From Angela MacDonald, Second Permanent Secretary
12 June 2026
In this update I will cover a few key areas: members who retired before 1 December 2025 (who have received a lump sum but no pension in payment), progress on issuing quotes, advice on returning your quotes, and a reminder about calling the contact centre.
Firstly, I am aware that there are approximately 750 members who received their lump sums in February 2026 who still don’t have their pensions in payment. I have instructed Capita to make sure that these cases are resolved as soon as possible and without any further delay.
Retirement Quotes
Capita is continuing to work through the backlog and has issued approximately 4000 quotes since my last update. I appreciate how frustrating this situation is for those of you who are having to wait for quotes - there continues to be a lot of correspondence between Capita and employers to make sure quotes include accurate information. Due to complexity of some cases, some members with a later retirement date will receive their quote before those with an earlier date.
Whether you have your quote or are waiting for it, please do read the FAQs included in the quotation pack or on the Quotes Hub to answer any questions you may have. It is critical that you make the right choice for you when taking your pension, and once you have made those choices they can’t be changed. I appreciate that members have in many cases been waiting a considerable time to receive a quote and will be eager to sign and return their forms, but please make sure you fully understand your options before signing and returning your documentation. If you need advice, please go to the moneyhelper website and search for an independent financial adviser.
Quotes returned to Capita still need to be checked, then processed, which means paying a lump sum (if applicable) and then put into payment. This may take a number of weeks, dates and details will be confirmed in your finalisation letter.
Returning your quote successfully
Please note that there is a 10MB file size limit when returning your quotes via the pension portal. Photographs of quote pages are more likely to take you over the 10MB limit, so please save and upload your documents into a PDF or JPEG format. If your returned quote was over the limit, you will have received an error message asking you to try again. Members successfully submitting their quote via the pension portal will receive an acknowledgement and reference number
Calling the contact centre
We want to prioritise the most urgent cases, so please don’t call the contact centre to enquire about the retirement modeller or the 2026 Annual Benefit Statement exercise. We will let you know when we have confirmed go-live dates for both of those.
I recognise how frustrating the situation continues to be and I know that, while we can see some improvements, there is more to do. We will continue in our endeavours to work with Capita to return the service to where it should be.
Angela MacDonald
Second Permanent Secretary, HMRC
