Jobs & blunders
OUTSOURCING giant Serco is based in Hampshire and runs a number of government services.
It operates the National Border Targeting Centre for UK Visas and Immigration, and also supplies electronic tagging devices for offenders and asylum seekers.
It is also contracted to the Department for Work and Pensions to provide telephone advice.
In London, Serco operates the London Cycle Hire Scheme for Transport for London and ran the Docklands Light Railway from 1997 to 2014.
Its home affairs division operates speed camera systems throughout the UK.
The firm has a history of failures when being paid to run government services.
In 2013 it was accused of overcharging the Ministry of Justice for electronic tagging of prisoners who were in jail, or had left the UK.
It paid out nearly £23million after a probe by the Serious Fraud Office. Just months after the tagging allegations, a Serco-run immigration centre faced sexual allegations involving a 23-year-old Roma woman.
The unidentified female was awaiting deportation at Yarl’s Wood in Bedfordshire. Two male members of staff were sacked a month later due to “inappropriate behaviour” with a detainee. Yet the Home Office awarded Serco £70m in 2014 to keep operating it for another eight years.
In 2015 a refugee charity claimed female migrants being held at Yarl’s Wood were “treated like animals; sexually abused by staff”.