Capita won disastrous UK pensions gig after acing performance checks The UK government awarded Capita a £239 million contract to run the Civil Service Pension Scheme (CSPS) after assessing its past performance, despite the rollout later leaving thousands of retirees waiting for payments, a senior civil servant has said. Capita kebab shop in Waterloo Capita wins four out of five stars for 'good …
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Unfortunately not really relevant - getting money off the government is a game, whether it be at the benefits office or for providing a service. To get the money you just have to be good at the game, not at actually providing the service. And the nub of this game is filling the paperwork so that all partners backs are covered if it goes pear shaped. This is what Crapita's business model is based upon - playing the game to the best of their ability. And yes they are agile - they can adapt to changes in the rules of the game better than most.
Crapita and all their ilk are bad, but ultimately they are a symptom, not a cause, of a procurement system devised for the benefit of the bureaucrats rather than the service users.
It's almost like the people awarding the tender are willfully ignoring all the other disastrous Capita contracts...
Almost?
No, not almost.
It's quite almost like evident that the people awarding the tender are willfully ignoring all the other disastrous Capita contracts...
There you go.
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Does the Civil Service & Cabinet Office not see that it's things like THIS that make Joe Public genuinely believe the whole thing is about corruption and crony capitalism?!
How the hell is outsourcing cheaper than having your own people do the job? How is going through tenders every few years and getting staff that are more and more demotivated with each tUPE cheaper? How is it cheaper and better to offshore it?
How can an entire Government procurement service not have heard CRAPITA?!
There is literally ZERO requirements for these firms to improve or even provide the basic amount of service because the civil service seems to be full of careerist idiots who don't care how many jobs are offshored, as long as it isn't theirs & how much tax payers money is thrown down the pan to the incompetent likes of Crapita, Infoshite, accenshite, krappyMG etc because again, it isn't their money and their after directorships?
How is it cheaper and better to offshore it?
Those questions never get asked. We're trapped in the neoliberal bollocks since the 1980's: public sector bad, private sector good. A whole generation has been brainwashed into believing that cult. So it pervades local and central government, the NHS, education, supposedly public services, etc. An added problem is the people and institutional memory to run stuff in house have long gone => outsourcing is the only game in town.
It's not totally dead. The Covid furlough scheme was developed by HMRC people in house - because outsourcing to the usual suspects would've taken far too long. Actually, Covid had some other lessons too. When companies had to quickly adapt to people working from home, the IT departments were able to do it damned quickly because the usual bureaucracy was suspended. It has long been my feeling that you get the people that understand the problem and the people who understand the solution together and shit gets done. For some reason we now need an army of people who understand neither to be involved at every stage. The B-Ark candidates.
There's a fair few reasons this happens, as I'm sure you are aware:
There's not that many companies out there large enough to take on contracts of this scale. Those companies also promise those wonderful Rainbow Farting Unicorns (and then deliver a donkey with a cone taped to the head and ribbons tied to the tail. One with flatulence, obviously) to make their offerings look so wonderful. Their ploy is to get something in that technically does the job, then milk the support side for as much as they can get.
Compounding this is the need for that company to be vetted and approved: Larger companies can afford this easily, while the mid-sized can't. Smaller can as they can specialize in this kind of contract, but they can't handle the scale of project so that puts them out of the running.
In house? Don't have the size of in house teams to handle larger projects hence it getting outsourced. Ideally support should be moved in house, but the big corpo's want the support contract to milk it for everything they can get. SLA's are horrible at that point (yes, looking at Crapita specifically, but Fujitsu isn't that much better) but they're sold on the promise of it being cheaper and better than in house support. Yes, I do have first hand experience of this - thanks to Crapita, who were told, specifically and explicitly NOT to review the IT department when doing a review of processes to offer recommendations for improvement: They then ignored that entirely and did review IT and then tried to present their recommendations to the board of INCREASING the IT budget in order to outsource IT to another branch of Crapita for an inferior SLA contract. Seriously: They'd charge per callout if it wasn't what they considered 'critical', and that list was miniscule compared to what IT covered out of hours, with a faster response time than Crapita was offering! Yet other hospitals bought into Craptia's promise of those mythical Unicorns only to find costs skyrocket, to then try and hire back their IT staff they'd laid off in order to get Craptia in... and yes, the whole process was a nightmare and exceedingly expensive.
I know, rambling and ranting, but considering the cost of a biro to the NHS was five times the cost of the same biro from the same supplier to a private company?
Well, the truth is most companies would love to get a government contract, simply so they could milk it for all it's worth, and the government keeps believing the bullshit they're fed that outsourcing is cheaper without reading the fine print.
Outsourcing a large project that is beyond the capability of the in-house team shouldn't be a problem, provided the in-house team manages the project correctly. The problem is that the civil service has zero management skills in any area more challenging than booking lunch.
The civil service is known for not paying well and having periodic mass redundancies whenever a Government feels like some Austerity is in order. Then staff have to factor in mandatory strike days when working out their actual salary.
To build up a suitably qualified and experienced in-house technical team would involve paying engineers more, letting them have proper training, being happy with more staff working from home, and having offices either closer to where people live or easily/cheaply accessible by public transport (so not Whitehall or Croydon).
The tabloid press would complain if a civil servant dared to earn half what an MP does, and some MPs/ministers get upset with people working from home.
