\n<\/p>\n
A retired civil servant faces being forced back into full-time work after being ordered to return \u00a325,000 in overpaid pension benefits.<\/p>\n
Derek Ritchie, 63, was informed in March by scheme administrators that his payments had been miscalculated since 2014.<\/p>\n
In a letter, they apologised \u201cfor any inconvenience\u201d and told him he would need to repay \u00a325,000 by bank transfer or in instalments.<\/p>\n
Ritchie (not his real name) asked for an explanation which he said he has not received. Three months later he received the letter he was threatened with legal action if he did not start his refund payments.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the last 11 years, I\u2019ve made decisions, expenditures and plans based on the figures I was given and the mistake will cause me considerable hardship,\u201d said Ritchie, who was prescribed medication for depression and anxiety after having received the letter in March. \u201cI shall have to go back to work for years to pay this off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ritchie is one of hundreds of civil servants who have been ordered to return overpayments caused by administrative errors. Some were told to repay six-figure sums.<\/p>\n
\u201cErrors and overpayments have been a feature of outsourced pension administration,\u201d said Fran Heathcote, the general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union. \u201cCivil service pension administration should be done by civil servants under direct ministerial control. When things go wrong, people suffer.\u201d<\/p>\n
MyCSP, which was appointed to manage civil service pensions on behalf of the Cabinet Office, admitted in 2019 that it was trying to claw back \u00a32.7m of overpayments from more than 2,000 pensioners.<\/p>\n
The errors had come to light during a big review ordered by the Cabinet Office. However, the review failed to spot the overpayments to Ritchie. Instead, they rose from about \u00a3200 a year to \u00a34,000.<\/p>\n
His income has been reduced by 13% a month and MyCSP told him it would deduct a further 15% a month to recover the debt if he did not agree to a payment plan.<\/p>\n
Pension providers have a legal duty to recover overpayments even when scheme members accept them in good faith. However, the debt may be reduced if pensioners can provide evidence that they have spent the money and would suffer significant hardship by making repayments.<\/p>\n
Ritchie said his pension valuation encouraged him to take early retirement when his position at the Ministry of Defence came up for redundancy in 2014. He has since worked part-time as a mental healthcare assistant and had planned to retire fully in 2027.<\/p>\n
\u201cI might have chosen to continue my career within the ministry or opt for the redundancy deal available under the voluntary early release scheme if I\u2019d known my income would be lower,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Cabinet Office said it sympathised with Ritchie but had a duty to recover public money paid out in error. \u201cWe apply stringent guidelines on the recovery of overpayments, and work to ensure any money is recovered with flexibility and the least burden possible,\u201d said a spokesperson.<\/p>\n
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Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n In October, a parliamentary select committee report accused the Cabinet Office of mismanaging the outsourced pension scheme and blamed MyCSP for \u201cunacceptable\u201d service levels. The report from the public accounts committee also highlighted concerns about the transfer of the \u00a3239m management contract from MyCSP to Capita and suggested the service should instead be managed in house.<\/p>\n Capita took over the scheme this week. The Guardian has reported on delays with the Teachers\u2019 Pensions scheme that it runs.<\/p>\n The company said: \u201cWe bring over 50 years of pensions expertise, modern technology including AI, a focus on innovation, and a commitment to social value, and are working in partnership with the Cabinet Office to build a more intuitive service that meets the needs of members.\u201d<\/p>\n Ritchie said he was awaiting an explanation of how the mistake arose and had no way of knowing whether the revised figures were correct.<\/p>\n \u201cGovernment rules say a member should be placed in the position they would have been in had an overpayment error not occurred,\u201d he said. \u201cUnless they are able to give me back the last 11 years and enable me to review and change my financial decisions, they\u2019ve left me in a nightmare with no way out.\u201d<\/p>\n This article was amended on 6 December. A previous version of this story said MyCSP told Ritchie it would deduct a further 15% a month from his payments if he agreed to a payment plan. It should have said they would deduct a further 15% if he did not agree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A retired civil servant faces being forced back into full-time work after being ordered to return \u00a325,000 in overpaid pension benefits. Derek Ritchie, 63, was informed in March by scheme administrators that his payments had been miscalculated since 2014. In a letter, they apologised \u201cfor any inconvenience\u201d and told him he would need to repay<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[2346,7282,7244,1040,4919,4988,5618,4141,16034],"class_list":{"0":"post-36176","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-civil","9":"tag-error","10":"tag-ordered","11":"tag-pay","12":"tag-pension","13":"tag-pensions","14":"tag-retired","15":"tag-scheme","16":"tag-servant"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}