THE chairman of a company carrying out Government contracts yesterday declared the region was ready to take on more civil service work.

Rod Aldridge, executive chairman of Capita, said Darlington's flexible, skilled labour force and the town's impressive communications links were a vital asset.

The comments reinforce the message sent out by The Northern Echo demanding the Government consider relocating a section of Whitehall to the region.

Next month, an independent review, commissioned by the Government and carried out by Sir Michael Lyons, is expected to outline the potential benefits and detriments of devolving power from London to the regions.

Mr Aldridge, in Darlington yesterday to open a 50,000sq ft office at Lingfield Point, said: "The town's flexible workforce and excellent transport links make it an ideal location."

Capita, which has ten sites in the UK, deals with teachers pensions and winter fuel payments from Darlington.

It also has other contracts for Connexions Card, Education Maintenance Allowances, the Royal Mint and Naafi.

Mr Aldridge said: "When we started administering teachers' pensions in 1996 we found Darlington an excellent centre for our activities, and it made sense to base a lot more of our contracts here.

"This expansion point will make it easier to bring more work to the area in the future."

The office space has scope to expand a further 75,000sq ft in the future.

If Capita wins the contracts necessary to use the extra space, it could bring the firm's total workforce on the site to 1,000.

Capita employs 900 people across five sites in the North-East, 400 of whom will be at the Lingfield Point office.

The company has invested in the latest Voice-Over IP technology for the site, which will enable quicker and more efficient service as well as the flexibility to transfer calls anywhere in the country at the flick of a switch.

The base also gives complete office support services to businesses in the area, including customer contact services, transcription and voice recognition services, postal, secretarial, data scanning, storage and retrieval services.