This ^^^
We're currently in a phase where the CS is expected to lose 10% of it's payroll. I'll pause and let you think about what that means - a 10% cut in the payroll. That's not a "review every post and assess whether it's doing something in support of government requirements",it's not a "lets review what the government whats the civil service to do", it's "cut 10%". That doesn't mean lose 1 in 10 people (which is, apart from the ritual execution, the correct meaning of decimate), because it might mean losing more or less than 10% of headcount depending on what grade people are who are allowed to leave - sadly, my technical discipline has been excluded from the voluntary exit scheme or I'd have been seriously considering it.
And on pay, as year after year, pay rises have been below inflation, in the MoD (can't speak for other departments) we now have TWO (non-industrial) grades on spot rates at the NLW (national living wage.) I.e., every year, the annual pay award is not enough to shift the grades above the NLW - except temporarily for a few months, then next April the NLW overtakes that and people are back on NLW. One does actually earn a little more, because the department had to bring in a "temporary" allowance to create a pay differential between the grades - otherwise all the AOs (administrative officers) were looking to downgrade to AAs (administrative assistants) for the same pay but less responsibility ! It's only a matter of time (not long) before the same process means EOs (executive officers) also end up on the same spot rate.
TL;DR - come and work for the civil services, a minimum wage employer. At the moment, it's a toss up whether I retire before my grade becomes NLW.
Oh yes, and as well as earning "a lot less" than you can in the private sector (even allowing for the "definitely not as good as some like to think" pension), you can get lambasted by the tabloid press, government ministers, TV personalities, and others - and note that your senior leadership are very quiet (I cannot recall a single occasion when any of our senior leaders has gone on record to counter any of these unfounded attacks. And yo expect every one of us to come to work all enthused to do our best ?
Yes, that mandatory 10% figure tells us what we ought to be able to see for ourselves, that it is not based on what jobs need to be done, but on a political/ideological decision to please people who they think might then vote for them.
It's not really different from the past demands ( both parties) to cut "backroom staff" in health, police and education etc services to focus resources on "front line" staff. Ignoring that the staff in question are largely doing jobs that need to be done by someone. And if not these mostly lower paid staff it'll be done by the same frontline staff that the funding is supposed to be directed to.i.e. instead of an admin doing the admin it's going to be a staff nurse, or a copper or a teacher shuffling files when they ought to be nursing/coppering/teaching etc..
Well, the truth is most companies would love to get a government contract, simply so they could milk it for all it's worth, and the government keeps believing the bullshit they're fed that outsourcing is cheaper without reading the fine print
And let's face it, no senior civil servant will be sacked for outsourcing to one of the big outsourcers. And may well be (entirely coincidentally) be offered a non-executive directorship after the CS career..
How the hell is outsourcing cheaper than having your own people do the job? How is going through tenders every few years and getting staff that are more and more demotivated with each tUPE cheaper? How is it cheaper and better to offshore it?
In terms of outsourcing, that had mostly happened already on the sly.
Back circa 2012, myCSP was formed from various in-house government pension administrators. myCSP was a separate company, and the original ownership of myCSP was 25% to employees (a giveaway from taxpayers to employees being TUPE'd), 40% Equiniti (a company who do pensions administration), and Cabinet Office the 35% balance. Over the years Cabinet Office sold down their stake to Equiniti, and by 2018 Cabinet Office owned nothing, and Equiniti owned 75%, giving them absolute control. I haven't looked to see if Equiniti and employee shareholders got anything when Crapita took over.
You say that Civil Servants don't care, I'm one, I do care, my colleagues care. We know and dislike Capita*, but under the system of government the UK has, our job as civil servants** is to follow process, and to take our orders from the executive branch (politicians). Politicians of this and the last government have liked outsourcing, we follow the rules for assessing "make/buy" decisions (signed off by the pols), we follow procurement rules (signed off by the pols), and major contracts and outsource decisions are all approved by the pols. There's a few points and places in time where individuals could make a difference through changing process, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, but it always comes down to having a minister decide. It's also worth bearing in mind that senior civil servant comments need to be seen in the light of them being part of government - it isn't within their gift to express opinions, or criticise policy, so they have to go along with whatever the ministers want, and always support decisions already made. Look at all the dancing around the handbags over the appointment of Mandelson - everybody knows it was a political move at the specific behest of Starmer and probably his inner advisers, but nobody will officially admit that, and it was a career civil servant (Robbins) who has been thrown under the bus, even though he would have had little executive responsibility.
There's also political considerations for government, that the population at large distrust government, both politicians and civil service. As politicians they will never ever admit fault, reflect, or willingly reverse a bad decision, so the focus is on blaming the civil service. Even Starmer does this with his comments about the civil service being in "a tepid bath of managed decline". Well, whining ministers and members of Parliament, who has the executive power here? However, whether you ask Joe Public or ministers, the CS is seen as too large, bloated, ineffective, inefficient***. So anything that reduces CS headcount is popular, even if by outsourcing something it cost more and simply creates a shadow civil service****. Politicians almost to a single butt-cheek have zero experience, education or talent in managing people or large complex organisations, so pulling this all together, there is no incentive for ministers to reduce government reliance upon external suppliers, contractors and professional advisers, and outsourcing remains very popular with politicians across the spectrum.
