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Hello, I'm Sean Curran and this is yesterday in Parliament from BBC Radio 4.

On Thursday, the 12th of February, senior figures from the outsourcing firm Capita told MPs,

the company was overwhelmed by a backlog of cases and unopened emails

when it took over the running of the civil service pension scheme at the end of last year.

The problems have left thousands of people short of money, as they've been forced to wait

months for their pension payments.

Many of us imagine that retirement will

lead to less stress and more time to pursue hobbies and see friends. But thousands of recently

retired civil servants have been spending large amounts of their free time on the phone,

trying to find out what's happened to their pension. If I ring up your help line now,

I'm not in one of those two priority cases. How long will I be waiting? The average wait time last

week for not in those priority cases was an hour and 55 minutes. An hour and 45 minutes?

55, yes. That was the Conservative MP, Sir Geoffrey Clifton Brown, questioning Chris

Clements, the managing director at Capeter Public Services. Capita took over the running of

the civil service pension scheme in December. Thousands of people haven't received their pension payments,

and this week the government said it had started handing out emergency loans

to some retired civil servants. Yesterday, members of the cross-party public accounts committee

spent an hour and a half grilling Chris Clements and the chief executive of capita public services

Richard Holroyd, who began his evidence with an apology.

This service is not meeting in any sense, the service that Capeter seeks to deliver

or the pensioners and the members of this scheme deserve, and we absolutely recognise that.

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