3.9 Capita had twelve months:
■ to develop and implement an Information Technology system to support the Bureau's operations and its own operational systems for the Call Centre;
■ to recruit and to train call centre and back office staff; and
■ to register Registered Bodies.
3.10 During this period, Agency staff had to:
■ liaise with data partners;
■ recruit and train staff for the core Agency operation;
■ inform potential Registered Bodies of the new service;
■ develop the Bureau's website and the Bureau's financial model; and
■ agree fees.
3.11 Given the number of parties with whom the Bureau had to liaise, and the complexity of the Information Technology systems which it had to connect, the original estimates of timing were optimistic. The introduction of the bulk paper channel for applications following consultation with stakeholders during the implementation phase made the timetable more challenging. The Agency was, however, under pressure to bring the Bureau into operation to start delivering its policy objectives and to replace the existing unsatisfactory police vetting service. A balance had therefore to be struck between speed and thoroughness. The Agency's view is that it did not, however, have a sufficiently strong intelligent customer function, and placed too much reliance on Capita to deliver the required system functionality and performance, in part to avoid compromising the risk sharing and definition of responsibilities set out in the contract. Capita considered that it proposed a realistic delivery date based upon the shared assumption that the telephone application route would predominate for which the system and processes had been primarily designed.