And one final observation that puts this in its broader context: The UK has a spiralling welfare and debt bill, that is taking up an ever larger proportion of public expenditure. Politicians over the past thirty years have know this but chosen not to address it and as a result the very purpose of government whether local or national has changed. Government now exists simply to decide what to cut next in order to shovel yet more £50 notes into the furnaces of health and social care, or to those who have loaned money to the government. In the case of outsourcing that moves headcount out of the civil service and has all the appearance of "doing something".
* Apologies to those many competent employees of Capita, but Capita's senior management have made their bed over the years.
** It's there in the job title, we are servants to the King, and under the constitutional monarchy we have that translates as servants to the people who the population have elected. We are paid to do as we are told, not to challenge it.
*** Not what international comparisons indicate, but opinions on the CS within the UK are usually relatively extreme, inaccurate and completely impervious to evidence, explanation or debate.
**** I'll wager that Cabinet Office don't have the slightest clue about the size of the shadow civil service, and aren't interested in finding out.
I can totally agree with the above. As a former director of a SME we quoted for several government contracts in the defence, aerospace and oil and gas sectors. In all bar one cases we were knocked back in favour of bigger companies.
One of the favourite arguments was that our business continuity plan did not meet the required standard, another one was that we did not meet ISO 27001 despite the project being a design function with no construction aspects. We found out that the large home counties based company who got the job had a team of a dozen proposals engineers whose only job was to write proposals for government contracts. In one case our 60 page detailed submission for a simple job was rejected because our larger competitor had submitted what I later found out was nearly 500 pages including detailed CVs for 20 different people, cost breakdown by the person and hour, certificated for various ISO standards most of which were not applicable to the job etc etc.
We were told off the record that our competitor had provided so much information that it was virtually impossible for us to compete with them desipte our having an established track record and a nember of highly experienced and qualified personnel. We had two nationally recognised experts in the field plus another 3 highly experienced (25+ years) design engineers.
Basically the government procurement system is rigged in favour of the big companies, and that is why there is now a dearth of SMEs as the big boys have sucked everything into their gaping maw.
We found out that the large home counties based company who got the job had a team of a dozen proposals engineers whose only job was to write proposals for government contracts.
Of course with all the money being spent on proposal writers, they had to cut a few corners somewhere else.
Whilst, this is true we know from enough drama and sattire that the civil service is more than impartial and will advise ministers in decisions based on their experience look at Lord Humprey for example in Yes Minister (yes I know not real life), so Id hedge to bet that maybe not all, but some in the civil service and further up the chain are members of gentlemen's club, looking to post Civil service career and opportunities and the same old Outsourcers get the win.
Oh minister yes we have used x for many projects and it has delivered x. I do appreciate that a lot of politicians would claim their cat did it then take ownership. But, I dont think the Civil Service is like Dobby and its oh yes sir, we are here to serve you. On the note of the welfare bill - take into consideration the state pension was always a bung over fear of communism post war and improving health rates and the aging out of the boomers who in a large % voted against those still working with Brexit and do not like Jonny Foreigner, but also through their shares, property portfolios and holding onto unsuitable in most cases housing stock have ensured that lots of companies don't even pay enough for people not to state sub support and whilst allowing for the same levels to pay the least amount of tax as a company and board with the wage divide to hidious levels.
This leaves governments filled with the same Etonian based connected mates in Politics and civil service so the wheel goes round and none at all wanting to pay their way, so we have less money earnt by the working population, the greed of the boomer and older wanting their tripple lock for a scheme that was always a bet and has long been lost. The state pensionw as always based on people living 10 to 15 yrs max, not in 80, 90s and taking early retirement.
It should of been clear from the actual paid in schemes (private) as state pension is paid by those working (not paid in as a lot will bluster on about) and lots have found having to find work in their sixities to top that up.
The working benefits, social benefits part of wealthfare and cheats are near tiny % vs the increasing unaffordable state pension and its tripple lock, this is where the majority of the debt comes from and also Tories 14 yrs of give aways to mates and anyone else they could think of. It wasn't popular, but should of been done at the start winter fuel payments when rejigged correctly meant that millionaires and the wealth off didn't receive unnecessary benefits and similar the state pension has to become means tested to ensure only those that need it get it, as that is the role its a benefit not a right and part of supporting those who have least in society not well off pensioners who have a 2 or 3 million pound 4 bed house that they are just staying for the memories, but in reality would be far better off in a flat or smaller property that is easier to heat and give more cash to live on and still have money if they so want to pass on.
This would free up property stock to actual families who need it and would reduce the need for as much house building as stock isn't log jammed and the wellfare bill comes down considerably as those with private pension, share, independent wealth live out their days comfortable and not being subbed by the government and similar ensuring firms were forced to remove the divide and boards paid a more realistic fee for their skils (not millions or billions) and all the side benefits, but maybe 90k max and that would then release the money from the profits to reinvest in actual non sub salaries or wages.
The is the fundamental issues and reality, not the disabled having too many rooms, or those on the social which are convienent lies,but sorting out the fundamental issues in the system.
What was also ignored is that Civil Servants are still one of the only groups to have gold plated final salary pensions that can equate to living off your days in 100s a yr for senior roles and still claiming state pension - how is that far. Not everything is shiny and rosey on either side, but neither are the civil service just play alongs.
"This leaves governments filled with the same Etonian based connected mates in Politics and civil service"
We had a generation of politicians, starting from Wilson, through Heath & Thatcher who came up through the grammar school system. It was Wilson & his cronies who pulled up that ladder behind them. The next generation were largely headed by public schoolboys again.
