Concerns over MyCSP service

Delegates expressed their concerns over the poor service offered by MyCSP in three motions on the agenda of Prospect’s civil service sector conference in Nottingham in June.

All speakers said MyCSP was underresourced and underfunded and members felt unable to get the information they need to decide their future.

Peter Kelly (Health and Safety Executive) said MyCSP should be put in the “must improve” category.

Cyril Day (Department for Transport) said he was in a “Catch 22” situation. He was 60 in February and his last pension statement had been in February 2014.

Day said he wanted an illustration of his income in retirement but the Cabinet Office had told MyCSP not to provide “informal” pension estimates to staff – only to those with a confirmed date of retirement.

He urged delegates to expose and address failures and inform the sector executive of any problems.

He also said Prospect should use examples of this poor performance if ministers use MyCSP as a model for moving other functions outside the civil service.

The instructions to the sector executive included:

• raising the lack of adequate service and highlighting these and any other unacceptable cases with MyCSP and the ministers responsible for it
• monitoring the improvement plan
• raising outstanding concerns with the Cabinet Office directly, and via tools such as Parliamentary questioning
• exploring the feasibility of a legal challenge
• seeking alterations needed to provide the service expected by members.

• You can see more conference reports in the ‘news’ section on the left of the civil service industry pages  and in PublicEye magazine, being distributed to members this week.