8 August - Bexley backs Capita
The following is prompted by another of the emails (inset below) received recently - possibly from a Council source - and this time about Bexley’s tax collector, Capita.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/aug/04/cyber-attack-to-cost-outsourcing-firm-capita-up-to-25m
Shares tumble, losses increase. Just another day for Capita.
It seems Capita, who run Bexley’s housing benefit, Council Tax and transactional
services (your payments and debts for the Council) were hacked and a lot of
personal data was taken. Hopefully not our data. But who can tell and why do we trust them with our work?
Delve a little deeper and the Council’s own financial system,
Integra, is a piece of software owned by Capita. How does Bexley end up
this way? And how do Capita get so much work?
Perhaps ask Paul Thorogood or his deputy Nickie Morris, who were senior officers with Capita at Barnet. Just a
coincidence I am sure, but when reading about Newham and what the auditors had
to say about Paul Thorogood, it seems Members couldn’t get the truth out of him.
LGO: Local Government Ombudsman.
Bexley’s links with Capita in both
Barnet and
Newham have been
reported here on
many previous occasions along with Mr. Thorogood’s decision to
adopt
for Bexley the software that wasn’t good enough for those boroughs.
There are too many references on BiB to list all the alleged Capita related failures, some
involving convicted fraudsters in Barnet and Newham, but the links (in red) provide a little of the history.
Bexley’s decision to recruit their senior officers was always more than a little odd.