The irony is not lost that with Thatcher and her there is no such thing as society, we are still feeling the damage and impact of her half cooked ideas, that everyone is somehow a small shop owner.
Obvious Daddy didn't love me issue, that we all have paid. It cannot be lost though that the 14 yrs of recent history have been etonian old boys club and everything in their power to give money to mates in one way or another the pandemic handling was a clear example and Brexit another where Cameron, put Party first over country and we had chancers ever since, looking at Labour governments of the same period both current and prior Blair and Brown were not full of Etonian public club and for Brown period as chancellor is historically a very stable and improved period for all uk residents.
But, we likely have had the same current Civil (Snr) on the way up or now left advising the same politicians and going to the same gentlemen's clubs that happen to rub with the same ceo and boards that get the same amount of work.
I do agree with others blocking out the smaller SME by pricing out due to the tendering process (ironically another Thatcher gift) costs is beyond unfair as even during my university yrs disertation and other evidence through white papers proved a smaller group of specialist contractors was always more effective and to cost than large scale contract congomerates, but as with all corruption with uk sitting at 70 rating on the corruption index, the same names, same old schools, get the same work and lets not forget those who will claim about the new righties - they come from the same old backgrounds and same schools as the rest, just con those less informed and even more grifty then the current political class.
Even when massive life impact contractors feck up like Fujitsu it seems soon forgotten, but they buid out the complexity and crapness so much that no one in their right mind wants to touch it, would you want to be the person taking on Horizon or its replacement, I am sure most companies go hell no, leaving the same olds as they will just as title says brown bags the issues away,
... with Thatcher and her there is no such thing as society ...
... still feeling the damage and impact of her half cooked ideas ...
... everyone is somehow a small shop owner.
Indeed.
And don't forget the bloody 2X life-size statue in Grantham.
To think that at one point it was meant to be put up in Parliament Square.
Incredible.
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her there is no such thing as society, we are still feeling the damage and impact of her half cooked ideas, that everyone is somehow a small shop owner.
Thatcher's comment about society is always taken out of context. It was said during a debate on the NHS, when someone commented that if society wanted a better health service it would have to pay for it. Thatcher's reply was that when it came to paying bills there was no such thing as society, in the sense of an amorphous blob with bottomless pockets, since the cost will always fall on the individual taxpayers.
As for small businesses the current and previous governments have done a thorough job of destroying those. That's a cost which we still haven't fully seen coming through.
"What was also ignored is that Civil Servants are still one of the only groups to have gold plated final salary pensions"
I get fed up with pointing out that IME the Civil Service scheme was not gold-plated. I had a far better deal moving into the private sector. The Civil Service pension scheme had less value per year served in terms of final salary and the non-contributory aspect was a salary sacrifice scheme and a bit of a con trick because it lowered the final salary on which the pension was calculated. More pinchbeck than gold-plate,
It's worth bearing in mind that it's the bollocks being made of that very CS pension scheme that's the focus of this thread.
And apart from that, a pox on your casual ageism.
I am sorry out of which group post war has had the ability to buy housing, cars and support a family on one wage, who also has had the ability to buy multiple properties for portfolios and reduce the housing market even further, plus the same group of nimby to block housing development and demand a tripple lock on their state pensions, you point out the terms are not great and you got better in the private sector, verse what is paid in the state sector, its well known the pay disparity, but still the ability to have a final salary pension of any sort is the pipe dream for most under the age 40 and likeliness that they will be working till their 80s or longer for less and less as the repurcussions of the decisions of the prior generations mean less housing, less wages, higher tax to keep those prior in the point they are acustomed to and in reality when they get there the pultury sum of feck all.
Its known for the group before them and after them that boomers have had the best advantages of any group and now they are retiring and collecting the benefits and others seem to ignore the struggles of those who face much worse conditions and before they we have massive inflation and I paid x, when you brought a house in 60, 70 or 80s for 27k, I dont think you can get the fiddle out on how hard you have it verses the log jammed housing market where houses when they do appear are in 200 to 300k in middlands to north and other areas like the south of 600k or more. So, no chance for young couples or families ever getting on the ladder.
So, I take your pox and hope you feel comfy in your priviledge, whilst the younger generation plump your pillows and yes its also a fact boomers were a large % who voted for things like Brexit and for being such cultural shifters seemed the easiest fooled by political classes and a bus and the usual rags. Maybe lead or god knows what, but certainly seems a very bitter or rose tinted ideal how it went.
Yes, the Crapita getting the contract is absolute joke having had the joys of working with ex Crapita and Accentshit management both wouldn't know how to run a bath so clear brown bags and a steak meal for looking the other way.
Having read the prior articles on this - it is an absolute joke what was delivered for sure and shows what we all see regularly on tech forums the outsourcers wanting people to build solutions for them, so no wonder a shit show was delivered, when has capita actually delivered anything that was promise and not a cackfest.
It is a shame the combine consortium of internal resource of MyCSP was whittled out and handed to the commercial sector partner, but like a lot of the Tory tech improvements - they always sell low and out to ensure there mates make a bug look at the half arse beta sites that make up the government website - the child just about managing site - is an absolute joke that can lock you out, forget your logged in or struggle to handle a simple card payment.
I think a bunch of school kids taught python, html and scripting could do a better job.
