What's all this nonsense about a conflict of interest? Capita / Equita

[outlawla]

OPPOSITION councillors have expressed fears over a potential conflict of interest at the heart of one of the controversial One Barnet contracts.

 

Just weeks after the £320million customer and support group contract with outsourcing firm Capita came into force,

 

lawyers acting on behalf of bailiff firms Newlyn Collections Services Ltd and Phoenix Commercial Collections Ltd

– which have been carrying out services for the council since 2005

 

– said they were considering seeking a court order against the authority and Capita....

[madmatt1009]

well that should blow it all into the open now then

[brassnecked]

Capita will try to kill their contracts off and put Equita and Ross 'n robbers in their place.

 

Capita are now too big and diverse to avoid serious conflicts of interest.

 

they are a cancer at the heart of government and must be wound up, or split up.

 

They are a 21st Century Uk dystopian version of the corrupt all powerful runs everything corporation OCP. Robot bailiff droid to debtor.

 

"hand over your money, you have 20 seconds to comply!"

Edited September 27, 2013 by brassnecked

[tomtubby]

The "Barnet" contract was going wrong about 2 months ago and as strange as it might seem, I do hope that a legal challenge is brought by lawyers representing Newlyn & Phoenix as there is something not right at all in the way in which most local authorities that outsource their council tax departments to Capita strangely find that the preferred bailiff company just so happen to be none other than either Equita Ltd or Ross & Roberts...... both of whom are wholly owned by CAPITA !!!

 

I love the comment that:

 

"Capita has guaranteed collection rates for council tax and one of the ways they are able to do this is by having confidence in their supply chain"

 

and further that:

 

"These proposals were clear throughout the bid process and are covered in contract".

 

 

 

http://www.barnet-today.co.uk/news.cfm?id=33120&headline=Bailiffs%20fighting%20eviction

[brassnecked]

The "Barnet" contract was going wrong about 2 months ago and as strange as it might seem, I do hope that a legal challenge is brought by lawyers representing Newlyn & Phoenix as there is something not right at all in the way in which most local authorities that outsource their council tax departments to Capita strangely find that the preferred bailiff company just so happen to be none other than either Equita Ltd or Ross & Roberts...... both of whom are wholly owned by CAPITA !!!

 

I love the comment that:

 

"Capita has guaranteed collection rates for council tax and one of the ways they are able to do this is by having confidence in their supply chain"

 

and further that:

 

 

http://www.barnet-today.co.uk/news.cfm?id=33120&headline=Bailiffs%20fighting%20eviction

 

 

"These proposals were clear throughout the bid process and are covered in contract".

 

If these council officials, councillors and Capita executives were City traders, they would be on their way to Wormwood Scrubs for a holiday for insider dealing.

[tomtubby]

"Capita has guaranteed collection rates for council tax and one of the ways they are able to do this is by having confidence in their supply chain"

 

This statement is brilliant.

 

Firstly, what the hell is meant by "having confidence in the supply chain"

 

Next.....an FOI request is on it's way for further details of the "guaranteed collection rates"

 

Notice the statement that "one of the ways" they can guarantee collection rates" ( is to have confidence in the supply chain)

 

It is noteworthy that Capita have failed to say anything about the other ways in which they can "guarantee collection rates" and that this is achieved by charging an unlawful "enforcement fee" to unsuspecting debtors before a levy has ever been made !!!

[brassnecked]

tomtubby, they will claim the way they can guarantee results is to use Equita and Ross 'n Robbers, and as you say charge and frontload all fees before the first visit, then stonewall and get all medieval (bully threaten and cajole as would the Sheriff of Nottingham after more taxes) on the debtors.

[tomtubby]

I am of course being cynical here but supposing that Newlyn & Phoenix Commercial were able to "sort" out their differences with Barnet and it was agreed that Barnet would use all three enforcement companies (Equita, Newlyn & Phoenix) then what is to stop Capita from "cherry picking " which warrants to assign to each company !!!

 

For example, with "address filtering" facilities it would be simple to "filter" out warrants that had addresses with predominately local authority housing and benefit claimants and with traffic debt warrants, it would be simple to "filter out" warrants that had old vehicle registration numbers or "multiple warrants" for "repeat" offenders.

 

In that way Capita "could" assign the "difficult" to collect warrants to Newlyn or Phoenix and keep back the ones with "good" post codes and high value vehicles for Equita to enforce. If challenges were raised by the district auditor Capita could very likely provide "evidence" that their own bailiff provider had a significantly better return rate than the other bailiff providers!!

 

There is of course NO EVIDENCE that such underhand practice goes on and as I said earlier...I am just being cynical.

[brassnecked]

@ Tomtubby..Your cynicism is very tongue in cheek, I think your assumptions would be closer to the truth than Capita would like.

[tomtubby]

I was "gagging" as I typed my post but I did have a mouthful of peanuts at the time so that COULD be the reason !!