Newly retired civil servants say they are struggling to pay bills and buy food because delays at their pension scheme have left them without an income for months. The apparent crisis at the Civil Service Pension Scheme has now been acknowledged by the government, which revealed that interest-free “hardship loans” of up to £10,000 will be offered to thousands of the worst-affected people. On Wednesday, Nick Thomas-Symonds, a Cabinet Office minister, told a committee of MPs that the delays people were experiencing were “completely and utterly unacceptable”. The pension scheme has admitted to a backlog of nearly 90,000 cases – comprising claims, valuations and other requests – that it warned could take months to resolve. Some scheme members had been hit with shock tax bills after Capita recorded incorrect tax codes, it said.