A retired civil servant faces severe financial hardship after being ordered to repay £25,000 due to a pension scheme error that lasted for nearly a decade.
A Decade of Incorrect Payments
Derek Ritchie, 63, received a letter in March from his pension scheme administrators informing him that his payments had been incorrectly calculated since 2014. The administrators apologised for the inconvenience and instructed him to repay the substantial sum, either via a single bank transfer or through instalments.
Mr Ritchie, who made life decisions based on the income he was told he would receive, described the situation as a "nightmare." "Over the last 11 years, I’ve made decisions, expenditures and plans based on the figures I was given," he stated. "The mistake will cause me considerable hardship. I shall have to go back to work for years to pay this off."
Life Choices Impacted by Error
The retired civil servant explained that, had he known his true pension income would be lower, he might have made different career choices. "I might have chosen to continue my career within the ministry or opt for the redundancy deal available under the voluntary early release scheme," he said.
He criticised the recovery process, citing government rules that state a member should be placed in the position they would have been in had the error not occurred. "Unless they are able to give me back the last 11 years and enable me to review and change my financial decisions, they’ve left me in a nightmare with no way out," Mr Ritchie added.
A Systemic Issue with Outsourced Administration
Fran Heathcote, the General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), linked the case to broader problems. "Errors and overpayments have been a feature of outsourced pension administration," she said. "Civil service pension administration should be done by civil servants under direct ministerial control. When things go wrong, people suffer."
The pension scheme is managed by MyCSP, which was appointed by the Cabinet Office. In 2019, MyCSP admitted it was attempting to claw back £2.7 million in overpayments from more than 2,000 pensioners.
A Cabinet Office spokesperson expressed sympathy for Mr Ritchie's situation but emphasised the duty to recover public funds paid out in error. "We apply stringent guidelines on the recovery of overpayments, and work to ensure any money is recovered with flexibility and the least burden possible," the spokesperson said.
