Complaints about Capita's Framework Agreement (or lack of)
Whenever apologists for the failings of Capita TI appear before Parliamentary Committees, they always present the declining number of complaints as evidence that the contract is getting better and better. I've done some analysis of the published statistics, and it throws up some interesting figures.
For example, if a linguist fails to attend an assignment, you'd imagine the booking clerk would be pretty angry and would almost certainly complain. Not so. In the last set of statistics covering the 2nd quarter of 2014, there were 227 instances of 'did not attend' but there were only 98 complaints, a complaint rate of 43%. The figures are even more striking when you consider instances of Capita being unable to supply a linguist. 1,780.instances of not being able to supply resulted in only 329 complaints, a rate of 18.5%. Combining these two examples, the rate for complaining has fallen steadily over the last year, from 33.5%in Q1 2013, to 21.3% in Q2 2014.
As time goes by, it is clear that court staff are becoming less willing to complain, even though they still have plenty to complain about. Why would this be? Two reasons spring to mind. Firstly, it is seen as a complete waste of time making a complaint because nothing will come of it. The MoJ has made it obvious that it backs Capita to the hilt and isn't prepared to do anything that would provoke Capita to walk away from the contract. Secondly, court staff don't want to jeopardize their careers by complaining about a contract that Handcock and Brennan hold so close to their hearts. We've already seen the MoJ threaten disciplinary action to prevent staff contributing to the Justice Select Committee forum. Who wants to stick their head above the parapet and be perceived as a 'whining winnie', when all it will achieve is push them to the front of the queue for redundancies?