Over 300 tech staff return to Birmingham council with Capita JV ‘largely ended’

Birmingham City Council’s 13-year joint venture with outsourcer Capita has now “largely ended”.

167 staff were last week transferred from Capita to the council, and 147 further employees returned to the local authority after their secondment to the systems integrator.

“Both organisations recognise that the change to this working arrangement is timely and appropriate”, the council said. “The original contract was awarded in 2006 and, after 13 years, the time is right to transfer the services back to the council. The services transfer back to the council… with overall customer satisfaction having improved year on year. The council now has a well-developed digital strategy that seeks to transform the IT service provision to deliver new customer-centric outcomes.”

While the insourcing of core digital and IT functions has been completed, some services – including “hosted and off-site services, such as data centre hosting” will continue to be provided by Capita until the firm’s contract with Birmingham “naturally expires in March 2021”.

The council is developing internal capabilities to manage these services.

The joint venture – called Service Birmingham – started in 2006, with Capita appointed to provide BCC’s ICT and contact centre services. Although the two parties had already signed a 10-year deal upfront, another decade-long contract was agreed in 2010. The new arrangement added the provision of taxation services.

In 2017 Birmingham decided to exit the deal several years earlier than originally planned.

“Both Birmingham City Council and Capita would like to take this opportunity to thank all staff from both organisations for their professionalism shown during this association, particularly during the complex transfer project that followed the decision to bring some services back in-house,” it said.