Oh Crapita
Capita, they of the multimillion pound failed/delayed IT project (think NHS, HMRC) as well as botched staff administration services at Leicester Hospitals NHS Trust and the BBC where staff details were lost. They also failed to provide sufficient computing systems for the Criminal Records Bureau, which caused lengthy delays. Capita were also involved in the failure of the Individual Learning Accounts following a £60M over-spend. These collective failings led Private Eye to rename the company Crapita.
Imagine how over-joyed I was when I discovered that the Defence Solicitor Call Centre is now indirectly owned and managed by Crapita.
On the 1st July 2011, Crapita purchased Ventura who have held the contract with the Legal Services Commission to provide advice to detainees in the police station and to allocate cases to solicitors since the 1st April 2010.
Let's see if Capita can make less of a pigs-ear of this than they seem to have made of many of their other projects.
Imagine how over-joyed I was when I discovered that the Defence Solicitor Call Centre is now indirectly owned and managed by Crapita.
On the 1st July 2011, Crapita purchased Ventura who have held the contract with the Legal Services Commission to provide advice to detainees in the police station and to allocate cases to solicitors since the 1st April 2010.
Let's see if Capita can make less of a pigs-ear of this than they seem to have made of many of their other projects.
I think you may be being a bit unfair here DB. With these outsourcing people what matters most is who is actually managing the service and how well they are doing it, rather than which company happened to buy them last.
ReplyDeleteI worked for one once, and mostly - at least on the service side - a lot of good got done, trouble was a (very) few bad high-profile projects rather tainted the company name in some quarters.
I wouldn't judge the Defence Solicitors stuff on anything other than how well it works.
Unfortunately I think Captita is a pretty poor organisation. I have seen them enter the educational publishing sphere, outbid established players, and then employ poorly trained (verging on semi-literate) authors and editors, all driven from above by 'project managers'.
ReplyDeleteTheir dominance is due to their ability to win bids, certainly not due to their ability to deliver their contractual obligations.
I have to say that this weekend I took two calls from the Defence Solicitor Call Centre. Both were for suspects who had already been allocated to another solicitor (twice)!
ReplyDeleteI cannot recall ONE project that Crapita has brought in on time, on spec and on budget.
ReplyDeleteI challenge anyone else to find one.
A professional linguist observes -
ReplyDeleteCapita bought ALS in December 2011. According to the FT, It is paying at least £7.5m in cash for Applied Language Solutions, with a further consideration of up to £60m depending on performance in the next four years.
When you all own all the pieces on the chessboard, there is no possibility of a conflict of interest, certainly nothing that would be of concern to the MoJ.
I can give you lots of examples of where Capita has managed services well. Answer me this - how often do you see good news in the paper around this? Never, only bad is reported on. Capita is a great organsiation to work for with realstrong Values and behaviours and we always get the best from what we do.
ReplyDeleteReally??? Capita a good company to work for? You make me laugh seriously. So when the lowest paid full time workers are paid around 10-13k a year, while the CEO takes home £14,500 a week BASIC PAY, that's fair is it? When they bribed the labour party, just fine? When they scare workers with redundancy for ages just so that most of them quit so they don't have to pay redunancy pay is that fair? Taking local public jobs, and outsourcing them to india fair? How about the fact they don't recognise unions and take away as many staff benefits as they possibly can? Fair? You must be senior management or above to have such a naive view! They just go around buying up companies to enrich themselves through the stock markets, once the economy comes back up they'll just sell the whole thing before there's a mass exodus to another outsourcer (probably serco).
DeleteI used to work for Capita Financial Managers. I only took this position due to the current lack of roles in the financial sector (I used to work for a FTSE Asset Manager). I have never seen a more negative working environment in all my life. Staff are bullied by senior management and the labour turnover is huge. The CEO Chris Adenbrook shouts, swears and threatens staff. On one occasion he offered to stab any RM whos clients complained. The clients are treated very badly and most hate Capita but are locked into contracts. The level of service is quite frankly a joke as is senior management.
ReplyDeleteSounds like Capita SIPP as well in salisbury, any one there who get bullied, get the assistance of capita HR, these jokers back the manager in defence, and force the workers out, no pay rises, over worked under funded, any acheivement made by this company is so done by the wipping of brillient hard working people, desparate to keep their jobs in this didaster of a time,
ReplyDeleteI worked for crapita in Poland. They pretended our best friends. They wanted to do everything to make working environment as friendly as possible. They assured me many times that I work perfect. After several months with 'crapita values' I was fired because crapita 'had to' say good bye to a group of people. Never belive in crapita values. crapita is false. I've loved, turned to hate
ReplyDeleteI worked for Capita in a local Council and my experience was dreadful, promise this, promise that just to get the big contacts and when they didn’t deliver and lose money they get rid of staff.
ReplyDeleteThey put fear into managers and staffs of redundancy and hope people leave who have been there for 10-20 years.
I work for Capita at the Defence Solicitor Call Centre in Dearne Valley and can't believe the state of training and the age of the systems we work with!
ReplyDeleteThe computers are nearly 10 years old, running software that was designed by Oracle 15 years ago! There are frequent system crashes during calls and problems with the text messaging services. Staff morale at the DSCC is the lowest of all units (o2, EE, British Gas etc...), and the training, I don't know where to start with that!
Capita are target driven and couldn't care less about employees! The focus is always stats, stats and stats!
About crapita in Poland: "One capita, one Krakow, one team" One false, one hatred
ReplyDeleteCRAPITA, YEP IS SURE IS, CRAP SYSTEMS, HAVE TO GET IN 25 MINS EARLY OTHERWISE THE SYSTEM DOESN'T LOG YOU IN ON TIME AND YOUR CLASSED AS OWEING THEM TIME, LOL RUBBISH MONEY WORKING CONDITIONS, RUDE MANAGERS, FALSE HOURS OFFERED AT INTERVIEW, THANKFULLY I DIDN'T STAY LONG, THANKS TRACY I NOW HAVE A MUCH BETTER JOB.
ReplyDeleteDON'T WORK THERE YOU WILL REGRET IT.