The Cabinet Office has named Richard Vianello as its new director charged with leading on the Civil Service Pension Scheme – including its recovery from the ongoing backlog crisis.
Vianello will carry on the work of Angela MacDonald, current head of the Civil Service Pensions Taskforce, who is due to retire from the civil service later this month.
News of Vianello’s appointment comes after parliamentary secretary to the Cabinet Office Baroness Ruth Anderson told a House of Lords debate that CSPS administrator Capita had “completely failed” to meet its deadline of returning pension-scheme services back to required levels by the end of June.
Anderson also told peers she believes the CSPS is a “prime candidate” to be brought back in house following processing problems that have left thousands of scheme members out of pocket.
Vianello has spent most of the past decade at the Department for Work and Pensions, where he served as head of later life delivery for two years. Between February and June this year he was on secondment at National Savings & Investments as director of continuous improvement.
He started work at the Cabinet Office on Monday as director of civil service and Royal Mail pensions.
In her latest update on the Pensions Taskforce this morning, MacDonald said Vianello will “provide the long term and permanent leadership of the scheme”.
She added: “Richard will continue these updates starting from next week and then back into the fortnightly cycle from then on.”
MacDonald acknowledged the end-of-June deadline, by which widespread service backlogs and delays with the CSPS were supposed to have been resolved, has now passed.
Earlier this week she announced that Capita now expects that new retirees who request a CSPS quote from this month should be receive payments on time, because of the four-month lead in between requesting a quote and payments commencing.
Her update today says there is now a need to “reflect on the effectiveness of our recovery actions”.
“We are assessing this in order to support ministers and to ensure appropriate commercial actions are taken,” she said.
MacDonald concluded her message by recognising the “unacceptable and awful experience” that many CSPS members have had in recent months.
“My team and I have done all we can to improve the position in the last six months and have been able to help thousands of people,” she said.
“I'm grateful for the messages and the challenges I have received from many members. There is still more to do, and I am totally confident that the hard work will continue unabated under Richard’s leadership.”
Capita ‘has completely failed’ to meet recovery milestone
In a House of Lords debate on Tuesday, Cabinet Office minister Ruth Anderson said the department would provide a “comprehensive update” on Capita’s performance, once data up to the end of June has been “fully evaluated”.
However, she said it was clear that Capita, which took over as CSPS administrator at the beginning of December last year – when the backlog crisis first emerged, had not returned the scheme to expected service levels.
“The end of June deadline has now arrived, and Capita has completely failed to meet this milestone for all services, as well as missing its initial April target,” Anderson said. “Since its explicit personal assurances have not been met and core outputs are deficient, we are deploying a unified package of escalating measures, including independent technical audits and an on-the-ground remedial adviser to hold it ruthlessly to account.”
CSPS a ‘prime candidate’ for insourcing, minister says
Paymaster general Nick Thomas-Symonds is expected to provide a more detailed update on the CSPS recovery in the coming days. But Anderson told peers she believes the CSPS could be brought back in house to be administrated by civil servants.
“The Cabinet Office issued updated guidance about public procurement last week in line with our manifesto,” she said. “The reality is that there were few businesses of the scale that could manage a complex pension scheme such as the Civil Service Pension Scheme.
“It remains clear government policy to advance insourcing, and this pension scheme is a prime candidate for future insourcing once immediate operational stability is secured. The contract remains under intensive taskforce oversight, but if performance fails to improve, absolutely all further commercial, legal and operational options remain on the table – for this or any other contract.”