The work of the Cabinet Office

Status / emerging findings

• Civil service pensions crisis: Capita contractor is meeting zero KPIs on the civil service pensions contract despite 90% KPI performance elsewhere; 8,500 pensioners and 6,300 death-related cases remain in backlog after inheriting 86,000 cases in December 2025, with repeated deadline slippage (February → April → June) destroying credibility of recovery projections
• Centre of government dysfunction: Cabinet Office leadership admitted the centre is not operating effectively due to insufficient prioritisation, confusion between policy and delivery, and slow decision-making; government has become 'addicted to announcements' rather than focused on delivery outcomes
• Structural bloat: Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary acknowledged the department has become a 'conglomerate' with 40 business units and accumulated responsibilities it should not hold, but resisted major restructuring in favour of cultural change
• Taxpayer subsidy of contractor failure: 143–168 HMRC surge staff deployed at public expense to fix Capita's performance failures; characterised by committee as the public paying for private contractor incompetence
• EU negotiations coordination: Cabinet Office established EU Relations Secretariat as coordinating body for UK-EU reset negotiations, but government has not quantified economic impact of manifesto red lines on trade outcomes

Why it matters

The Cabinet Office's ability to coordinate government delivery and manage critical operational crises directly affects whether citizens receive public services on time—and the pensions failures show that systemic breakdown at the centre leaves vulnerable pensioners unpaid while taxpayers subsidise contractor failure.

Tone arc

Inquiry opened cooperatively in December 2024 with discussion of structural reform and mission-led governance; shifted sharply adversarial in January–March 2026 following discovery of escalating pensions backlog, with committee moving from procedural examination to forensic questioning of Cabinet Office competence and accountability for contractor failure.

Key witnesses

Catherine Little CB (Permanent Secretary, Cabinet Office; COO Civil Service), Darren Jones MP (Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; Chief Secretary to Prime Minister), Nick Thomas-Symonds MP (Paymaster General; Lead EU negotiator), Angela MacDonald (Leading Cabinet Office pensions recovery taskforce), Pat McFadden MP (Former Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster), Capita (contractor holding civil service pensions contract)