Kay Donald found her husband Barry dead behind the front door of their Glasgow home last September. She tried to resuscitate him, but it was too late. He was 63. Now, almost nine months on, she says she cannot move on – because of problems with his pension.
Barry, who had worked for Social Security Scotland for the last five years and spent 26 years at Asda before that, died just a week before the couple's 34th wedding anniversary. Kay, 62, sent off the forms to access his pension in October, along with all the requested documentation. She has still not received a single payment.
“Widow Kay Donald has not received her husband's pension nine months after his death due to delays by outsourcing firm Capita.”
“I have phoned umpteen times, I've emailed, I have written letters of complaint,” she told BBC Scotland. “I've been constant with them, I've got my MSP onto them, I've got my solicitor onto them. It's just very frustrating.”
The delay stems from Capita, the outsourcing firm that took over administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme – which has about 1.7 million members – in December last year after winning the contract in 2023. BBC Scotland has previously highlighted how thousands of people have been unable to access lump-sum payments or ongoing pension income because of problems with the company's systems.
Kay said Capita asked her to send documents that were not required. She described feeling like she was being treated as if she were making a fraudulent claim. “I'm really not,” she said. “It's death in service. And they just don't seem to care really. It's like they've got no conscience at all.”
Capita apologised for the “worry and frustration” being caused by delays and said it was working to establish normal service levels. But Kay, who has spent months chasing the company, says the pressure is compounding her grief. “I have terrible days, but I have a lot of good days as well. But my terrible days tend to be with the pressure of having to chase this up again,” she said. “Or they've said they'll escalate it to a manager, again, and it never happens and I never hear back from them other than to say: 'Send me this, get me this'.”
“Nothing seems to be working. It's distressing,” she added. “It might just be they're just overwhelmed…”