There are fears that sticking to the original end date could cause problems during the 2026 local election, reports Grace Howarth, Local Democracy Reporter

Ammar Naqvi (inset) is Barnet Council's cabinet member for culture, leisure, arts and sport — Ammar Naqvi (inset) is Barnet Council’s cabinet member for finance

Barnet Council will further extend its long-running customer support contract with outsourcing firm Capita to avoid disruption the next local elections.

In recent years the council has been winding down its various contracts with Capita, one of the UK’s biggest local government outsourcing services, due to “poor service delivery”.

The council’s customer support group (CSG) contract, which covers ‘back office’ functions such as IT and customer services, as well as revenue and benefits services, was expected to be fully insourced by April 2026.

All other services were agreed to return to the council in 2023 when the CSG contract was originally set to be returned

However, to avoid “any IT issues during a local election” a proposal to extend the CSG contract for IT and customer services for a further six months to 30th September 2026 was put to the council’s overview and scrutiny committee on Monday (28th).

A second proposal to extend the CSG contract for revenues and benefits for up to three months to 30th June 2026, with the option to extend this a further three months, was also put forward.

Council leader Barry Rawlings said: “We don’t want any IT issues during a local election.

“On the revenue and benefits contract, the worst time to change a contract is the beginning of the financial year, so with an extention there’s time for us to take account of any changes that have to be done at the beginning of the financial year.

“This is a very pragmatic report. This is what needs to be done to ease our move away from Capita.”

In terms of the overall move away from Capita, Tory councillors have criticised the level of insourcing proposed by the Labour administration.

Ammar Naqvi, cabinet member for finance, responded: “We don’t want this issue to be mired in ideological entrenchment.

“The paper also contains an options appraisal for how these services can be brought back in house.

“It needs to be done for reasons of pragmatism and for the cost benefit to residents.

“If a fully in-sourced or out-sourced model is not of benefit to us in a particular service space, it is something that we will disregard in favour of some sort of hybrid approach, which is what the options appraisal does detail extensively.”

Committee member Guilia Innocenti asked how to avoid the issue becoming a “political football” and whether the project and works done so far were protected “should the administration change” at the 2026 election.

Cllr Naqvi said the ‘options appraisal’ was discussed in a “public forum” and the scrutiny committee played an “active role” overseeing how the contract evolved.

Together this would make the development “as bi-partisan and cross-partisan as possible”.

He said: “Naturally no-one really knows what’s going to happen in 2026 so it’s in everyone’s interest to make sure the organisation is as stable throughout that period on both sides of the election as it can possibly be.”

Cllr Naqvi added if an “about-turn” was done on the contract’s development in 2026, this would be a breach of “contractual obligations”.

He added: “At that point we will be well progressed on the option we’ve chosen to go ahead with so I wouldn’t say it’s impossible but it’s highly unlikely and very inadvisable.”

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