You may have seen in the news that Capita, who provide administration services to the Scheme, has recently experienced a cyber incident.
Capita informed us that it took steps to isolate and contain the issue, however, they now believe there is some evidence that a limited amount of data was leaked. Capita provide a range of outsourced services to thousands of clients across several industries and we do not know yet whether the Scheme’s data is impacted.
We take the responsibility of protecting member data very seriously. We’re working closely with Capita and receiving regular updates as its investigations continue. We will provide a further update as soon as we have more information about their investigation.
We’d like to reassure members that this has not affected the annual increase to pensions in payment for 1 May 2023 and it has been applied on time. Pension increase letters will be available by 28 April.
STAY VIGILANT
Due to the public nature of the cyber incident, it’s important for members to stay vigilant. If you receive any emails about your M&S pension:
- Make sure it has been sent from either an M&S address (@marksandspencer.com, @marks-and-spencer.com or @mands.com) or a Capita address (@capita.com or @capita.co.uk).
- Don’t click on any links or attachments unless you know the email has been sent from a reliable source. We’ll only provide links to the Scheme website – www.mandspensionscheme.com or the portal – www.hartlink.co.uk/mandspensionscheme. Always take care that the spelling of the link is correct.
- Don’t provide any personal information unless this has been requested from the administrators to be able to respond to a request about your pension.