New SFO director has ‘a massive mountain to climb’ as the anti-fraud agency looks to rebuild July 26, 2023 The new director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) faces a herculean task in rebuilding the agency’s reputation after a number of failures over the last few years, top City lawyers have warned. Earlier this month Nick Ephgrave, the former assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, was appointed as the next director of the agency [...]
Serco shares jump as outsourcer raises profit outlook June 29, 2023 Shares in outsourcing giant Serco soared over 11 per cent this morning after the firm raised its profit guidance for the year ahead on the back of rising demand for its immigration services. In a trading update this morning, the company said it expects to see underlying trading profit of around £245m, a 4 per [...]
Politicians don’t understand housing and asylum seekers will pay the price May 31, 2023 The government wants to temporarily scrap HMO licensing for asylum seekers' accommodation. It risks creating a set of dangerous sub-standard homes unfit for the future, writes Elena Siniscalco
Unilink: Software firm wins His Majesty’s pleasure for prison technology May 16, 2023 Francis Toye says he always wanted to start up his own business but thought he was maybe too “risk averse”. The opportunity came when he was set free from a 15-year career from IBM following a restructuring process. With a little redundancy cash and still working with the technology giant as a partner, Unilink was [...]
Calls to overhaul ‘antiquated’ trial rules grow as SFO forced to drop G4S case March 14, 2023 The UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) on Friday said it would be dropping its case against three former G4S executives over claims they defrauded the UK government of tens of millions of pounds. The collapse of the SFO’s case came after G4S itself took responsibility for the fraud that saw it mislead Britain’s Ministry of Justice [...]
Charges dropped against three former G4S executives accused of defrauding taxpayers March 10, 2023 Charges have been dropped against three former executives of G4S’s electronic tagging arm who were accused of defrauding the Ministry of Justice following a 10-year investigation. G4S Care and Justice Services had provided electronic monitoring services to the government from 2005 to 2013. The subsidiary of security giant G4S was accused of misleading the MoJ [...]
SFO under fire for ‘huge mistakes’ and wasting millions of taxpayers’ cash in 10-year probe of G4S March 10, 2023 The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has come under fire for wasting millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money and making “huge mistakes” in its 10-year investigation into G4S’s electronic tagging arm as charges against three former executives were dropped. In September 2020, former managing director Richard Morris, former commercial director Mark Preston and former finance manager [...]
Serco’s revenues surge as UK ‘immigration contracts’ offset a tumble in Covid testing work February 28, 2023 British contractor Serco said its revenues continued to grow in 2022 as surging UK government demand for its ‘immigration services’ offset a drop in Covid-related work. Serco said its overall revenues increased by £109m to £4.53bn in 2022, despite a £480m drop in income from work surrounding Covid-19. Higher revenues from Serco’s businesses running [...]
Serco wins £570m contract to run US public health insurance schemes February 23, 2023 British outsourcing giant Serco has won a $690m (£573m) contract from the US government to administer the country’s public health insurance schemes. Serco will run back-office delivery of America’s public health insurance initiatives in determining whether US citizens are eligible to buy coverage through the government-backed schemes. Serco’s renewed contract, which it first won [...]
Culture war concerns are creating new divisions for Conservatives to traverse February 20, 2023 Rishi Sunak has dug a line in the sand on culture war issues, but it's already created new ideological division which could split the Conservative Party, writes Eliot Wilson