NEWS / British widow stuck in legal limbo due to outsourcing company’s processing of husband’s death certificate

A British woman is stuck waiting for to receive her deceased husband’s pension due to administrative changes in the pension scheme, which is still reviewing the man’s death certificate, the couple’s marriage certificate, as well their children’s birth certificates.

Paul McGinness, an employee of Social Security Scotland, died from aggressive sarcoma cancer at the age of 43 in January. Since then, his widow Fiona McGinness has been struggling trying to claim his pension benefits. The bureaucratic nightmare appears to be a result of pension scheme’s outsourcing of its administration to Capita.

“I sent the paperwork, then they only sent me half the right forms.,” McGinness was quoted by the BBC as stating. “I had to send the death certificate, our marriage certificate, and even the kids' birth certificates. Capita told me it would usually take 12 weeks to sort out but it'll be longer due to their current problems. Even 12 weeks is far too long.”

McGinness is not the only person dealing with these administrative delays, with thousands of other civil servants also encountering similar issues.

McGinness’s deceased husband had worked for Social Security Scotland for 4 years and was hoping to provide a good pension for his family, which also includes 2 children, aged 15 and 11. He had also briefly worked for the United Kingdom Ministry of Defense and the National Healthcare Service (NHS), and his widow was already able to get pension benefits from those agencies despite applying for them after applying for the Social Security Scotland pension with Capita.

Capita began administering Civil Service Pension Schemes, which has about 1.7 million members, in December 2025 after wining the contract in 2023.

If you need assistance retrieving a death certificate or getting it apostilled or authenticated for use abroad, do not hesitate to contact us via e-mail at info@apostille.us or by phone at (212) 233-7061. You can also place an order on our website.