CAPITA GETS THE CALL FROM BRUM

28-05-2008

Capita, the company responsible for introducing Birmingham Council’s controversial Voyager financial system has been rewarded with a £52 million contract to run the city’s call centres for the next four years. The question is – what exactly will they do?

Voyager’s failings have been well chronicled on this website, and as we revealed on Monday, the wife of a councillor has described it as “the anti Christ of payments and accounting schemes” (see link here).

That hasn’t stopped the Council handing Capita this new deal – with the prospect of a further four years to follow if it all goes to plan, bringing the total contract value to £110 million.

Under the terms of the arrangement, Service Birmingham – the partnership between the Council and Capita – will manage both the existing call centre in central Birmingham and a new one at Fort Dunlop.

Yet as if to prove that you can’t have too many cooks, a company called Vertex will continue to operate the centres on a day-to-day basis, while the Council will provide overall direction.

What then, will Capita, actually do? Don’t worry, we’ll be asking.

In the meantime, the company is claiming to have achieved savings of £28 million for Birmingham in three years, of which £9 million has gone towards keeping this year’s Council tax average at a below inflation 1.9%.