22 March 2021
Capita plc (the "Company")
Annual Financial Report
In compliance with Rule 4.1 of the Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules (“DTRs”), the Company announces the publication of its Annual Financial Report for the year ended 31 December 2020. Pursuant to Listing Rule 9.6.1, a copy of this document has been submitted to the
National Storage Mechanism and will shortly be available for inspection at
https://data.fca.org.uk/#/nsm/nationalstoragemechanism. The document is also available on the Company's website: www.capita.com/investors.
Additional Information
A condensed set of the Company's financial statements and information on important events that have occurred during the financial year and their impact on the financial statements, together with details of related party transactions, were included in the preliminary results announcement released on 17 March 2021. That information, together with the information set out below, which is extracted from the Annual Report and Accounts 2020, is provided in accordance with DTR 6.3.5. This information should be read in conjunction with the Company's preliminary results announcement. This announcement is not a substitute for reading the full Annual Report and Accounts 2020.
Principal risks
Potential impact:
How we manage the risk:
The pandemic put our clients, customers and our service delivery under huge pressure. While
that presented challenges to our stakeholders and for our people, it did provide us with the opportunity to demonstrate how we live our values and our purpose by creating better outcomes and continuing to deliver for our clients.
Mitigating actions in 2020:
Future actions:
2. Strategy: Failure to define and resource the right medium-term strategy.
Potential Impact:
How we manage the risk:
The financial pressures from Covid-19 had a significant impact on our transformation programme, our strategic priorities, and our ability to demonstrate that anticipated benefits from the transformation programme were on target to be achieved. Instead of focusing on the delivery of our objectives, we had to focus our attention on the pandemic.
Mitigating actions in 2020:
3. Innovation: Failure to innovate and develop new value propositions for clients and customers to drive sustainable growth.
Potential Impact:
How we manage the risk:
The pandemic has thrown up myriad challenges, as well as opportunities for new propositions
for clients. Some clients are under financial pressure and will want to spend less. In addition,
we have had to scale back the resource and investment in this area, which has resulted in
reduced innovation initiatives.
Mitigating actions in 2020:
Future actions:
made to capture the growth opportunities in the areas we are focusing on. See CEO report.
4. People attraction: Failure to attract, develop, engage and retain the right people for current and future client propositions.
Potential impact:
How we manage the risk:
The financial position and drop in our share price have had an impact on our brand and reputation. As a result of internal cost-reduction measures, i.e. the freeze in bonus payout and pay rise freezes, we have had some staff attrition. However, we have continued to attract and recruit staff in our operational areas and recruit senior roles including replacing senior staff who have left. Our employee survey results have shown three consecutive annual improvements in our employee net performance score (eNPS). The successful implementation of the reorganisation should attract and retain staff.
Mitigating actions in 2020:
Future actions:
5 . Culture: Failure to change the culture and practices of Capita in line with our responsible business agenda.
Potential impact:
How we manage the risk:
Collaboration and teamwork improved during pandemic period. With a continued need to take
tough decisions to bridge to the future and the change in work styles, with reduced focus, engagement, and direct interaction with our people, likely to impact our culture, value, and behaviours around openness and collaborative working. We have described earlier in this section, how Capita responded to the Covid-19 crisis which allowed us to demonstrate how we prioritised living our values in line with our responsible business agenda.
Mitigating actions in 2020:
Future actions:
and behaviours.
6. Data Protection: Failure to protect data, information and IT systems.
Potential impact:
How we manage the risk:
The global pandemic involving the spread of Covid-19 presented our IT business with several
different challenges, primarily around how we manage our IT infrastructure to accommodate our people who were asked to work from home and to maintain our IT systems and security controls.
Mitigating actions in 2020:
Future actions:
7. Contracts: Inability to secure contracts with an acceptable risk and reward balance and that are aligned to Capita’s agreed purpose, values and responsible business strategy.