"I am sorry out of which group post war has had the ability to buy housing, cars and support a family on one wage, who also has had the ability to buy multiple properties for portfolios and reduce the housing market even further, plus the same group of nimby to block housing development and demand a tripple lock on their state pensions"
You fuckwit. Me and my wife are "boomers", we've both had to hold down jobs to pay for housing, cars etc, and in fact so did my own parents. As for your argument "yoof of today can't afford nowt", my son's in his mid-twenties and has just bought his own house - but then again he's worked hard and got himself a decent job. God knows where you get your angry and inaccurate beliefs.
If you want one reason why there's a housing shortage that drives sky high pricing, that's mostly down to population increase of 10% in 15 years, I get the impression from your comments that you'd be supportive of that increase?
Oh yeah? My parents were both mid-level civil servants, both took early retirement at 52, and both have been milking the taxpayer for the last 20 years on their final salary pensions. Genuinely they cost more to the taxpayer than my sister and I pay in income tax each year, and we're both in the top 10% of salaries.
It's a shite pyramid scheme, engineered by the generations that have primarily benefited from it, by government actuaries fraudulently using mortality data that didn't take into account improvements in medical care and life expectancy until it was much too late to stop it.
Defined benefit pensions should be completely outlawed, both in the public and private sector. They are pyramid schemes pure and simple. The civil service should be forced to draw a line under it and move people to defined contributions so that future taxpayers don't have an ongoing liability. Same should apply to former prime ministers and and other politicians who currently get lifetime pensions.
Err you said "Genuinely they cost more to the taxpayer than my sister and I pay in income tax each year,"
So they damn well should. Unless you expect a pension to be equivalent to less than a fraction of your salary. Because what you pay in tax is a fraction of what you earn.
My point - admittedly not very well explained - is that only about the top 20% of taxpayers are net contributors to the exchequer.
So if two of us that fall into that category are currently directly propping up the pensions of two mid-level former civil servants, with nothing to spare, who's paying for our use of the NHS, our parents' use of the NHS, our kids' education, etc etc...
It's an insane use of taxpayer's money. I have no issue with using taxpayer's money to pay civil servants to do a good job and to contribute towards their private pension schemes while they are doing so, but paying final or career average salary pensions is a huge liability that the exchequer would be much better off getting rid of.
My parents were both mid-level civil servants, both took early retirement at 52, and both have been milking the taxpayer for the last 20 years on their final salary pensions
And note that they would have been on Classic - a pension scheme that has not been open to new entrants for a very long time, and even existing civil servants got moved to Alpha for new accruals from 2012. Also, in Alpha, there is no early retirement option - well you can, but they'll slash your pension.
Any civil servant starting after 2007 (so almost 2 decades ago) will have :
* Pension based on career average, not final salary.
* Pension accrual rates based on CPI not RPI.
* No generous early retirement option.
* Higher pension contributions - though these are largely paid by employers and balanced by lower wages.
You can read more this article. Note that right at the start, it says Civil service pensions were once thought to be very generous, but the civil service pension scheme is now broadly similar to the better private sector schemes. As a result, those few civil servants who earn generous salaries do retire with equally generous pensions. But the vast majority of civil servants are not particularly well paid and they retire with pensions that are also far from generous
Yes, if you were a CS a long time ago, and built up a good pension under Classic, and especially if you got promotion in later years, then you could retire early on a nice pension. The reality is that these are the outliers - most will never earn that sort of generous pension, under a career average system, with artificially reduced accrual rates.
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The civil service should be forced to draw a line under it and move people to defined contributions so that future taxpayers don't have an ongoing liability.
The problem with that is you then have to pay existing liabilities, while simultaneously saving for future ones. Effectively you immediately double the pensions bill - and that only reduces as people die off, over many decades. That would be completely unaffordable.
Even if you just made everyone join a scheme that was not employer funded, you'd need to massively increase CS pay - at least, if you wanted to keep a CS capable of doing the job. At present, the promise of a reasonably decent pension on retirement is "part of the package" which includes low pay.
The biggest problem with the civil service IMO - particularly in the technology sector - is the whole fact that it is badly paid with the promise of a nice pension in the future.
That - by and large - attracts and retains meagre talent at best - the type that wants to outsource everything to the usual suspects.
When you look at how much is wasted on contracts with the usual suspects, there is more than enough to shift to a defined contributions pension scheme with salaries that will attract and retain quality talent to do stuff in house.
Can't give you an up or down vote for that mixed bag.
Yes, you are right that with CS pay as it is, it's hard to attract and retain the best and brightest - unless they happen to have some other reason for wanting to be a CS (yes, there are some.) But no, I don't think it would be realistic to think that contract savings coule pay for a wholesale shift to a DC pension system.
What was also ignored is that Civil Servants are still one of the only groups to have gold plated final salary pensions
Your information is very, very out of date. Final Salary pensions in the CS died when the Classic pension was killed off.
I've been one since 2009 and I started on the Nuvos pension (career average) and then moved to the Alpha (also career average). And, when you think that CS wages are significantly less than private industry (I know, I've been in both), a CS pension isn't worth what you think it is.
I'm due to get almost as much in annual pension from the 5 years I had at a private company as the 6 years I have in alpha (yes, I know it's not been going that long but I effectively earned extra years with some of my redundancy money)
The final salary probably only last as long as they did before both private and public worked out it affect the bonuses or kick backs, just like your lucky to get a voucher for anything unless the law stipulates it.
