Watchdog boss calls Capita's £370M DWP win 'extraordinary' amid pension portal dumpster fire
- Reference: 1773409497
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/03/13/capita_contracts_questioned/
- Source link:
In a [1]letter to the Cabinet Office , Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown included observations about the controversial award by the DWP, which is already the subject of a legal challenge alleging that Capita's bid was "abnormally low." Capita said it was part of a "robust procurement process."
The chair of the Public Accounts Committee sought reassurance that the Cabinet Office had shared details of Capita's performance on the CSPS before the DWP made its award to the outsourcing firm to provide HR, finance, and payroll services to the DWP, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), the Home Office, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
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Capita took over running the CSPS in December last year after winning a £239 million contract. Scheme members, including around 1.5 million current and former public servants, soon began to complain of unrecognized passwords and usernames, The Register [3]reported . They were forced to create new accounts, which were also unrecognized. Broken and circular links in a portal that appeared unfinished and untested also frustrated users.
[4]
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Retired civil servants in the UK have had their income slashed after payments from the system run by Capita failed to arrive, [6]according to the BBC . Capita told the news outlet it was struggling with a bigger backlog of cases than had been agreed.
Clifton-Brown wanted to know whether the Cabinet Office, which awarded the CSPS contract, had shared details with the DWP before it awarded the shared services contract to Capita.
[7]Capita's £370M Whitehall outsourcing deal challenged as 'abnormally low'
[8]Sopra Steria sues UK government over £958M Capita outsourcing award
[9]Capita taps Microsoft Copilot to dig it out from UK pensions backlog
[10]Newly launched civil service pension portal from Capita is crapita, users report
In the letter addressed to Catherine Little, chief operating officer for the Civil Service, he said: "It was reported on 26th February that Capita has just been awarded a £700 million civil service payroll contract by the Department for Work and Pensions. It seems extraordinary that given the failings that are currently being exhibited in its administration of the civil service pension scheme that Capita would be awarded such a contract. Can I ask what discussions, if any, you, or senior officials within the Cabinet Office had with DWP officials about Capita's performance prior to the award of this contract?"
The Register has asked Capita, the DWP, and the Cabinet Office to comment.
[11]
In March, Capita said it had won the DWP shared service contract for £370 million. Earlier, the public service union PCS said the [12]contract was worth £700 million . The official [13]contract award notice says the contract was awarded for £606.6 million. A DWP official told The Register the £370 million figure was a minimum value without optional services and contingencies. ®
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[1] https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/52152/documents/289476/default/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2abRCsYhMzmB_4qb_tam1wwAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/03/capita_civil_service_pension_portal/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44abRCsYhMzmB_4qb_tam1wwAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33abRCsYhMzmB_4qb_tam1wwAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp9jkdx1gp8o
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/04/370m_capita_government_deal/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/27/sopra_steria_sues_ukgov/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/17/capita_microsoft_copilot_pensions/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/03/capita_civil_service_pension_portal/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44abRCsYhMzmB_4qb_tam1wwAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.pcs.org.uk/news-events/news/government-set-give-ps700m-civil-service-payroll-contract-capita
[13] https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/3d454583-389d-43ee-b33d-8b183cd98c6f
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Whitehall 'theatre'
>> Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
Straight from the archetype bucket.
Whitehall is a theatre. They pretend they are guardians of the taxpayers money. But NOTHING changes. The same incompetent companies are given contracts over and over. We hear words from $archetype that this is crazy/nonsense/ridiculous/inexplicable. Then it goes on as before.
At this stage, any contract awarded to Crapita looks less like incompetence and more like corruption. Who is getting paid off here?
Re: Whitehall 'theatre'
>> Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
Straight from the archetype bucket.
Have you met him? I have, outside of parliament he's a rather scruffy Gloucestershire farmer, so I'm not sure what archetype you're thinking of. He didn't have a great reputation as as hands-on constituency MP, but seems to be doing a decent job holding people to account at the PAC.
At this stage, any contract awarded to Crapita looks less like incompetence and more like corruption.
I think you'll find that is the point Clifton-Brown was making.
Re: Whitehall 'theatre'
Oddly, given the handle, facts are irrelevant to VoT.
Re: Whitehall 'theatre'
but seems to be doing a decent job holding people to account at the PAC
What exactly that "good job" entails? Because talk is cheap and we don't see any effects.
It can't have been a robust procurement. I've run procurements under European Journal rules with the likes of Crapita and Serco in the bidding. In the vendor qualification round you are allowed to put in go/no-go requirements regarding performance on past and current contracts, remedies outstanding, court cases, disrepute, etc. If the government really wanted it could write vendor selection criteria that excluded Capita (and a single chimpanzee with half a typewriter could find a way to exclude Fujitsu). In my experience it's not graft that keeps it going badly it's the UK civil servants terror of being accused of not playing fair, even when they know that the companies who will win are crooked to the core. Being seen to be playing with a straight bat is more important then getting value for the poor bloody tax payer.
UK civil servants terror of being accused of not playing fair,
They only give a flying toss about their golden pension, to hell with the country.
The point being made is that Capita made an incomplete pig's ear of the CS pension scheme and are being awarded a contract at a suspiciously low rate.
See my previous comments about the alleged golden pensions. TL;DR I did better pension-wise as well as career-wise getting out of the Civil Service.
> I've run procurements under European Journal rules with the likes of Crapita and Serco in the bidding. In the vendor qualification round you are allowed to put in go/no-go requirements regarding performance on past and current contracts
Back when I was involved with the Government gateway (as a user I hasten to add) we were explicitly not allowed to take performance in other contracts into our considerations. We spent quite a while poring over the process in order to craft requirements that we *knew* Craptia et. al. couldn't meet [1]. I suspect that rule came into place because the FoC [2] in the Civil Service specifically wrote it in so that Crapita et. al. could still bid.
[1] Must be small to mid-sized MSP etc etc
[2] Friends of Capita. The group of senior civil service types who were part of the revolving cast of people moving between people like Capita and the Civil Service (and back again)
"Capita told the news outlet it was struggling with a bigger backlog of cases than had been agreed."
Surely that just means they fucked up harder than they are allowed to?
if it was the backlog of cases that was a problem
then how has the site failed to work for people without a case on the backlog? That more implies it is really a shitshow and this is the usual arse covering from Crapita
Re: if it was the backlog of cases that was a problem
As someone who has a (yet to kick in) CS pension and is a functioning IT person, I was utterly appalled by the utter mess Capita made of the whole thing. Their website is a joke (they have had *two* years to get it done but it looks like an intern fresh out of school knocked it together in their lunchtime.).
Even now, trying to amend dependant information gives you a "system connect timed out" error. It took several attempts to generate a new account (and my security head was appalled how little info I needed to provide) and another several attempts to actually manage to log in.
Scheme
How about government keeps paying £hundred millions to usual suspects to fuck off and hire actual competent firms to do the work.
It seems like it is impossible to separate these from the trough, so make it a policy. Give them money, but keep them at bay when it comes to doing any work.