25 July 2003
Outsourcing firm Capita has been removed from an information technology contract by Norfolk County Council. The company had provided Norfolk's exchequer, payroll, pensions and operational IT services since 1999.
A joint statement said: 'This termination does not reflect any dissatisfaction with the performance of Capita on these core services.'
Norfolk is to take the service in-house, with staff transferring to the county council's employment at the end of the year, pending a further review of the services.
The contract was signed by a previous administration and is understood to have had a narrow and rigid specification.
Norfolk's present Conservative administration wanted to procure each element of its e-government programme separately. However, it had been unable to persuade Capita to become involved in providing a countywide call centre under the Private Finance Initiative.
The statement said that Capita has achieved 98.6% performance against its 70 performance targets in the last year. Both sides are planning the contract closure, which will include payments due to Capita, the statement said.
Council leader Alison King added: 'I am confident that this is the right decision for Norfolk. We will continue to deliver all services through a mixed economy approach that includes a range of successful partnerships with the private and public sectors.'
Capita executive director Simon Pilling said the end of the contract was 'clearly disappointing'.
Capita is also under examination by Transport for London auditors who are looking into the firm's Coventry-based processing operation for London congestion charge payments.
Capita alerted TfL that it had failed to process 1,590 cheques sent by drivers. Around half had received notices threatening increased penalties as a result.
It said that the blame lay with a defective printer that had intermittently placed unreadable bar codes on the cheques. Some 350 people have had refunds and none were taken to court.
A TfL spokesman said: 'Auditors are looking at Capita's financial procedures to make sure there are no other problems. Our main concern is the distress and inconvenience caused to customers. People need to have confidence in the process.'
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