Speeches by McKinnell.

“I would be very interested, because although Mr Holroyd mentioned progress, I do not really understand what that progress is. It feels as though you are going backwards, not forwards. I may have misunderstood the reams of numbers that we have been given, but if you look just at what you define as the most pressing and …”

“We have covered a lot, but I wanted to go back to the comment that you made about the surge teams. Being in a backlog situation rather than a capacity situation seems to be the exact scenario in which you would require a surge team. Because we are pressing on the cost of surge being transferred to Capita, rather than t…”

“I do not mean commercially; I mean legally.”

“To follow up on your comments, Mr Hernandez, how much is the overspend on the contract so far? You have referenced it a couple of times.”

“I know, but is it being funded by the Government or Capita?”

“You will be hearing from us.”

“There are two aspects to this. One is the financial implications of all of this, which should be on Capita rather than the taxpayer and should be substantial enough to create the change that we need to see. There is also the outstanding question for families who are grieving this week and still dealing with this. Do yo…”

“I want to follow up on a couple of those points. What would the consequences be of failing to process the McCloud contractual changes in time?”

“When was this?”

“Can you provide clarity on the £9.6 million and £9.9 million?”

“We do not want you to apologise; we want you to explain.”

“Presumably the surge team is being funded by Capita—or is it being funded by the Government?”

“You are talking about recognition of the reputational damage, not to mention the damage to people’s lives. That is why I asked about the overspend. I think Capita needs to pick up the ticket for the failure to deliver on what was promised. No matter how much you explain how difficult it is and how complex the contract …”

“I have not had that with any organisation. People answer MPs when they represent their constituents, but Capita does not.”

“I am looking at the key performance indicators for the contract. Indicator 36 says that ill health retirement quotes should be provided three days from receipt of request. Given that is the target that Capita should be working towards, can you explain how on earth so many of the most urgent and most sensitive cases are…”

“Okay, but given the key performance indicators, what penalties have been levied for that breach in particular, which is so egregious and unforgivable?”

“That is really disappointing.”

“The family I am talking about is just one of the many cases in my constituency. They have been trying to get answers since January. As a Committee, we have been trying to get answers for months. Why did we have to wait until the point of known and demonstrable contractual failure before work was done to rectify it? Why…”

“I am just anticipating our next inquiry and report in advance. I cannot get my head around why we are waiting another period to look at options for what should now happen when the writing was on the wall for this outcome six months ago, if not sooner. Can you explain why we are still waiting for even the options of wha…”

“Are you confident that the AI and additional technological capacity will be there in the next two months to clear the backlog?”