Question
I have no doubt that Members across the Chamber have an extremely regrettable constituency postbag on this issue, as I do. I thank the Minister for her statement. I do not plan to rehearse the cases that I have seen, but, needless to say, they are all marked by the fact that timescales seem to be ignored, while people are being left in financial hardship. People are finding it very hard to understand why this is the case with a Government body—or, at least, with a body that they think is a Government body. How long will Capita have to deliver on the latest rectification plan, and how will the Minister judge it on that plan? Does she have a timeframe for all that work?
Answer
In terms of the timelines, I do not want to set a date here today and end up with there being disappointment. However, now that the figures are going to be released every fortnight, if we do not start to see pretty rapid improvement over the next month, I will come back to this House and explain the next steps that might be taken.
Verdict: AMBER (50/100)
The reply partly answers the question. It declines to say how long Capita will be given, and it does not set a timeline for the rectification work, citing the risk of future disappointment. It does answer how performance will be judged: figures will be published fortnightly, and the Minister will report back to the House on whether there has been "pretty rapid improvement over the next month". That test is vague, though, and the reply gives no completion timeframe, so the person who asked would probably need to ask again for specifics.
How we got there
| Question item | Coverage | Specificity | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|
| How long Capita will have to deliver on the latest rectification plan. | Partially Addressed | Hedged | The item asks for a literal duration, and the reply only declines to set a date today, giving a reason (avoiding future disappointment) but no timeframe or indication of how long Capita will have. |
| How the Minister will judge Capita's performance against that rectification plan. | Addressed | Direct | Read together, the fortnightly publication of figures provides the monitoring mechanism, and the conditional test of 'pretty rapid improvement over the next month', with a commitment to report back to the House, states how performance will be judged. |
| Whether the Minister has a timeframe for completing all of the rectification work. | Addressed | Hedged | The whether-question is answered in substance: the Minister states they will not set a timeline for the rectification work today, with a stated reason, though the reply gives no completion timeframe and the one-month horizon in statement 3 concerns early improvement rather than completion. |