The Cabinet Office was unable to confirm whether it had contingency plans in place for the failure of public sector contractor Capita after the company issued a shock profit warning, scrapped its dividend and announced plans to raise £700m in order to avoid collapse.

The company, which provides a variety of services to the public sector including running call centres for Jobseekers Allowance, administering teachers’ pensions and providing an electronic monitoring service for the Ministry of Justice, is estimated to have net debt of £1.1bn, and a pension deficit of around £380m.

Its troubles have drawn comparisons with fellow outsourcer Carillion, which plunged into liquidation last month under a pile of debt and carrying a huge pension deficit which could be up to £990m.

But the Cabinet Office could not provide details of any contingency plans that the Government had put in place to protect public services in the wake of another high profile collapse.

According to public sector data provider Tussell, Capita is the biggest supplier of local government services in the country.

The FTSE 250 company was founded in 1984 and employs around 70,000 staff.