Potential impact:
How we manage the risk:
The pandemic has financially impacted potential clients and customers leading to a reduced appetite to spend money and wish to pay less for services. There is a risk that Capita enters contractual arrangements with new clients that result in unacceptable commercial, regulatory, financial, or reputational exposure, or which are not aligned to Capita’s agreed purpose, values, and responsible business strategy.
Mitigating actions in 2020:
Future actions:
8. Delighting clients: Failure to delight clients and customers with software performance or project and service delivery.
Potential impact:
How we manage the risk:
As a result of Covid-19, most projects are either continuing or have been change controlled, but this did not affect our ability to deliver our client commitments. The reorganisation of Capita’s operating model should enhance our ability to fulfil customer requirements.
Mitigating actions in 2020:
Future actions:
9. Internal Control: Failure to develop and maintain a risk-based system of internal control.
Potential Impact:
How we manage the risk:
In prior years, this risk primarily focused on financial controls. The executive agreed that a system of internal controls should not be limited to financial controls but should be expanded to pan-Capita internal control frameworks. The impact of Covid-19 has resulted in a delay to the improvement of elements of our risk management and internal control framework.
Mitigating actions in 2020:
Future actions:
environment with the new operating model
appetite into a more granular tool to develop key risk indicators for monitoring key risks
10. Political climate: Failure to plan for, influence and respond to potential changes in the political climate.
Potential Impact:
How we manage the risk:
UK Government’s absolute priority has been Covid-19 and going forward will be recovery.
There may be increased volatility in government spending because of an improved opposition.
Mitigating actions in 2020:
Future actions:
political climate.
11. Financial stability: Failure to maintain financial stability and achieve financial targets.
Potential Impact:
How we manage risks:
Covid-19 significantly impacted our ability to maintain financial stability and achieve our financial targets, due to the lockdown travel and workplace restrictions. As a result, for a short time, we were not able to fully deliver on some of our contractual obligations. We incurred loss of revenue in our transactional business and from clients in financial distress.
Mitigating actions in 2020:
moving from a V-shaped recovery to business by business recovery curves. Projections
extended to 2021 and the business planning process accelerated
Future actions:
non-core disposals
Emerging Risks
Identification of emerging risk
The identification of emerging risks is carried out by both the business, using a bottom-up approach, and the executive, from a top-down perspective. Regular reviews of risks, including emerging risks, are included at risk committees throughout the business.
Health, safety and wellbeing of our people
In 2020 we witnessed the rapid spread of the Covid-19 virus with devastating consequences across the world. We responded by assessing the impact of Covid-19 on our principal risks and by establishing a dedicated team to ensure Capita was as prepared as possible for the global health emergency. However, as the initial phase of the pandemic stabilised, we began to appreciate the longer-term impacts of Covid-19 on the health, safety and wellbeing of our people, some of whom have now been working from home for almost a year, and will continue to do so for a number of months to come. In 2021, we must continue to support our managers and colleagues across the business in recognising that they are empowered to change how they and their teams work. We will achieve this through briefings, workshops, focus groups, pulse surveys, targeted communications and new training collateral. This not only covers the day-to-day work people have to do but will also have a large emphasis on wellbeing and supporting each other through these challenging times.
Responsibility Statement of Directors in respect of the annual financial statements
The Directors confirm that, to the best of their knowledge:
Cautionary statement
The Directors present the Annual Report for the year ended 31 December 2020, which includes the strategic report, corporate governance, and audited accounts for this year. Pages 1–108 of this Annual Report comprise a report of the directors which has been drawn up and presented in accordance with English company law, and the liabilities of the directors in connection with that report shall be subject to the limitations and restrictions provided by such law. Where the directors’ report refers to other reports or material, such as a website address, this has been done to direct the reader to other sources of Capita plc information which may be of interest. Such additional materials do not form part of this report.
Contact: Francesca Todd, Group Company Secretary, 020 7799 1525