CRUMBRIA: 4.03.2026
AMATEUR hour strikes again at Crumberland Council.
The Labour-daft authority has narrowly avoided a car crash involving the pay packets of around 2,000 school staff across the area.
Cumberland had lined up new payroll providers to take over when its contract with Capita expired at the end of February.
The lucrative new contract had been handed to a new company.
Sources alleged that while the company might have been judged “best value for money”, some doubts were raised about whether it had sufficient experience in running, er, complex education payrolls.
And with the newcomers taking over so late in the payroll cycle, panic started to spread through Cumberland schools that staff might not get paid on time in March.
As recently as February, overconfident Council PR spinners were assuring the media here that there would be a “smooth handover.”
All that’s changed.
The red-faced authority has had to hand back the contract to Capita – which will now continue doing the job it always did until 2029.
The Council has subsequently issued an apology to school staff for the “worry and stress” caused.
What happens next remains unclear. Has this calamitous penny-pinching exercise actually cost the Council MORE?
Might the snubbed tender winners demand a compensatory payoff for the Council’s decision?
And how many spondoolicks might Capita now be charging Crumberland Council for picking it up so late in the day?
These cliffhanger questions were not addressed in an article by the News & Shrug, Carlisle, which otherwise did an OK job reporting the saga.
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