Been at enough private enterpises where it was all too tight for christmas party, but off they fecked to a random site and then wanted sympathy when one of the directors got food poisioning. The problem is that both the public and private now have the infestation of the MBA accredited hot air breather who add little, but take a lot and snookers both the civil service and the private sector, so no wonder the same lot of companies get the same contracts.
Never understood, why public sector is seen as less - most seem to be hard working types like your goodself, but guess its because of the small % who take a little bit of power or just cruise through and your likely agree to public strucutres hard to weedle out the dead wood that just does enough each yr.
Yep, been in about 6 pensions schemes privately all with different rules, most of the time I just look at which has best terms and move it into one or other unless its benefiical just to let it add interest, but would be good just to have one continous one that provided fair terms, but that would be too easy and not allow the schemes to churn off.
Its an absolute joke the situation with Capita gettting the job and also not a surprise that the Tories decided to sell out to the corporate entiity and got a nice backhander or in goves case a job lot of magic dust for his nose. Just like the banks they just all flog it off for pennies and then enrich themselves and leave us with the shit to clear up post, Bank Sales + Brexit, Rishi 1st Mill - causing the financial crash. Little people know that last one. But, all have built out to a crap economy ever since and likely wont improve till some awkward decisions are made that all wont like rejoining things we should of never left, but certain paid off elements like Former Party egging the ill inform to vote for their continuing demise.
Really ?
It's quite well defined. Your partner will have been told how much their contributions would be, and their employer contribution will also be listed on their payslips. The benefits are also well defined, 2.32% of pensionable pay (not all pay counts) each year, and then an uplift each year based on a treasury assessment of inflation. A quick look at my spreadsheet shows that the cost of living uplifts over the last six years (2019-20 through 2024-25, we don't know what the uplift will be for 25-26 yet) have been 1.70%, 0.50%, 3.10%, 10.10%, 6.70%, 1.70% - note that for 2020-21 it was only 0.5%, the 10.1% was when Covid spiked inflation (by any measure), and you can see it's highly variable.
It's not hard to pop this into a spreadsheet and know exactly what your pension will be - well if you make assumptions about future pay and inflation, something you have to do with all pensions. I won't reach 1/4 of my final salary by retirement age - and there's no generous early retirement option, retire early and your pension gets slashed. I'll get more from old private sector pensions.
And every year, Crapita notwithstanding, I also get a statement every year. But my statement says what I will actually get notwithstanding future CoL (cost fo living) increases - so it's effectively what pension I've earned to date in today's money.
Your statement from your (I assume) defined contribution (DC) scheme is just a WAG (wild arsed guess) - make some assumptions about what inflation and interest rates will be over the next few decades and turn out a number. It's not a realistic statement of what you will get, only a speculation at what you might get. Note that when covid hit, IIRC DC schemes roughly halved in value overnight as the markets crashed. They recovered over the next couple of years, but for anyone retiring and buying an annuity then (perhaps they didn't have the luxury of waiting) would have got something like half the pension they could have got had they retired a few months/year or two earlier.
The DB (defined benefit) civil service scheme statement is much more accurate. At least what you have earned so far is what you'll get - in today's money as the CoL increases should match inflation. You can have a good idea what you'll add in future years based on your salary - which requires some guesses as to how it might change/increase, much as it does for any DC scheme.
Both are speculation as to what you'll actually get when you do retire, but the civil service DB scheme statements involved less guesswork than they do for DC schemes.
Yep, glad someone thought the same - sounded like a piece out of Yes Minister.
These so called darlings in the Civil Service, do get paid less than the private sector, but a lot just sit like dead wood in roles for decades and yes a lower outcome, but still final salary position, that even with inflation will last out longer than salary sacrifice in the private sector, where you don't even get a christmas party or even a thankyou mostly, as the corp suites worry there increased bonus might be 5p short.
The same faces and same heads have been in the roles for decades and well known most just have to wait for one to leave or die to actually move up the structure its so stale a structure and they will have worked with the same companies and same places, probably married to some and never acknowledge the conflict of interest as they advise the latest seat warmer of government.
Plus it wasn't lost the welfare bill jibe either, but ignoring where most of the cost comes from too.
Final salaries went out for new entrants in 2007, and for everyone from 2012 (for new accruals).
Probably more than half of civil servants will get no final salary element whatsoever. Only those with long careers will get any of that, and there will be fewer and fewer of those.
If you don't want civil servants to follow orders, then quit whining and make it happen: Become active in your political party of choice, argue your case, get it debated and accepted as party policy, then go out and sell it to the electorate. Sounds a vote-winner to me!
"- it isn't within their gift to express opinions, or criticise policy, so they have to go along with whatever the ministers want, and always support decisions already made"
I HATE this from civil servants... yeah we had to OK the dumping of toxic chemicals in the school playground because we have to do what ministers tell us... yes we have to let michelle mone con the NHS out of £259 million because ministers told us to set up a VIP lane...
If I work for a company I take FULL responsibility to tell management if they are going to do something stupid... the "i'm not allowed to say anything" doesn't work in the real world.
