Barnet Trades Council and Barnet Alliance for Public Services 'dismayed' over Brent Council's Capita contract

Barnet Trades Council amd Barnet Alliance for Public Services (BAPS) have issued the following statement LINK regarding Brent Council's decision to renew its business rates collection contract with Capita which we reported earlier today LINK

Barnet Trades Council and Barnet Alliance for Public Services are concerned and dismayed that Brent Council wants to renew its contract with Capita. Our experience of Capita is that it has delivered appalling service and therefore we, together with our local Labour Party, are campaigning for all services run by Capita for Barnet to be brought in-house forthwith. #kickoutcapita is our grass-roots campaign.

Examples of Capita’s misdemeanours in Barnet include:

• A two million pound fraud carried out by a Capita employee, Capita’s lax and opaque processes completely failed to detect
• A call centre which has consistently failed to answer residents’ calls in the required time
• Incorrectly withdrawing travel passes from disabled and vulnerable people
• Actually cost taxpayers more money than in-house services would, through extra charges and “gainshare” payments designed to maximise their profits at public expense
• Performed extremely poorly in audits of the council and brought down the overall standards of council services

We urge Brent Council not to renew its contract with Capita. Capita, along with other failed and failing outsourcing giants like Carillion and Interserve have proved to be entirely failed models. We want to Kick Out Capita from Barnet and bring all services back in-house and under local democratic control. Brent Council should do likewise. The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell has spoken brilliantly about how properly funded, democratically accountable in-sourced public services are the future for the country and we agree. Together we are stronger.

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