Capita Managed IT Solutions has posted a revenue dip of 5% to £78.6m and an operating profit decrease of 12% to £6.3m in its recent financial results.
he Newtownabbey-based business, which is the IT subsidiary of professional services and outsourcing firm Capita plc, says the wind-up of some of its parent group’s contracts is behind the decline.
The results apply to the financial year up until December 31, 2020.
Capita Managed IT Solutions supports parent group Capita plc with the provision of cloud-based and infrastructure services to public and private specialist managed services in the education, commercial, government and utilities sectors.
That amounts to 3,000 customers across the UK and Ireland. It has over 1,200 employees here.
Capita acquired the business, formerly Northgate Managed Services, in 2013.
In its report, the company said it relies fully on its parent company for its continued success.
That includes Capita’s work for the Department for Communities in relation to assessing claimants for Personal Independence Payments (PIPs), which the contractor has come under fire for in recent months.
That contract between the department and Capita is set to continue, however, until 2023, but could end sooner, according to Communities Minister Deirdre Hargey.
Ms Hargey suggested an overhaul of PIP assessments after a watchdog report said too many people have had their claims “unfairly rejected”.
A 20-month investigation by Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman Margaret Kelly found repeated opportunities were missed to make the right payment to applicants as early as possible in the process.
The report said there was a failure by both the Department for Communities and Capita to seek and use further evidence, including that from medical professionals, which meant claimants had to continually challenge the decision, often all the way to appeal, before the correct decision was made.
The repeated nature of the failures led the Ombudsman to conclude that it had constituted “systemic maladministration”.
Despite the latter uncertainty, Capita Managed IT Solutions said projections for the next year are positive. It added: “Although the company has a reliance on the group… even in a severe but plausible downside for both the company and the group, the directors are confident the company will continue to have adequate financial resources to release its assets and discharge its liabilities as they fall due over the period 31 August 2022”
When asked whether Ms Hargey would terminate the PIP contract with Capita, she said last month: “It will depend on how quickly the Department of Health can move to ensure we can get health assessments done, that we have health officials in place.
"I will have an opt-out clause in the contract to ensure we can quit that contract when we have the new model in place.”
Capita recently appointed India-based Manpreet Singh to the position of chief technology officer to lead a newly formed, company-wide technology shared service.
