Q101 Mr Bacon: The Individual Learning Accounts that Mr Field mentioned, the contract went miles over.
Mr Pindar: With respect I think you need to have a look at the numbers.
Mr Bacon: Perhaps it was not all to you.
Q102 Chairman: We have dealt with all that.
Mr Pindar: Regrettably the amount that was due to us was substantially less than that.
Q103 Mr Bacon: Was Norfolk County Council a material contract?
Mr Pindar: Norfolk County Council was not a material contract in terms of its size but I am happy to talk about it if you like.
Q104 Mr Bacon: I just wanted to know if it was material or not. That is all. It says on page 22 under "Application channels"-"Capita assumed that 85% of applicants would use the call centre from the beginning". Did Capita
assume there would be some paper channel but it would be much smaller, ie 15%.
Mr Pindar: At the time of the original suggestion there was going to be a web-based application route.
Q105 Mr Bacon: What I am asking is, did you assume there would be some paper channel, although it may be much smaller?
Mr Herdan: Yes.
Q106 Mr Bacon: The sentence "Capita
assumed that 85% of applicants would use the call centre from the beginning" you accept this sentence was wrong, the assumption was wrong?
Mr Pindar: With hindsight it was wrong.
Q107 Mr Bacon: Mr Lewis, you said earlier it was not clear this assumption was wrong. Mr Pindar has just said with hindsight the assumption was wrong, how is that you are able-I know a requirement for you to become a permanent secretary you have to be able to demonstrate that black is white, and I congratulate you on your recent promotion to Permanent Secretary for Delivery-to say that it is not clear the assumptions were wrong when (a) it is clear from the use of the language that they were and Mr Pindar has just confirmed that they were?
Mr Lewis: If you go back over what we have both said we are saying the same thing. Can I explain why I think we are saying the same thing.
Q108 Mr Bacon: The assumptions were wrong, were they wrong yes or no? I do not have much time left.
Q109 Chairman: Equally he is entitled to give you an answer.
Mr Lewis: We changed the assumption, we changed the nature of this contract. Originally the contract had specified that telephone based application was to be the primary and overwhelming route. We would never know what would have happened if we had not changed that assumption. In response to clearly expressed preferences by the Agency's customers we changed that assumption and that made it wrong. It was a conscious act by the Bureau to change that original assumption fundamentally.
Mr Bacon: Okay. Thank you.
Q110 Mr Jenkins: Mr Gaskell, the thing which worries me also, and you touched on it earlier on, is the shift of responsibility for identifying now to the registered bodies. Whilst you might have employers, local authorities, schools, et cetera with the facilities and ability to do this you obviously must have sent out some guidelines as to how to check somebody's identity. Voluntary groups have a much more difficult job with less time and less professionalism in their ability to do this. At one time I thought you were on-line with the Passport Agency to check passports, is there an opportunity for a voluntary body of any employer to check that the passport in front of them is a genuine passport by telephoning up the Agency using their number or their driving licence or can they come back to you and say, "I have this passport, will you verify and check it". If we do not maintain a robust base and information to be fully accurate your existence is pointless, is it not?
Mr Gaskell: Let me try and answer that as best I can. First of all we do volunteers for free, we do not charge for volunteers. We also issue guidance to-