Capita handed vital role in next pandemic despite civil service pension failures

Despite the outcry over Capita's performance on the Civil Service Pension Scheme (CSPS), the UK government has awarded the beleaguered outsourcer a 31 million contract to build a public health contact center that could be called upon during another pandemic. The government estimates that a COVID-scale emergency could increase the center's total workload to 350 million. Capita announced its contract with the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) - an executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care - to build and operate its Single Service Centre (SSC), an omnichannel contact center supporting the agency and other organizations. Due to begin in November, the deal has an initial three-year term. The award comes despite fierce criticism of Capita's performance running the CSPS. Its began administering the scheme in December last year, after which The Register exclusively revealed problems with its online systems. By March, it was clear the service was seriously failing, leaving some retired civil servants struggling to make ends meet. Capita won the seven-year, 239 million contract to oversee the CSPS in November 2023. The UK government has withheld 10 million in payments following the disastrous transfer of CSPS administration to Capita. It remains in dispute with the outsourcer over further payment reductions and has called in an independent auditor. In June, Capita missed a deadline to restore services to the required standard. The following month, it told MPs that service would return to normal for all but the most complex cases by September. UKHSA emerged from Public Health England in 2021 following criticism of its early handling of the COVID-19 crisis. UKHSA plans for the SSC to handle routine public health services while being able to scale up during future health emergencies and other national incidents. "The service will provide cross-government surge services during health emergencies and other national incidents across government," Capita's public statement said. An official procurement notice published in June said UKHSA had awarded Capita and US customer experience company Foundever places on a framework for the Single Service Centre. The maximum value assigned to each supplier was 157.5 million including tax, and the framework has an initial five-year term. During preliminary market engagement, UKHSA revealed more about the expected role of the SSC, which it said was "born from the Test and Trace service." Test and Trace was allocated a 37 billion budget over two years and relied heavily on consultancies including Deloitte. "In a pandemic, UKHSA must provide a service that communicates with the public on a person-to-person level, at a significant scale. Communication needs to be bilateral, citizens must be able to contact us for advice, order tests, or request therapeutics, such as Antivirals, and UKHSA will need to reach individuals for contact tracing or provide guidance," the notice said last year. "Should a health emergency occur on a similar scale to COVID-19, UKHSA has estimated that the value of the work would increase substantially from 39 million for the business-as-usual activities to an estimated 350 million, including tax." Capita said it would use a "centralized operating model" to handle customer contact, reporting and insight, workforce planning, and quality assurance. Its Capita Connect platform uses cloud infrastructure including Amazon Web Services and, the company claims, "advanced data capabilities to provide resilient, flexible and efficient operations." (R)