back to article How's that 'turnaround' year going, Capita? ...Sheesh, sorry I asked

At the halfway point of a turnaround year for listing tech outsourcing ship Capita, the vital statistics are still moving in the wrong direction with top and bottom line slipping and major contract challenges noted. It's almost a year since UK-based Capita issued its first ever profit warning that forced a divisional …

  1. Allonymous Coward
    Mushroom

    Couldn't happen to a nicer company

    See title

    1. macjules

      Re: Couldn't happen to a nicer company

      I have tried to come up with some witty gem regarding the slow and unstoppable demise of the worst company in the UK to work at (apart from McDonalds and Steria) but I couldn't. So here's my ha'peny's worth:

      HAHAHA!

    2. Elmer Phud
      Childcatcher

      Re: Couldn't happen to a nicer company

      But it will be hell when they fall over.

      So many local authorities have got rid of all but essential (executive) staff that there will be no-one left.

      It's not as iif their current 'support' system' is anything but flakey as it is.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh well, there is a silver lining

    At least if you work in India and other cheapo places.

    Oh, and commercial Estate Agents who will be tasked with selling off all those unused buildings.

    It can't be long before Capita in the UK is just an HQ office and that's it. A shell company perhaps?

    1. handleoclast

      Re: Oh well, there is a silver lining

      It can't be long before Capita in the UK is just an HQ office

      Indeed. They've outsourced their outsourcing to India. Who will, one day, outsource their outsourcing to China. At some point, after shifts in relative economic strengths, China will outsource their outsourcing to Crapita. Ouroboros. The symbol for manglement with its head so far up its own arse it can lick its own tonsils.

      1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

        Re: Oh well, there is a silver lining

        Ouroboros. The symbol for manglement with its head so far up its own arse it can lick its own tonsils.

        At least they didn't get to be Jörmungandr. That way, when they eventually do fail, Middle-Earth would come to an end. And what would New Zealand do then eh?

  3. Lysenko

    Capita issued its first ever profit warning...

    Outrageous. That this is the first one I mean. They shouldn't even have survived as an organisation after Aldridge (Executive Chairman at the time) was caught slipping a £1M brown envelope to the Labour Party a decade ago (he resigned).

    I was nearly TUPE'd over several years before that but I insisted that being hived off to such a bunch of shysters constituted constructive dismissal. It never went to Tribunal because there was way too much dirty laundry even then.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Capita issued its first ever profit warning...

      £1M brown envelope

      Come on, someone surely had to pay for IR35. Such wonderful ideas are not born out of thin air. They are carefully nurtured and grown inside the large parasitic ticks who need to make sure that no lone cowboy can ever come close to endangering their daily blood, sorry bread.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Capita issued its first ever profit warning...

        "Come on, someone surely had to pay for IR35."

        A decade ago isn't long enough to account for IR35. That must have been something else.

        1. Wensleydale Cheese

          Re: Capita issued its first ever profit warning...

          "A decade ago isn't long enough to account for IR35. That must have been something else."

          According to a recruitment consultant I chatted to in the mid-80s, some Sir Humphrey decided to make a name for himself and force contractors off self-employment status, form Limited Companies instead, and be liable for both sides of NI.

          As any accountant worth his salt would tell you, typical contractor rates at the time didn't warrant going the Ltd Co route; at those turnover levels self-employed status was more appropriate.

  4. phuzz Silver badge

    My violin is not small enough to properly express my level of sympathy.

    1. Cynical Observer
    2. Captain DaFt

      My violin is not small enough to properly express my level of sympathy.

      All my sympathies are expressed here.

  5. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Devil

    In a continuing vein...

    "One would need a heart of stone not to laugh".

    One of Wilde's.

  6. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    I'm sure there must be good opportunities for a new customs system. Get in a low bid now and then coin it on requirements changes, i.e. when the govt makes up its mind.

  7. h4rm0ny

    Profit warnings?

    Have they forgotten their core business plan?

    1. Over-promise.

    2. Forget all deadlines.

    3. Outsource all actual work to India to the cheapest possible bid.

    4. Use ensuing disaster as example of their greater industry experience than anyone else to secure next contact.

    How much more simple could it be?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    There's surely more bad news to come. Someone at The Register should check how the JV in Staffordshire, Entrust, is doing and how that is linked to Service Birmingham.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Entrust? You mean 'Notrust' don't you ? :) . Then again the IT part is not worse than when it was EJITU or SLT , as they have always been dire.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Entrust....what a complete and utter joke, all that baloney from Capita in their bid response about prosperity for Staffordshire and it will grow jobs and offices and be the market leader....

        Instead, all it's been is cut cut cut, sell sell sell, get rid of the catering service and sell it off, do a dodgy deal for the new building and of course, don't make people redundant, just pop them out the back door with a crappy pay off! What a complete mess....the people at the top of Staffordshire County Council and Entrust and Capita should be ashamed of themselves!

        I'd name some individuals here but probably not best......good riddance to Capita i say!

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Their work in new bits of administration

    which nobody needs for General Practice has a singularly poor reputation.

    Their takeover of the somewhat important area of moving medical records around which had hitherto chugged along quite well, run in each area by people who thought it was important, generated lots of new work for practices with bar coding and tracking, which was odd because they then stacked up a lot of them and didn't move them on.

    You really shouldn't hire them or work for them.

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