After being unemployed for nearly a year because the Government and it's useless civil servants refuse to protect british jobs, even high skill ones & finally have got a consultancy gig. Apparently even with a mortgage & living in london I'm only allowed £350/month; even though IR35 saw me paying £350/DAY in taxes! This 1 month consulting gig will pay in taxes almost triple what i got in an entire year of UC!
and those taxes are used to palm off to Crapita a a swathe of cowards who ALWAYS come back with ..... "well I wanted to say letting those kids die in the privately run children's home of starvation was wrong but I'm not allowed"
PATHETIC!!!!
While I agree with the sentiment of what you say, it helps to realise the civil service is the equivalent of a tool in the hands of a tradesperson, the tradesperson makes the decision on how to do the job and the hammer implements it.
For the things the civil service does by rote it does extremely well (in general) but it all gets es to rat shit when politicians get involved.
Re "The UK has a spiralling welfare and debt bill,"
This is highly inaccurate. In fact the Social Security element is relatively stable around 10.6% of GDP See Table 1 in "Is welfare spending ‘out of control’? https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/comment/is-welfare-spending-out-of-control/ , somewhat less than the peak of 12% in the period 2009-2012
How the hell is outsourcing cheaper than having your own people do the job?
Ding, ding, ding, *DING*, *DIN... (Opps. Broke the bell)
The Civil Service likes it because it gives them someone to blame when it all goes wrong (rather than the senior Civil Servant involved - it might affect their chance of a knighthood/damehood!). The old "outsourcing removes the risk [1]" is thankfully dying the death.
However, at the grassroots level, the tide appears to be turning. I know of several CS/public organisations that are insourcing stuff. There's still stuff worth outsourcing (WAN provision et. al) but stuff like service desk, infrastructure, purchasing etc etc is all being brought back in-house. Why? Because people are sick of paying through the nose for a crap service when they could pay a lot less (for hopefully a better service - when someone is working for the organisation there's usually more of an incentive to do a good job) to bring it back in house.
[1] It doesn't - just moves it. And worse, moves it to someone who can make money over not mitigating the risk unless required to by the contract. Want an out-of-band patch applied? No problem, that's a change not covered by the contract so sign this invoice please then we'll get it done. Want work done out of agreed hours? Ching, ching, sign this invoice please? Want some new technology implemented? That'll cost (project managers are not free, it'll take twice the number of engineers as doing it internally and, unless your project spec is written by an anal completer-finisher, there will *always* be more fees for changes and stuff not explicitly mentioned in the spec.). Can you tell I'm not a fan? But then I've been QA at places that have outsourced stuff to Capita, ATOS etc etc..
Yep outsourcing for tech has proven to be a failure again and again, but as you say lower levels are waking up to it, Civil service or private its the same MBA bs gang mostly one and the same these days look at the shit the bed examples when Civil servants (snr) go to run businesses like Waitrose - nearly nose dive it to death after years of it running perfectly fine, but same issue indemic in private sector short term 3 to 5 yr runners I call them turn up populate and cuss of the prior ideas - probably mates anyway - put their one idea, then bugger off before its implemented and wash repeat.
Had an ex McKinsey consultants types running one place I worked - use to get annoyed when question on their bonus and pay that was always mentally out of touch for the rest of the business and most couldn't tie their own shoes then run a business, ranting and raving like a lune and outsourcing things left right and centre to trendy name firm like ? and DigitalButton and you find out even the contractors paid silly money were freelancer and it was some shady shell companies they probably had kick back in. From what I have seen McKinsey for some god knows reasons is seen highly in private and public and produce the same warm turds of incompetence every time and lead to someone to come along and have to hire everyone back and then guess what they install a new CEO or CFO from you guessed it and off to shave it all down again. Never learns wash and repeat shortism and then you get those who from the same group retire out and complain they now have a automated till to use and not Dorris to chat to about bollox for 30 mins at the tills, but the same ones in business life who pushed this automation to cut the headcount or stick their inlaws, parents in a home to get hold of the property and then bitch and moan about the home costs and how it will impact their inheritance.
Funny that you don't go far back and no one put anyone in homes and you just had them live with you, but you know looking after your parents seems to hard an ask when they brought you up and just piss it off to someone else for as little as they can.
I'm always baffled by people like you, who appear to think that people who can't even manage to buy in a service without cocking it up could successfully manage to build that service themselves.
If you knew someone who cocked up going to IKEA to buy furniture, would you think the problem could be solved by giving them tools and timber and letting them build it from scratch? It's obviously absurd.
As hinted at elsewhere, "it is reputed" that these large outsourcers employ significant departments of very capable (and well paid) specialists at contracting. In particular, in making sure that any contract has enough wiggle room (due to omissions/lack of clarity in requirements) that they can then deliver something that they know is not what's needed - and that any change will be chargeable because the customer won't be able to prove they failed to meet the contract. It's a variation of the razor blade pricing model.
Of course, given the widely known "not generous" pay package in the CS, the outsourcers can afford to employ the very best, and without wanting to put anyone down (they are still professionals, just under paid for the responsibility they have) the CS can't match them.
Add in things like the politicians who like to announce major policy changes by media soundbite, often with impractical timescales, that is just the sound of the cash register to the outsourcers who will need to make the system changes to support it.
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> But was there ever a major engagement where Crapita didn't fsck up?
It wasn't a major engagement but we reckoned that, over the 5 years we used them, they cost us well over a million pounds (that we could ill afford) in failed projects where they recommended/ran projects that had no realistic hope of success.
I trust that two things are written into the contact with severe penalties for noncompliance:
1, the delivery date
2, the total cost ceiling
Because it's no good having Yet Another Shitshow that is 20× over budget and still hasn't delivered anything actually useful...
