Someone getting rich on the side
So whose pockets are being lined this time? Which friend of the cousin of the neighbour of so and so MP who they met down the pub?
Everyone's favourite outsourcing badass Capita is taking control of the £110m Turing student exchange programme formerly run by The British Council, a public corporation. Announced in 2020 by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the new Turing Scheme replaced the EU's Erasmus student exchange scheme, which the UK withdrew from as …
May be they should send some Christmas hampers/party gifts to No 10 for the vote of confidence in the company, and for continued partnership in helping the government dispose of large quantities of cash. A few rolls of wall paper would no doubt be gratefully received.
How do companies like Capita time and again fail to deliver on government contracts yet get more of them? Particularly when competing against an established and, as far as I can make out, successful incumbent? Oh, Hang on, the British Council sounds like a public body :
"The early 1930s were a time of global instability. Britain’s influence was weakened because of a global financial depression, which reduced living standards, jobs, and trade.
At the same time, extreme ideologies were gaining ground, with the rise of Communism in Russia, and Fascism in Germany, Italy and Spain.
The UK government created the British Council in response."*
So that explains it - crap commercial organisation: GOOD, efficient, well-liked public body: BAD.
As you were, nothing to see here, nothing at all.
* https://www.britishcouncil.org/about-us/history
"The rules - conveniently - don't allow past performance on other contracts to be taken into account"
I've heard this on multiple occasions. I'm sure other readers (and me) would welcome any definitve references.
[TLDR: Citation welcome :) ]
Even if past performance was allowed to be considered they'd probably just form sufficiently obsure trading entities to fool the "decision makers".
So, what's the answer then?
Public poor performance produces piss poor payments (at board level)?
The senior managers justify their megabonuses and other loadsamoney because "they are in very responsible roles". So presumably they're still responsible when things don't go as the customer might have hoped, right?
There's a reason there are no definitive references re: can't take past performance into account. It's bollocks
Here's the Government policy on how its done
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/417211/PPN04-15_Supplier_Past_Performance_.pdf
I agree they should take it into account but generally they don't. Most UK government procurements preclude it because it exposes under-skilled commercial teams to unwanted risk of liability.
i.e. they remove a supplier bid based on past performance and they get sued.
And getting sued halts the procurement exercise.
Did you read the document you linked?
It is almost impossible to apply and leaves you open to challenge due to subjectivities.
I've worked in large scale procurement and it's incredibly hard to use bad past performance to exclude vendors. In particular, the assessment is always, IME, based only on what you receive as part of the process so you've to be super careful and clever if youre going to exclude on past failures.
Three pragmatic approaches I've used:
1) BEFORE you tender: bring the supplier in for repeated bollockings on basis of their current poor performance. Make it incredibly uncomfortable to be your supplier. Verbally, and as clearly as you dare, leave them in no doubt that if you seem pissed off now it's nothing to what you'll be like if they wander back in to sell you more. Make the individual agents of company believe that you'll hold it against them personally in future; even if they turn up representing a different company in the future.
2) Again, BEFORE you tender, get the supplier black listed because of their performance or because an investigation is ongoing. Hard, and might not stick when you actually launch tender, but good if it works.
3) Most by the book, but hard: Set up the assessment criteria to heavily weight what the bad supplier is bad at. Hope that they don't manage to spoof their way through it
Fundamentally, it's hard to punish your current suppliers for their failures in next tender. But it's almost impossible to punish them for failures serving other customers (e.g. for DfE to punish Capita because they made a balls of MoD contracts). Some of it is regs, but it's also the asymmetry. They know directly the scenario, you (e.g. in DfE) have indirect hearsay, and beyond that end up relying on the submissions of your vendors (read the linked doc!)
When I've intimidated/deterred a supplier to f*** off, it's only ever temporary. When/if they turn up again in 4 years they will explain that they've been on a big quality/improvement drive and are now so much better. And you have to give them a fair shot
> Has anyone told Private Eye about this? (I daren't look at it these days, it's too depressing)
I hear you on that. I am numb to it at this point, after many years, so haven't cancelled my subscription yet. (Though numb != not care, at least)
"Access to the procurement documents is restricted."
"II.2.5) Award criteria
Price is not the only award criterion and all criteria are stated only in the procurement documents"
So for all we know the tender might simply have said "If your name isn't Capita, you need not bother applying"
Couldn't possibly be that they think an organisation with experience of education around the world is better placed to support thousands of students living in a foreign country for the first time than a minimum wage call centre worker employed by a company that routinely under-performs almost as its mission statement.
Nah.
Until not so long ago, Turing was barely known to the population at large. That he has achieved seriously belated posthumous fame is a tribute to the massive amount of work done by Andrew Hodges and the late Barry Cooper. I don't know who led the campaign to get him on the fifty pound note. That the miserable brexiters abuse his legacy does not detract from it.
