Capita next to go ?

[MartG]

After the disaster that was Carillion, could Capita be heading the same way ?

https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2018/jan...

[Trolleys Thank You]

Aren't Barnet Council effectively run by Capita with massive long term contracts? Could get very messy there especially with the local elections coming up in May.

[Four Litre]

God I hope so - faceless organisation, st service, st people, st pay, st everything.

I see them as bottom feeders, looking for any opportunity to take a service away from a business to deliver the bare minimum to customers based on a bargain special price. Only the end customer looses out and all the workforce that usually get 'TUPEED' over and then laid off for much cheaper resources at the earliest opportunity!!!!

[Nom de ploom]

I recently worked for them and I can safely say I can't hear enough bad news about them.

woeful management, process revolution hubris gets them the business that they then cannot deliver, end users suffer terribly - can only speak from my personal experience on the PCSE contract but they have caused me and my family appaliing delays in vetting for jobs in the Prison service and MOJ.

I can speak of doctors, dentists, pension holders, GP practices that I'm pretty certain would love to see an end to this particular outsourced service.

I can't speak of other services they provide but as an ex employee and been personally impacted by their woeful service levels I can.

it does feel similar to Carillion in that they have spread themselves too thin trying to do too many things in too many areas spreads the support services and it sags in the middle....

WH Smith next high street brand to go

[crankedup]

Four Litre said:

God I hope so - faceless organisation, st service, st people, st pay, st everything.

I see them as bottom feeders, looking for any opportunity to take a service away from a business to deliver the bare minimum to customers based on a bargain special price. Only the end customer looses out and all the workforce that usually get 'TUPEED' over and then laid off for much cheaper resources at the earliest opportunity!!!!

This 100%,another race to the bottom for the workers whilst the Senior Management shovel the cash home.
Our daughter worked for them many years ago.

[gooner1]

Trolleys Thank You said:

Aren't Barnet Council effectively run by Capita with massive long term contracts? Could get very messy there especially with the local elections coming up in May.

Iirc Liverpool Council(s) are in the same boat,

[Ali Chappussy]

Nom de ploom said:

WH Smith next high street brand to go

I thought that for some time.

[wjwren]

Dealt with them on many occasions while working for a school. Crap company run by shoestring of staff.

[tleefox]

Ali Chappussy said:

I thought that for some time.

Sure I read a set of results from them recently which suggested quite the opposite, largely due to the popularity of their shops in airports and train stations.

[Riley Blue]

gooner1 said:

Trolleys Thank You said:

Aren't Barnet Council effectively run by Capita with massive long term contracts? Could get very messy there especially with the local elections coming up in May.

Iirc Liverpool Council(s) are in the same boat,

And dozens, if not hundreds, of other councils. Within local government and probably every other sphere in which they operate they have long been known as 'Craptia'.

[CambsBill]

Private Eye will be both orgasmic at the prospect of Crapita following Carillon down the river, but will then struggle to fill column inches in the absence of Crapita stories . . .

[iphonedyou]

I wonder if, should Capita also go, a root and branch review of public sector tender procedures will finally be undertaken?

Keep rewarding low priced, undeliverable tender submissions with contracts and what can you reasonably expect..?

We just lost out by about 25% to a competitor tendering off a framework of eight for consultancy services for a public sector client. Of the eight, four including ourselves continue to submit tenders after three years - the others don't bother now. Two of those are incredibly cheap, and pick up 80% or more of the work as a result.

And yet.

The names of both consultants are mud with the client. They cannot stand working with them. They're renowned for offering a crap service and picking up cash on the back end through aggressively seeking variations to contract.

And yet.

Still they get the contracts. Because the scoring criteria is such that they can't not get the contract.

Edited by iphonedyou on Wednesday 31st January 12:37

Edited by iphonedyou on Wednesday 31st January 12:38

[Yipper]

Ali Chappussy said:

Nom de ploom said:

WH Smith next high street brand to go

I thought that for some time.

WH Smith is now very well run and delivering good profits. Their airport and railway stores are like money machines.

[Yipper]

iphonedyou said:

I wonder if, should Capita also go, a root and branch review of public sector tender procedures will finally be undertaken?

Keep rewarding low priced, undeliverable tender submissions with contracts and what can you reasonably expect..?

It's obvious where things are headed.

We're basically witnessing the collapse of the UK-owned outsourcing industry.

The contracts will eventually be consumed by American, German or other contractors from abroad.

It's a similar pattern to the collapse of UK-owned manufacturing in the 1960s to 1990s. Reckless skills, management and investment.

[Prolex-UK]

They also lost a big contract for Birmingham recently.

Used to work for them. Some really good people ...managers not so good

[matchmaker]

Crapita also run Constructionline - badly!

