UK govt: It's time to get staff back into the office! Capita: Hey everyone... about that...
- Reference: 1598959328
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/09/01/capita_closes_offices/
- Source link:
The major government contractor is ending leases on almost 100 workplaces as employees' shift to home working becomes more permanent, [1]according to the BBC . It has so far decided not to renew leases on 25 offices.
The move comes following a government push to get employees back into their pre-pandemic workplaces over concerns about the impact a significant and sustained home-working trend would have on the economies of city centres. Dame Carolyn Fairbairn, head of UK industry body CBI, [2]has warned that commercial centres risk becoming "ghost towns" if offices don't reopen soon.
Transport for London asks Capita to fling Congestion Charge system into the cloud [3]READ MORE
The timing of Capita's decision could scarcely be worse for the government.
In a statement, the firm said 45,000 employees worked in offices across the UK. "Following dialogue with our employees it has become very clear that they would like to work in a more flexible way, which will involve increased working from home, but they will still spend a significant amount of their time working from offices that are based in the heart of our local communities."
Capita has had a chequered history with public sector outsourcing in the UK. In 2018 [4]public spending watchdog the National Audit Office said the £330m Primary Care Services project to support family doctors, dentists, and opticians had failed to deliver key aspects of the end-to-end service that could have put patients "at risk of serious harm".
Yet the contractor still collects the fruit from the government's magic money tree. In August it won [5]a £6.5m contract to hook up emergency services control rooms under the UK's troubled Emergency Services Network.
And just a few weeks back, it scored a [6]five-year £355m contract extension – from October 2021 – from TfL for further work on the Congestion charge's digitisation plus some other, cloud-based work.
The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the outsourcer hard, though. In March [7]it slashed £25m from planned capital spending in response to the "unprecedented situation". It also furloughed some of its workforce.
Its financials have also taken a battering. In August [8]Capita reported a £28.5m loss in the first half of 2020 compared with a £31.2m profit for the first half of 2019. Revenue fell by 9 per cent over the same period, down to £1.652bn from £1.815bn.
"This crisis has come in a pivotal year for Capita when we had expectations of beginning to generate revenue growth and sustainable cash flow," chief exec Jon Lewis said at the time.
He has not come out unscathed. April saw a [9]70 per cent reduction in the number of shares he was due to be awarded as part of their annual package in 2020.
The outsourcer is not the only firm making cuts to its office space. In [10]HPE's Q2 2020 , the tech giant said office closures and mergers would help it realise up to $1bn in savings. ®
Get our [11]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53968213
[2] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8667861/CBI-boss-Carolyn-Fairbairn-demands-Boris-Johnson-leads-UK-firms-workplace.html
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/10/transport_for_london_capita_contract/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2018/06/19/capita_admits_it_wont_make_money_on_botched_nhs_england_contract/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/11/capita_esn_contract/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/10/transport_for_london_capita_contract/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2020/03/27/capita_covid_19_market_update/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/18/capita_h1_2020/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2020/04/23/capita_update/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2020/05/22/hpe_q2_2020/
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Nice ghost towns
One of the joys of living next to the city of London and working further out, was walking along the deserted streets at night. The Lloyds building's lights made a great romantic background on a warm summers night, walking back from the Water Rats.
Downntown LA? Not so much:)
Austin was just like that when I got here in the early '70's. And then it reinvented itself. Downtown became so vibrant that they had to block off 6th street (the heart of downtown) just to accommodate pedestrians on the weekends. Good times before the pandemic.
square feet in round holes
You can see why few people actually *want* to return to a company office. And why most companies don't want them to, either.
In London, office space is piggin' expensive. The basic rent in the centre satrts at about £50 per square foot per year and can be double that in an area that is actually pleasant to work in. Add business rates and service charges and the price goes up to £80, at least.
Just a basic desk + chair and cat-swinging space is said to be 95 sq.ft. ('pollies for the old-fashioned units) so it costs at least £8k for each desk.
I doubt that anyone is so naive to think that saving would be passed on to employees as a pay rise. However, it might just stave off the time when administrative staff become so expensive that it is cheaper to replace them with an automated system.
Isnt that good?
The employee happier, employer has less costs, more resources to devote to doing stuff instead of the transport of people to cubicles? Yes there will be a loss from the transporters and services for employees out of the home but less travel is less Co2, less fossil fuel for transport less litter.
has warned that commercial centres risk becoming "ghost towns" if offices don't reopen soon.
They are already. Ever been in one of them city centres where people only work and have lunch? They are ghost towns after nightfall alright.