Wednesday, August 15, 2018

News: Capita loses DWP contact centre contract

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A £40m Government contract will no longer be delivered by Capita in Rotherham but one of the new contract holders is keeping jobs in the Dearne Valley.

Capita's customer management business had been managing ten enquiry lines on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) at its large call centre in Manvers - help lines for: the state pension; pension credits; Jobseekers Allowance; Jobseeker Direct; National Insurance number allocation, national benefit fraud reporting and the winter fuel allowance.

Now the DWP has concluded another tender exercise with the contracts for the helplines split into two separate packages.

Starting this month, Contact Centre Services Package A, worth £20.9m and initially running until 2021, has been award to G4S Outsourcing. Contact Centre Services Package B, worth £16m and also running until 2021 initially, has been awarded to Serco Ltd.

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Serco said it would deliver the work from its Knowsley contact centre on Merseyside but G4S has said it would deliver its work from Rotherham - the firm has a contact centre at the Callflex Business Park in Manvers.

Although TUPE regulations apply, Serco said during the tender exercise that "we do not anticipate that many individuals will transfer from Rotherham to Merseyside."

G4S said that it expects "80% of eligible staff will transfer to G4S" and added: "that we will recruit the additional staff from within the local Wath-upon-Dearne area."

Package A includes dealing with claimants wishing to use the telephony channel to make a new claim to Jobseekers Allowance (JSA), supporting online JSA claims, pension credit claims and enquiries, state pension enquiries and the Winter Fuel enquiry line.

Job numbers were redacted in the tender documents so it is not clear what affect the change in provider will have in Rotherham.

G4S also revealed that it had 100 applicants for 15 FTE posts during a recent recruitment drive. It followed the closure of the EON site on the same business park.

Capita purchased Ventura and the Rotherham site in 2011 as part of a £65m deal. It currently operates contracts for the likes of O2, British Gas and William Hill in the Dearne Valley.

The Government's Crown Commercial Service established a contact centre framework last year, naming 14 preferred suppliers for public sector contracts. It included Serco and G4S but not Capita.

Capita website
G4S website
Serco website

Images: Capita / Telereal Trillium

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