Northgate Public Services has landed a £2.8m contract over five years with The Insolvency Service.

The public sector VAR will support the Redundancy Payments Service (RPS) in providing services to employees who have been made redundant and whose employers are unable or unwilling to make redundancy payment.

The contract is designed to improve the effectiveness of the RPS as part of The Insolvency Service’s Enabling the Future programme.

Under the terms of the agreement the VAR will replace The Insolvency Service's outdated system for redundancy claim and processing.

Joe Bradley, managing director of Citizen Services at Northgate Public Services, said: “In these difficult economic times, the work of the Redundancy Payments Service has never been so vital in meeting the needs of citizens at times of great stress.

“Citizens want and need a redundancy payments service which is right first time, every time and which deals with their claims quickly and effectively. We are delighted to be working in partnership with The Insolvency Service to provide this vital service.”

As part of the Claims Handling and Making Payments (Champ) project, more than 165,000 workers made claims to the RPS in the last 12 months and the total amount paid out to redundant workers has totalled more than £350m.

By the end of the contract the partnership will have delivered services such as improved accuracy of payments and improved detection and prevention of fraud through integration with the HMRC National Insurance Recording System (NIRS) for validation of NI numbers and employment details.

The system will also support the RPS in dealing with solvent claims in facilitating redundancy payments awarded by Employment Tribunals, and in its debt recovery work.

Graham Horne, deputy chief executive of The Insolvency Service said: “In these difficult economic times, it is vital that we provide a fast and effective service for people who face redundancy.

“We look forward to working with Northgate and providing an improved service to our customers.