The handover of the administration of teachers’ pensions to new provider Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has been delayed to next summer, the Department for Education has confirmed.
Capita, the outsourcing giant that has run the Teachers’ Pension Scheme for almost three decades, was due to hand it over to Indian IT firm TCS in October this year. Capita missed out on the £233 million, 10-year contract when government re-tendered in 2023.
But the DfE has now confirmed to Schools Week the final handover has been pushed back to “summer 2026”.
Its spokesperson would not explain the reason for the delay, nor give further details, but said it was “vital that after almost thirty years of running the Teachers’ Pension Scheme, Capita’s handover to Tata Consultancy Services, is a smooth one.
“The change in handover date will not impact any pensions or benefit entitlements, and we continue working with both providers to ensure current and retired teachers remain protected in this process.”
The DfE previously said it would “transition” the TPS to Tata over two years beginning in October 2023, before the new contract began in October this year.
Firm aims to ‘digitalise’ TPS
Capita took over the scheme in 1996, before being re-appointed in 2011 under an £80 million contract. The company was then given a three-year, £32 million extension in 2018, and a further four-year extension in 2021, worth £60 million.
After Tata was announced as the successful bidder in 2023, the firm’s president for financial products and platforms, Vivekanand Ramgopal, said it was “delighted” to partner with the DfE to “digitally transform” the administration of the TPS.
“Enhanced customer service has been the cornerstone of our platform’s value proposition to clients in the UK pensions industry,” he said at the time.
The DfE said at the time the new contract would “provide a more automated, digitalised and personalised service to our members and employers”.
This included providing “enhanced” access to data and an “improved ability” to self-service pension processes.
TCS and Capita were approached for comment.
Whilst I love the idea that the responsibility for administering the TPS is going to anyone rather than Capita, as someone who is already in receipt of a teacher’s pension, I can tell you that it’s already digitalised and automated, and I can already access any data I chose to. If the DfE don’t already know this, then they should. So why is this being given as the selling point in having Tata Consultancy Services the contract instead? Something fishy here for sure. As usual.
We should be very careful before handing over responsibility of the teachers pension scheme to an overseas body. Do we want to have a Robert Maxwell type scandal at some point in the future and what about protection from the kind of villains currently exploiting JLR and other businesses with weak DP protection? If at some point in the future a massive hole develops in the teachers scheme whose resources will have to fill it?