TECH Signal 374
UK awards Capita £31M pandemic contact center contract despite pension scheme failures
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The UK Health Security Agency awarded Capita an initial £31M contract to build an omnichannel contact center for future pandemic response, despite the government withholding payments over Capita's failed administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme.
This places a critical public health communication channel with an outsourcer currently in dispute with the same government over service failures on another major contract. The deal starts small but could scale to an estimated £350M during a COVID-scale emergency, meaning contractor underperformance during a crisis could directly hamper national health response.
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Capita received a £31M initial contract from UKHSA to build and operate the Single Service Centre, an omnichannel contact center due to begin in November with a three-year initial term.
The award comes despite the UK government withholding £10M from Capita over failures in its £239M Civil Service Pension Scheme contract, where Capita missed a June deadline to restore services.
UKHSA estimates a COVID-scale emergency could scale the contract value to £350M, with the SSC designed to handle public communication including test ordering, contact tracing, and therapeutic requests.
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