Capita creates 100 new jobs in Morayshire

 

Author - Simon Bain © The Herald Originally published: 22/11/2011

Outsourcing giant Capita creates 100 new jobs in hard-pressed Morayshire, as it expands its Forres contact centre.

Capita says: "The new roles will help a major energy company’s customers to enquire about their bills, make payments, set up direct debits, and get refunds. Recruitment starts in late November and the company hopes to have all the new staff on board by February 2012."

Capita is Scotland's eighth largest private sector employer, and already has more than 3,500 staff in Scotland, where its bedrock is outsourced services to the financial services sector. Its flagship operations are life and pensions administration for the former Scottish Amicable in Stirling, employing 1,000, and the former Scottish Mutual and Scottish Provident in Glasgow, employing 1,900. It also works for Axa and Morgan Stanley.

Its reach extends into recruitment, property consultancy, occupational health for the oil and gas industry, and contact centres, and it has business centres in Edinburgh, Hamilton, and Aberdeen, and smaller offices in Elgin, Dundee and Lerwick.

The Moray operation began as a £3.2 million investment by the former Hoskyns, later CapGemini, where it processed parking tickets for two London boroughs. The business was acquired by Vertex, which sold it recently to Capita.

Local managing director Bruce MacLeod commented: "When Capita was considering where to expand its contact centre operations, it looked at a number of possible options.

"That it chose Moray is recognition of the exceptional customer service the local people of Moray deliver to our customers."

Capita recently acquired Beat Systems, a Glasgow based group providing critical software to the police. The company, which floated on the Unlisted Securities market in 1989, is now the UK's biggest provider of outsourced services, stretching from the Criminal Records Bureau to the Driving Standards Agency.

UK-wide Capita gets an estimated 10% of its business directly from government with another 20% coming from its services to local authorities.

Last year it began targeting Scottish councils for a fresh expansion drive in the face of looming public sector cuts, amid calls from CBI Scotland to the Scottish Government to step up its outsourcing.