Now there's an idea. Competitive tendering for placements. Highest bidders get best locations, lowest, a .50% discount at Canvey Island Poly. A wholly owned susidiary of Crapita Plc. Chancellor Sir Nicholas Soames welcomes all students, regardless of ability, even if they're not related to Churchill.
https://www.civilserviceworld.com/professions/article/capita-failures-nhs-england-told-to-consider-bringing-some-admin-services-inhouse
https://dentistry.co.uk/2018/06/26/nhs-england-admits-capita-failings-unacceptable/
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/03/capita-pays-compensation-family-woman-who-died-after-benefits-cut-philippa-day
https://www.bmj.com/content/359/bmj.j5123.short
https://www.forces.net/news/capita-failing-bring-army-recruits
https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/capita-faces-fresh-calls-to-be-stripped-of-pip-contracts-after-documentary/
https://www.bmj.com/content/364/bmj.l1347
There are pages more...of C[r]apita failings/disasters/oversights
Everyone's favorite outsourcing business Capita is scheduled to see 415 government contracts with the British public sector expire between 2022 and 2025, more than any other major supplier.
According to UK government spending research firm Tussell, the IT services company will see government contracts to the value of £700 million come to an end during the next three years.
While it is set to wave goodbye to more contracts than any strategic supplier in any area of the public sector, the value of its expiring contracts is eclipsed by facilities management supplier G4S, which will see 30 contracts worth a total of £1.8bn expire over the period.
Lenovo has struck an agreement with Hong Kong comms conglomerate PCCW to create a jointly owned services company, advancing its strategy of growth through services.
PCCW operates a globe-spanning software-defined network, some of which uses its own submarine cables. The company also owns PCCW Solutions – an IT services provider with a big footprint in Hong Kong, mainland China, and parts of Southeast Asia.
Lenovo and PCCW Solutions will create an entity dubbed PCCW Lenovo Technology Solutions (PLTS) that will see the Chinese kit-maker and the Hong Kong services company offer "one-stop customer solutions that integrate services, devices and digital infrastructure" according to a joint Lenovo/PCCW announcement.
The government of the Philippines has welcomed the decision by giant business process outsourcer Concentrix Corporation to forgo tax incentives and instead allow its staff to continue working from home for the foreseeable future. The nation feels that subsidising outsourcers' bottom lines does nothing to boost the local economy.
The Philippines imposed lengthy and strict COVID-19 lockdowns that saw its substantial business process outsourcing sector quickly adapt to working from home. The nation's government supported that move by continuing to offer the pre-COVID subsidies it offered to outsourcers that run offices located in certain special economic zones.
Those subsidies have subsequently been removed, and the requirement to operate from special economic zones restored.
Infosys celebrated the first anniversary of the e-filing portal it built for India's tax authorities fixing another prominent glitch – this time a search functionality error.
Complaints about the error streamed in to India's Income Tax Department, which tweeted about the error on Tuesday.
A labor rights non-profit has filed a complaint with India's Ministry of Labor alleging IT services giant Infosys has subjected its employees to an illegal noncompete clause.
Within the contracts for onboarding employees is a stipulation, according to Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES), that staff may not accept employment from any Infosys customer they worked with while at Infosys for six months after terminating employment.
Employees are also barred from working for an Infosys competitor if it means they would work with a customer they worked with at Infosys during the 12 months prior to leaving Infosys.
Co-Operative Bank is terminating its outsourcing contract with Capita years ahead of schedule and is planning to TUPE across staff to provision services in-house again, ending what at times was a fractious relationship.
A six-year agreement for Capita to run the Bank's mortgage services operation was signed in 2015 worth £325m, it included handling customer queries and applications and mortgage maturity, as well as digitising processes.
Yet the following year the companies fell out, with Co-Operative Bank threatening litigation over alleged failings regarding digital transformation service delivery.
Capita is again clearing out another of the previous CEO’s past conquests with confirmation this morning that it is offloading software licensing and hardware reseller Trustmarque to One Equity Partners for £111m.
Readers will no doubt be delighted to hear that the sale represents a good earner for Capita, everyone's fave outsourcing badass, which paid £57m for Trustmarque in 2016. Not all of Capita's other past divestments have proved as financially nourishing.
"We are pleased to have agreed the sale of Trustmarque to One Equity Partners following a competitive sales process," said Jon Lewis, who grabbed the controls of what appeared to be a slowly sinking ship in December 2017.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has warned the nation's finance sector that outsourcing information technology jobs could "expose them to significant financial, operational and reputational risks."
The RBI offered that opinion last week in a Statement on Developmental and Regulatory Policies that, after considering issues such as emergency lending for healthcare infrastructure and reform of default credit swaps, wends its way to a "Master Direction on IT Outsourcing and Master Direction on Information Technology Governance, Risk, Controls and Assurance Practices."
That section opens with the observation: "The financial system is seeing extensive leveraging and outsourcing of critical IT services by Regulated Entities to get easier access to newer technologies through financial technology players to improve efficiencies."
A pro-outsourcing CIO whose first act at a new employer was to set up a £475,000 backhander scheme has been jailed for six years.
Brian Chant, 62, took the bribes after joining procurement services firm Achilles in 2011, Southwark Crown Court heard.
One of the first things he did was recommend outsourcing of various IT functions, suggesting three companies to Achilles' board for the £22m SPTL and Systems Plus IT contracts.
Pakistan’s minister for IT and Telecom, Syed Aminul Haque, has floated the idea of a ten-year tax holiday for freelancers, suggesting the move could improve the nation’s services exports.
The idea was mentioned in Pakistan's 2021 Draft Freelancing Policy [PDF] and the minister minister raised the idea again last week at a meeting of Pakistan’s Committee on IT Exports Growth, a forum whose name says a lot about what the nation hopes to achieve with the policy.
In 2020 Pakistan revealed a plan to grow tech services exports from $1.25bn to $5bn within three years.
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