Carillion Favoured Over Serco and G4S for Probation Service Deals

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11 October 2013 | Updated 01 January 1970

Carillion has been put forward to bid to take over part of the National Probation Service – in what many consider to be a Government ‘back-stop’ plan to involve another major player in Ministry of Justice outsourcing in case either Serco of G4S need to be ‘chastised’ for their involvement in overcharging on prisoner transport contracts.

It is strongly rumoured that Chris Grayling (the Secretary of State for Justice – pictured) and the rest of the Government are in a quandary over calls for both Serco and G4S to be banned from Government contracts (see story below Click Here) whilst accepting that the two companies are ‘too big to fail’  - they cannot be easily replaced. Many Ministers still feel chagrined that it was not possible to ‘punish’ G4S out to dry after the Olympics and that another ‘let off’ might be damaging if it was brought more to the public’s attention. Bringing in Carillion, which has no experience in the sector, would introduce some competition and provide the company with an opportunity to establish its credentials  for further work.

Twenty-one contracts (in England and Wales) involving 225,000 low and medium risk offenders each year are on offer worth about £450million. The contracts are for supervision of offenders - which is approximately 70% of the current role of the National Probation Service.

The National Association of Probation Officers union has claimed that the move not only jeopardises the jobs of its members but also put the public at serious risk. The union is running a campaign to highlight Carillion’s lack of experience in this type of work.

Tanya Bassett, for NAPO said: “Medium and low-risk offenders make up the majority of offenders. Will a private company declare an offender is high risk, take them out of their system and potentially lose out on money? It is something that could put members of the public at risk. Our concerns were G4S and Serco but for a company like Carillion to come in without experience is worrying.”

Backgound

An investigation into Serco will focus on a prisoner escorting contract with the Ministry of Justice worth about £285m. It is alleged that the Ministry was charged for delivering prisoners that were in fact never delivered to court or prison and for monitoring (via tagging) people that were not in fact being monitored. It is claimed that in more than one extreme case, the monitoring charges were applied to people who were dead!

In initiating the original police investigation, Justice Secretary Chris Grayling said: "It's become very clear there has been a culture within parts of Serco that has been totally unacceptable which need to be investigated by the police."

The cause for concern arose as a result of a prior investigation into suspicions that both Serco and G4S were overcharging on electronic tagging/monitoring contracts. In July Serco and G4S were accused of overcharging while monitoring offenders through electronic tagging. This led to an audit of the firms by the government, which raised fresh allegations.

Article written by Brian Shillibeer | Published 11 October 2013

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