[ettore]

Not sure they're going to vanish anytime soon. The new Chief Executive is doing the right thing by washing everything out (hopefully) in one go - share price reduction predominantly linked to the call for funds. Capita may have plenty to do but it still makes money and has a number of strategic options now.

There are others in a more parlous state!

[Ian Geary]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I work for a Council, and there are 2 main observations to make on the thread so far:

1. There's been a variery of criticism lobbed at Councils over the years, often by those lauding the merits of the private sector. It's good to find out that their management is equally as poor, and processes are like "treacle" as well. And they've not even got the excuse of being a democratic organisation slaved to ancient political cycles. It's amazing how many sins can be hidden as long as the profits are rolling in.

2. We award contracts on a mix of performance / cost, with incresing need for value to be added locally in our area to get selected. But, given the obsession with keeping council tax incresaes down, austerity, the deficit and council "waste", how many people here are genuinely, genuinely going to put their hand up and say "you know what, I don't mind the council paying an extra 25% on thier £16m ICT contract if it means they use a better contractor. We don't want that library / youth centre / care home (delete as necessary) to stay open after all".

The answer is none. What is invariably said is "You pay £16m for that? In my company, we'd only pay £8m" and so the race to the bottom continues to be led by the private sector.

Council's can't borrow to cover revenue activity, can't trade fr profit, and must set a balanced budget by 8th March each year. With increasing demand on social care plus inflationary pressures, there's actually very little abiltiy to ignore "savings" * like this.

• Of course, we know damn well the total cost will be higher once we've lost all our well trained staff to their company, then pay £1k to get a phone number changed on our phone banking system. But the political system, and procurement rules to a large extent require us to award based on the tender submissions, and not use "gut feel" to award contracts (otherwise council's would just be open accusations of brown paper bags full of cash to mates).

Back on topic, I don't think this will spell the end of the service comapny set up - there's just too much vested interest in keeping the show on the road. No conservative govenrment is going to curb the private sector's ability to make profits, even if the results are demonstrabaly worse than retaining services in house.

The real shame is that many of the orginal public sector staff (westminster I recall) could probrably have done a pretty good job themselves if they had been freed from the constraints of local governemnt finance rules and oversite, but the trust just isn't there from Central Government.

I don't know how many more Carillions and Capitas are needed to make the case. 2 maybe isn't a representative sample of what really goes on, but their joint market share between them probably is/was.


Ian

[Ali Chappussy]

Yipper said:

WH Smith is now very well run and delivering good profits. Their airport and railway stores are like money machines.

I really hope that because where can I go and read magazines when Mrs Chap goes into the card shops!

[tangerine_sedge]

Ian Geary said:

I work for a Council, and there are 2 main observations to make on the thread so far:

1. There's been a variery of criticism lobbed at Councils over the years, often by those lauding the merits of the private sector. It's good to find out that their management is equally as poor, and processes are like "treacle" as well. And they've not even got the excuse of being a democratic organisation slaved to ancient political cycles. It's amazing how many sins can be hidden as long as the profits are rolling in.

2. We award contracts on a mix of performance / cost, with incresing need for value to be added locally in our area to get selected. But, given the obsession with keeping council tax incresaes down, austerity, the deficit and council "waste", how many people here are genuinely, genuinely going to put their hand up and say "you know what, I don't mind the council paying an extra 25% on thier £16m ICT contract if it means they use a better contractor. We don't want that library / youth centre / care home (delete as necessary) to stay open after all".

The answer is none. What is invariably said is "You pay £16m for that? In my company, we'd only pay £8m" and so the race to the bottom continues to be led by the private sector.

Council's can't borrow to cover revenue activity, can't trade fr profit, and must set a balanced budget by 8th March each year. With increasing demand on social care plus inflationary pressures, there's actually very little abiltiy to ignore "savings" * like this.

• Of course, we know damn well the total cost will be higher once we've lost all our well trained staff to their company, then pay £1k to get a phone number changed on our phone banking system. But the political system, and procurement rules to a large extent require us to award based on the tender submissions, and not use "gut feel" to award contracts (otherwise council's would just be open accusations of brown paper bags full of cash to mates).

Back on topic, I don't think this will spell the end of the service comapny set up - there's just too much vested interest in keeping the show on the road. No conservative govenrment is going to curb the private sector's ability to make profits, even if the results are demonstrabaly worse than retaining services in house.

The real shame is that many of the orginal public sector staff (westminster I recall) could probrably have done a pretty good job themselves if they had been freed from the constraints of local governemnt finance rules and oversite, but the trust just isn't there from Central Government.

I don't know how many more Carillions and Capitas are needed to make the case. 2 maybe isn't a representative sample of what really goes on, but their joint market share between them probably is/was.


Ian

Agreed, from my experience of being a supplier for the public sector, most of the problems stem from poor commercial relationships imposed by central government.