Serco: the company that is running Britain

[oldironside]

In May this year, a huge company listed on the London Stock Exchange found itself in the midst of controversy about a prison it runs for the government – Thameside, a newly built jail next to Belmarsh, in south-east London. A report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate found that 60% of its inmates were locked up all day, and there were only "vague plans to restore the prison to normality". The prison campaign group the Howard League for Penal Reform talked about conditions that were "truly alarming".

Two months later, the same company was the subject of a high- profile report published by the House Of Commons public accounts committee, prompted by the work of Guardian journalist Felicity Lawrence. This time, attention was focused on how it was managing out-of-hours GP services in Cornwall, and massive failings that had first surfaced two years before. Again, the verdict was damning: data had been falsified, national standards had not been met, there was a culture of "lying and cheating", and the service offered to the public was simply "not good enough".

Three weeks ago, there came grimmer news. Thanks to its contracts for tagging offenders, the company was now the focus of panic at the Ministry of Justice, where it had been discovered that it was one of two contractors that had somehow overcharged the government for its services, possibly by as much as £50m; there were suggestions that one in six of the tags that the state had paid for did not actually exist. How this happened is still unclear, but justice secretary Chris Grayling has said the allegations represent something "wholly indefensible and unacceptable".

The firm that links these three stories together is Serco. Its range of activities, here and abroad, is truly mind-boggling, taking in no end of things that were once done by the state, but are now outsourced to private companies. Amazingly, its contracts with government are subject to what's known as "commercial confidentiality" and as a private firm it's not open to Freedom of Information requests, so looking into the details of what it does is fraught with difficulty.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jul/29/serco-biggest-company-never-heard-of

1. Get angry.
2. Protest.
3. Goto line1

It would be a start.

[non sociopath skin]

1. Chance would be a fine thing

The United Kingdom - Team Masochist.

The Skin

[LeftishBrit]

2. Also too many people here have been successfully brainwashed into thinking that the private sector

is intrinsically superior to the public sector, despite all kinds of evidence of abuses and incompetence in private organizations (we can start with the banks).

There has always been this attitude with regard to education, where Private is often automatically seen as Better- contrasting with some other countries where state schooling is seen as the norm unless you have special needs or want something very specific. But it has increased since the time of Thatcher with regard to just about everything. Hence, relatively few Brits will fight for the public services. The possible exception is the NHS, and the media and government are doing a pretty good job of undermining support for that too.

[unedited]

3. damn but ain't that the truth...

...seriously it makes me want to scream sometimes the privatise propaganda.

Never mind the issues of profiteering, that it encourages gaming the system instead of meeting actual responsibilities, that profit is a form of financial inefficiency (ie every £ that gets taken as profit is a £ not invested in services), the lack of public accountability... and so on. (PS anyone remember when Group 4 started getting benefit contracts? They started running housing benefit and jobcentre administration - and got caught stealing claimant data and giving it to credit agencies)(seriously)(this was about the time Bliar took over)(f*cking Bliar)(*screams**weeps**screams again*)

...it's the ideological side of things. There is a reason we keep the apolitical state seperate from the political government. We don't want political parties running education, or the police, because there's too much risk they will abuse their powers to further their political agenda.

But the private sector have a political agenda - they must do or they wouldn't fund political parties, and provide interns and researchers to MP and party offices. Which means they should NEVER be allowed to become involved in policing, education, welfare, military, administration...

...

Aaargh. But you mention the banks - let's remember. Serco is owned by the banks. As is every part of the service and supply chain. This is part of the problem but it's also a chance to fight back - need to remind people just how much of the economy is owned by so few corporations - which are owned by so few people through private investment vehicles.

The banks really DO own everything.