UK government admits Capita pension portal was crapita at launch

A UK government official has admitted Capita did not reach the expected level of performance following the disastrous launch of the Civil Service Pension Scheme (CSPS) web portal late last year.

The Register reported in December that users experienced a string issues with unrecognized passwords and usernames. They also endured broken and circular links while the website appeared unfinished and untested, with headers and other features displaying dummy text.

This came after the government awarded Capita £239 million to build and run the CSPS, one of the UK's largest pension schemes, supporting around 1.5 million current and former civil servants.

In a letter to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) this week, Catherine Little, civil service chief operating officer and Cabinet Office permanent secretary, wrote: "Capita did not deliver the full levels of IT, automation, and portal functionality at go-live. This significantly impacted Capita's ability to manage the ...