Former Capita Worker Describes Their Training Practises

Readers, this is from an email I received today.

I’m afraid this must be anonymous as I signed a declaration not to discuss specifics at Capita, yet I’m happy to share generalist as long as I am not named.

The main issue with Capita was the job itself, many of us were confused as to the nature of the job “Opportunities and Development” many are still none the wiser, the training for the role was 13 weeks full time, 13 of us were initially recruited (I was the 1st to leave) we were from all walks of life, it turns out the role was an experimental one, the idea was to have generic decision makers for all issues regarding Housing benefit from A-Z.

My background caused issues from the off (ex CAB) on one occasion I was called a c**t by one of the trainers during a 1-1 appraisal.

The training was intense-although later it was found to be lacking in many areas, we were trained “by the book” when it comes to Housing and Council tax, unfortunately many councils have their own little rules that can differ vastly, e.g. one council does not invite benefit applications, by that I mean, if you have hours reduced or lose your job, they will not tell you to apply for HB the onus is on you to request. The saying “not knowing is not an excuse” is frequently quoted.

Now as I said this was a generic role yet covered numerous local authorities over the country, hence the issues with training, we were in the classroom for the 1st 10 weeks (after 8 we were told we had to sign an agreement whereby if we left then we would have to reimburse the training up to £2500) and if we didn’t sign we would be fired.

Well we were let loose in the office(now this office was huge, as I said they cover most of the countries LA’s) so the problems start, one day you could be on Westminster the next London, yet each have their own rules and ways of working, the LA I worked on had a policy of “If in doubt suspend” something I found difficult. I have no problem using this as a last resort but not as the main option. As I understood it, this was the instructions from the LA as they are the client, this is where my morality kicked in, when suspending a generic letter is sent, I used to add more to mine explaining why this was happening and what the claimant could do, many ex colleagues I meet have told me they have seen my letters and now understood my conflict, we found the training had let us down badly, so we all needed help from experienced workers who admitted we had been given a vast project (they admitted it took them years to reach their level we had 6 months with a possible extension if needed, and the most frightening bit was often the ones training us had to ask the ones supporting us what to do, so who was training? Often very heated discussions were heard).

During this we were introduced to the dreaded Spare Room subsidy “Bedroom Tax” and it’s so vague it’s ridiculous “a room is a room” that’s it, when I raised issues during training, I was told basically to shut up because the client wanted this, there is little in HB regulations that actually defines a “bedroom” I have seen box rooms defined as a bedroom and because of this appeals have to be done on an individual basis, no precedent is really set, so it is all down to either your or the LA’s definition of a bedroom.

Back to suspending, one of my last cases was a recently widowed person over 70 her bank statements had been requested and it turned out that she was getting a small (and I mean small pension from her late husband) a person helping us came over and said that she knew how I felt about suspending, but I had to I just couldn’t especially as the pension was £7 a month.

Towards the end many of us didn’t know if we were coming or going, we were constantly being audited and let’s just say depending on who did the auditing errors were pointed out in a less than understanding way.
Add it all together and I just couldn’t do it, so I left immediately.

Since finding out Capita are doing the PIP assessments and fully expecting them to be offered the WCA, I have written offering to proof read assessments (I am a WCA expert over 100 appeals and yet to lose so I see where they go wrong) I am yet to receive an answer however I guess if you are paid per assessment and it is possibly quantity over quality I won’t get one.