If you read some of the statements, apparently they delivered the new portal on time ...
It doesn't seem to matter that it didn't work.
And I assume they'll also claim that the higher case load was outside of the contract, and therefore they can't be held to the contracted KPIs.
To be honest, I can see some value in this - at the time they contracted, the caseload backlog would have been a known quantity. How that backlog would fare (in particular, getting worse) as myCSP were running up to the end of the contract (so the business has little incentive to invest), and staff were getting closer to being TUPEd into an organisation they probably didn't want to move to (and hence were probably a bit demoralised) would be a bit of a crystal ball exercise.
As I follow the reasoning given, First they conducted a review to decide if outsourcing was value for money, and then they invited bids to find the cost? Sorry. but how did that work?
The only way that competitive tender can be evaluated is by having the bids in first, so that outsourcer tenders against a pro forma internal bid (And then look very closely for subterfuge by following the money paths).
I’ve run an OJEU tender before where Capita was one of the bidders.
Frankly they simply have their bidding process nailed, and that’s why they keep winning.
We have to follow process perfectly (for risk of being sued) and Capitas bid was almost impossible to mark low on. They answered everything with a perfect level of tick-box answers, but burying evidence in endless massive attachments.
We would have smaller companies (I presume) answering honestly how they’d deliver something, but missing some small element of the mark (eg not mentioning DR or BC plans sufficiently), whereas Capita would attach an endless document as part of each submission which would contain reference to this.
It *could* have been out tender, but it was *very very* difficult not to mark Capitas submission as the best via our scheme even though we desperately didn’t want them.
Surely all you need is to include previous cost overrun and underdelivery weightings.
If previous similar contracts had a 500% cost overrun, their bid price is multiplied before comparison.
If previous contracts were underdelivered, it is reasonable to expect this one will be as well.
Procurement rules already include risk weightings for these, so use them!
From what I've read elsewhere, I believe that's not allowed.
In any case, often the cost overruns and the like are due to "customer changes". They'll have carefully worked out in advance where the stated requirements look wrong, and worked out in advance how to deliver something that technically meets the contract but doesn't meet actual needs.
To give an example that I think is too obvious to ever slip through, but it perhaps shows what I mean. You contract for some railway coaches and everyone assumes standard British gauge because they are for use in the UK - and explicitly stating this slips through the net getting into the contract. The contractor has professional loophole finders, who spot this but purposefully don't ask for clarification - they've spotted scope for a "customer change" down the line. So they deliver the wrong gauge - and when it's spotted that the coaches can't be used, it's "customer change" to correct this. Even if it's spotted early in the design, it's still "customer change".
OK, it's hard to see how this could slip through - even though NI does use a different gauge (5' 3") to the rest of the UK (4' 81/2") according to Wikipedia. Once you get the very large and technically complex contracts typical of large government contracts, then it's very easy to find details missing.
Can't say much, but in something I'm involved with, different bits come from different sources - and as a result of "assumptions" we ended up with an incompatibility, and a 7 figure bill for a "customer change". Not making the bits work together isn't an option, and the vendor knows we can't go elsewhere for the change - but to be fair, due to the nature of the systems, there's a LOT of paperwork for even the smallest fo changes.
We can learn from it: If you want to do something properly, do it yourself. And if you want honest, competent, quality staff, go through a thorough hiring process. Don't let a bunch of gullible idiots elect them.
Globally, we need to be resilient and capable enough to thrive despite our governments. The lower your expectations of the state, the happier you will be.
And if you want honest, competent, quality staff, go through a thorough hiring process. Don't let a bunch of gullible idiots elect them.
I'm with you: Electing people to high office is a guaranteed recipe for failure. But how could we hire an honest, competent quality government? I'd happily offshore the jobs of both houses at Westminster to one of the governments of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Singapore or Switzerland, but what would be the process for this, and what would be the contractual terms?
Issue is not with democracy, but with the services that are supposed to keep the integrity of democracy not doing their job.
Politicians and civil servants see they can only fall upwards, so they fill their boots with more impunity each term.
> PR in 2024 would have given Labour 220 seats, the Tories 156, and Reform & LibDems 78 each.
No it wouldn't. Change the voting system and people change the way they vote. I saw this when I moved from UK to France.
> Do you really think that would have led to a workable government?
I can't see why not, It's hardly without precedent.
-A.
> The far right always pushes PR, because it gets them more seats. No-one else thinks for a moment it's a good idea, for precisely the same reason.
If PR had been in place for the 2016 US election then Drumpf would never have been president.
-A.
"[Crapita]...had little understanding of their complexity or how long they had been outstanding, affecting its ability to clear the backlog" - which doesn't surprise me; it's basic, due diligence & Crapita aren't always very good at that.
It's tragic: I work for Crapita & there are a lot of hardworking & dedicated staff, doing the best they can; there are plenty of well-performing contracts. But, when we f*ck it up - it's usually spectacularly so.
If one ignores Hanlon's Razor, one might think that they had an incentive to have as little understanding as possible. There will have been some numbers in the contract paperwork. If they turn out to be wrong, then it's the client's fault, the contractor is off the hook for missing KPIs because they are being asked to deliver something that was not in the contract. And the client is on the hook for any additional costs incurred as a result.
That is how you can bid low on a contract, but still make a profit.
