Running Teachers’ Pensions for the Department for Education

Before we began running the Teachers’ Pension Scheme, it was labour-intensive and inefficient. Member queries were answered in weeks rather than days and files could easily be misplaced, leading to low productivity.

We set up a dedicated contact centre, providing one point of contact for all customer queries. We also introduced email and online access to give customers a choice of communications channels.

Our productivity improvements more than halved the staffing requirement from 450 to 220. But by generating new business we were able to redeploy 98% of redundant employees to other pensions contracts. We actively encourage staff to pursue professional qualifications, and ISO and IiP accreditation have been key factors in contributing to a staff retention rate of 97% and average service levels of 98%.

We’ve cut operating costs by 48% from some £17m to under 9m a year, and are currently working to generate a further £8m of savings.

"Capita’s initiatives and technological developments have brought the Teachers’ Pension Scheme to the forefront of pensions administration."