Capita bags £13.2m Police Scotland deal for crime-snooping tech Outsourcing badass Capita has gulped down a tasty £13.2m morsel dished out by the Scottish Police Authority: namely, the deal for Police Scotland's Core Operational Solution (COS). Capita in Scotland Capita already gets plenty of dosh for delivering public services to the northern third of the British mainland. As it merrily …
"What kind of moron ...".... a moron who is solely focused on price, has got a bonus for getting the work contracted out so cheaply, and who knows they'll have ejected with a large payoff and a gold plated pension by the time the entire thing is binned.
Maybe not so much of a moron after all!!!
Google Capita, switch to news articles, the top article is a contract award for Police Scotland, shortly followed by
1. Schools using Capita's information management system have been warned that there is an "incident" with
2. The NHS cervical cancer screening contract is to be removed from Capita
3. Capita posted a big fall in profits on Thursday
4. Capita -Army Recruitment "disastrous" Recruiting Partnership
Give it 6 months and this is simply be another disaster!
What no mention about Police Scotland being the only Force in the UK that doesn't get a VAT refund? It paid £76.5m in VAT in it's first three years alone since being formed in 2011 - and to date remains unable to reclaim the tax. Westminister w*nkers - as usual. Which is a LOT of cash ... just how many extra Scottish plods on the beat? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-36491598
Why mention it though? At the time it was formed, the Scottish govt sought advice on the VAT impact of their proposed way of setting up the force, and were told unambiguously by Treasury that the framework (s33 rebate) under which the VAT rebate had existed for regional forces would be lost. So they knew at the outset that creating a single national force would mean the loss of the VAT rebate, and went ahead anyway. Any cries now over this 'unfairness' are political, and also not comparing like for like.
In comparison, different 'national' forces deal with the same issue in different ways. In Northern Ireland they do effectively 'pay' VAT, but through an adjustment to their block grant rather than the method that impacts Police Scotland, even though PSNI get their VAT rebated first through a s99 rebate. All funding through through the Northern Irish Executive is treated as local/regional spend rather than national, which is the differentiator on s33. The National Crime Agency only gets VAT rebated for contracted out services only through a s41 rebate - similar to how other national agencies are treated.
None of that explains the horrendous IT fiascos up north though. Kudos to Police Scotland though for at least getting money back instead of ploughing on regardless.
They couldn't have gone for Core Operational Policing Solution (COPS).
Nobody naw give you no break
Police naw give you no break
Soldier naw give you no break
Not even you SIMS software give you no break
Hehe
Bad boys, bad boys
Whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do
When they come for you
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