Meeting of the Parliament 25 November 2015
Not now.
We know how the model works: the Tories privatise an asset; Serco bids to manage the asset; it then cuts the service to the bone and posts a handsome profit as a result. Serco operates railways, speed cameras, prisons, immigration detention centres, a young offenders institution and air traffic control.
One investigation into Serco’s past reports on the tragic death of 19-year-old Ben Woollacott, who was employed by Serco as a deckhand on the Woolwich ferry in south-east London. Mr Woollacott died on 3 August 2011 as a result of injuries that he sustained at work, after he was dragged overboard by a mooring rope. In August 2012, the marine accident investigation branch found that Serco’s Woolwich ferries had no safety management system for the standard practice of unmooring the vessel. Other safety shortcomings were evident. On 22 October this year, the inner London crown court ruled that Serco must pay fines and legal fees of £200,000 for the safety failings that contributed to Mr Woollacott’s death.
Serco also bid for national health service contracts in England, and unacceptable practices resulted. For example, in September 2012, Serco was found to have reported inaccurate data 252 times to the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly NHS Primary Care Trust over its performance in providing out-of-hours general practitioner services. The contract for the out-of-hours work has now been awarded to a local GP collective.
More important, in 2014 Serco had to repay nearly £70 million to the UK Government, following a fraud investigation. The question must be asked: is it a fit and proper organisation to run our public services?
Margaret Hodge MP, former chair of Westminster’s powerful Public Accounts Committee, described Serco’s overbilling of the Ministry of Justice’s public service contracts as
“an urgent wake-up call for the government’s disastrous contract management.”
Let us wake up today, before another disaster happens and Serco wins the ferry services contract. If Serco wins next year, it will be paid more than £1 billion by the Scottish Government. How much of that vast sum will be retained by Serco at the expense of passengers and staff?
Some members may say that if the current tender stops immediately, Serco might sue the Scottish Government for its losses. The Scottish Parliament information centre has helpfully provided a link to Transport Scotland’s process overview for contract bidders, which states that the Scottish Government would not be liable for any cost incurred by bidders if it cancels or suspends the contract process. Section 5.4.1 says:
“Transport Scotland may elect to discontinue or suspend the procurement process at any time ... without responsibility or liability to any participant.”
The minister continues to argue that the Government has no choice but to put the ferry services out to tender. He says that it is all the fault of the regulations, which are enforced by faceless European Union bureaucrats. However, independent observers and the trade union movement do not agree that this meek surrender of our national interests is either necessary or desirable. The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers has repeatedly stated that, under a long-standing principle called the Teckal exemption, the Scottish Government could exempt CalMac and other ferry contracts from the damaging and unpopular tendering requirement.