that the Minister is encouraging casework to be brought to her via her good offices, but I am mindful that there will be a lot of casework across the House. What effort is she putting forward so that both Capita and the Cabinet Office increase capacity to deal with the backlog, as well as new cases?
Answer
I am sorry to hear of Elizabeth’s experience. It is totally unacceptable, as are so many of the cases that we have heard about today—and so many that we will not hear about, too. As the hon. Member will know, the Cabinet Office supplied nearly 150 staff in a surge team to help support Capita in processing the backlog. We also now have senior Cabinet Office officials working every single day with Capita to ensure that it is dealing with the complex cases that need serious expertise to be processed. We will continue to support Capita in any way we can. The remedial report noted that the technology let Capita down in a big way. It has now put some further resource and money into the technology, so automation should help process some cases faster. The biggest learning from the report is that while Capita said it would be an AI-enabled pension scheme, that just was not the reality.12% vibes
Verdict: GREEN (80/100)
The question asked what capacity measures are being put in place to address the case backlog, and the reply answers it directly. It cites a Cabinet Office surge team of nearly 150 staff helping Capita process cases, senior officials working with Capita daily on complex cases, and extra resource and funding for automation to speed processing. A later general commitment to continued support is less specific, but the concrete measures give the asker enough to act on.
How we got there
| Question item | Coverage | Specificity | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|
| What is the department doing to ensure that Capita and the Cabinet Office increase capacity to deal with the backlog of pension cases and new cases. | Addressed | Direct | The reply names concrete capacity measures: a Cabinet Office surge team of nearly 150 staff helping Capita process the backlog (seq 3), senior Cabinet Office officials working daily with Capita on complex cases (seq 4), and Capita's added resource and money for automation to speed case processing (seq 7). Seq 5 is a vaguer commitment to continue support, but the concrete statements already answer the question. |