Professional Services

Comprises our operations focused on supporting local government and children's services (including education) through strategic advice and interim support, outsourced administration services, ICT and software solutions and support.

2008 Growth and operational update:

We continue to deliver robust and innovative solutions and products to support effective administration and joined up services across local government and children's services.

Software Services – Children's Services: In February 2009, Capita won a prestigious BETT Award 2009 in the ICT Education Partnership category for its work indeveloping the SIMS Partnership Xchange product in collaboration with 3 school partnerships. SIMS Partnership Xchange, developed in response to the Every Child Matters – Change for Children programme, allows schools to share standard student information across all schools where a student studies. Such awards underline our continued practical application of innovation.

Software Services – Local Government: Strengthened our position in the revenues and benefits market across the UK with wins in England and Scotland. Supported the development of shared services across several local authorities. Worked with DWP to develop software to improve speed of benefit payments and reduce potential fraud. This software can be linked with Voice Risk Analysis (VRA) to provide a first checking stage. Launched 'CapitaSupport' – a web-based application offering end-to-end housing services.

National Strategies: Continued to build on our National Strategies contract and further strengthened our relationship with the DCSF. Plans are in place in order to meet the Department's objectives for 2009 and maintain high level of customer satisfaction with services so far.

Strategic Children's Services: We continued to satisfy a high demand for interim managers for LEAs to help them with achieving improvement in schools.

Local Government Services: Progressed well in 2008, successfully supported our 15-year partnership with Southampton CC assuming responsibility of procurement services with the aim of achieving substantial savings for the Council over the life of the contract – £15m savings have been achieved so far.

Capita Consulting: Rationalised cost base and refocused operations achieving a greatly improved performance. Demand remained high for change and transformational consultancy especially across our local government clients.

Mission Assurance and Testing: Improved profitability by 20%, compared to 2007, despite tightening market conditions.

2009 priorities

• Maintain market share in local government and education software markets through continued development of new and innovative products to keep pace with changing requirements
• Leverage our expertise and scale gained in our core markets to expand into new market segments
• Continue to explore opportunities to provide managed services in local government as pressure increases to deliver efficiencies and value for money
• Focus on successful delivery of services as part of the new contract with Sheffield City Council
• Collaborate across the Group to develop broader solutions for clients, across people, processes and technology, to help them keep pace with legislative and best practice requirements.