Serco’s chief: We are not the devils of asylum lock-change row
THE chief executive of Serco has robustly defended his company amid the row over its role in attempting to evict failed asylum seekers.
In a letter to The Herald, Rupert Soames OBE describes the issue as “fiendishly difficult” and calls for others to take responsibility for the plight of those left destitute by the asylum system.
Speaking out for the first time since Serco won a court ruling that it was within the law to evict more than 300 people without a court order, Mr Soames said: “No charity, no branch of local government, has stepped in and offered to take over the responsibility of providing these people with housing.”
There has been, he adds: “Much hand-wringing, much moralising, much ‘we wish we could help’, but no action.”
The outsourcing company has faced repeated criticism over its actions after it began to issue residents with eviction notices and launched a rolling lock-change programme in July last year.
The policy was challenged in the courts, but in November the Court of Session ruled Serco’s actions were lawful, allowing it to resume evictions.
In his letter, Mr Soames takes issue with an opinion piece published in Tuesday’s Herald which argued that while Serco was acting legally, the policy was “morally bankrupt”.
He says: “We have been providing costfree housing and services to hundreds of failed asylum seekers, many of them for years after Government support has ceased.
“For how long... should we be expected to continue to provide housing, when no one else will? For three years? Ten years? For the rest of their lives? At what stage are we entitled to say ‘enough is enough’?” Many thousands of Glaswegians are also in great need, he says. “Are Serco expected to care for them all as well?”
The core “fiendishly difficult” issue, he says, is how a country should manage people whose claims have been refused. “Only government can decide what the policy should be.”
Serco staff have shown care and compassion, he says, but “now we are the devils of the piece because we cannot go on like this. As is sometimes said, no good deed ever goes unpunished.”
Mr Soames, a grandson of Winston Churchill, says Serco has made an
£80 million loss on the asylum accommodation contract in the past five years although the firm’s operating profit rose 40 per cent to £80.5m last year. He was paid £4.5m overall in 2018, including a £255,000 pension contribution.
However, the company’s critics were not impressed. Sabir Zazai, CEO at the Scottish Refugee Council, said: “Mr Soames acknowledges the UK asylum system is flawed but was happy for his multinational company to take on a multi-billion pound contract in this sector, without advocating for improvements or a fairer deal for the people Serco was paid to house.”
He added: “We’re disappointed to see Mr Soames use the old ‘us and them’ trope in his letter. Most of us have moved on from talking about people getting ‘free housing’ and we categorically refuse to accept attempts to divide us and pit people and neighbours against each other.”
Graeme Brown, director of Shelter Scotland, said: “Rupert Soames OBE’S assertion that ‘no good deed ever goes unpunished’ is a breath-taking attempt to make Serco look like the victim in this tragic affair.
“The questions he raises about how do we provide public services to people in greatest need would have been better asked and answered before Serco bid for and won a commercial contract that resulted in people facing a life on the streets.”