As if the backlog, the bugs, and the chatbot fixes weren't enough
Capita has limited the online functionality of its Civil Service Pensions Scheme (CSPS) member portal after confirming an "issue" briefly exposed the personal data of public sector workers.
This breach took place "for around 35 minutes" on March 30, Capita said, "affecting the accuracy of a small number of Annual Benefit Statements (ABS) generated in this period."
The outsourcing biz added in a statement: "138 members either received personal ABS data belonging to other members and/or had their personal data seen by other members."
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Following identification of the mishap, ABS functionality was "immediately suspended" and Capita launched an investigation. "Whilst we fix the underlying cause of this issue, ABS request functionality on the portal remains offline."
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All members impacted were informed, Capita said.
The Cabinet Office told The Register it is taking the breach "extremely seriously" and "will consider further action as required."
"While only a very small number of members were affected, we are working with Capita to establish the facts and ensure appropriate measures are taken," a spokesperson said in a statement.
Privacy watchdog the Information Commissioner's Office said it had received a report of the Capita error and is "assessing the information provided." The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) said the March breach exposed members' information including names and addresses.
Capita won the £239 million contract to build and run the civil service portal back in November 2023. It launched in December 2025 and problems began early on. Members trying to log in and retrieve account details encountered repeated errors and malfunctions.
The Public Accounts Committee, a government spending watchdog, said the pension portal couldn't handle the work, the volumes, or placeholder text.
Who did Capita turn to for help with the malfunctioning website? Microsoft. Capita told civil servants to hang fire while chatbots fixed the pension portal. The Cabinet Office then invoked interim support measures and pulled in a team of 150 additional civil servants to manage correspondence backlogs.
CSPS supports 1.5 million former and current civil servants and Capita maintains it inherited a bigger backlog of cases than it expected to handle from the previous administrator – estimated to be 86,000 cases.
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The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) described the situation as a "fiasco" that has delayed payments of pensions to "8,500 newly retired civil servants."
The target is to clear the pensions backlog by the end of June but the PCS highlighted "growing doubts" about achieving this.
The union said of the breach that "things go from bad to worse" for CSPS. Fran Heathcote, PCS general secretary, commented: "This is yet another hammer blow to members' confidence in the administration of their pensions.
"This government came to office promising the biggest wave of insourcing in a generation. With every failure like this, the case for bringing essential services back in-house gets stronger."
The PCS added: "Concerns continue to mount across multiple areas and there are also around 20,000 outstanding pension quotes – meaning members submitting requests now could face delays of several weeks before their cases are even processed."
The Reg asked Capita to comment further but it refused. ®