Capita to take congestion charge outside London

Capita, the company in charge of administering London's new congestion toll scheme, said yesterday it hoped to gain more business from implementing the scheme in a number of other cities.

Rod Aldridge, Capita's chairman, said: "When we took on the congestion charging contract we always saw it as being about other parts of the country, as well as London."

Thirty-five local authorities have expressed an interest in the traffic management scheme, a spokesman for Capita said.

Mr Aldridge was speaking as the group recorded end-of-year profits of £78m, compared with £53m for 2001.

Capita's shares have been hit in recent months after difficulties arising from its partnership with the Criminal Records Bureau. In 12 months Capita's shares have come down from a high of 471p to less than half that value.

Last August's decision by Estelle Morris, the former education secretary, for all teachers to be vetted before the start of term resulted in a huge increase in Capita's workload.

The backlog of applications was further increased by the Government's decision to scrap the electronic processing of records in favour of paper.

Yesterday, however, Capita's shares rose 12.5p to 227p as the company reported its full-year figures and accompanied them with a positive trading outlook.

Capita's handling of the congestion charges has also catapulted it into the limelight.

Yesterday Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, sent a letter to the Press Complaints Commission complaining about the London Evening Standard's negative coverage of the scheme. The newspaper has claimed that four out of 10 cameras might misread the number plates on cars and that there have been problems for people trying to get through to the call centres set up to run the scheme.

But Mr Aldridge said the call centre performance levels were "very high". He added: "Lots of people are choosing to pay by text, which was part of the scheme we designed, and we're confident the system recognises number plates."

Capita said it had recently signed a contract with the provisional liquidators of Independent Insurance which is expected to generate at least £80m in revenue over the next five years.

Mr Aldridge reckons his group can benefit from the outsourcing of an increasing number of back office functions, leaving senior management at companies to focus on core activities. "Outsourcing is a very popular way of looking at how you can change organisations," he said.