, Labour’s Shadow Cabinet Office Minister,
responding to news that Serco will start paying a dividend to
shareholders due to soaring profits, said:
“It will outrage taxpayers that their money - meant to fund a
contact tracing system which has never been up to scratch - is
instead being paid to Serco shareholders via dividends.
“It's typical of this government’s appalling waste during this
pandemic - they should have done with contract tracing as they
rightly did with the vaccine - place it in the hands of our NHS
and our local communities, instead of using it to hand huge
profits to Serco.
“This is the company, who said in a leaked letter, that Covid was
an opportunity for them to cement themselves into our public
service delivery. If the government doesn’t want to keep seeing a
repeat of this troubling pattern, they must drastically reform
public service procurement – a Labour government will.”
Ends
Notes to Editors:
- Serco have published their full year results for 2020
https://www.serco.com/media-and-news/2021/serco-group-plc-full-year-results-2020
- Revenue: grew by 20% to £3.9bn.
- Dividends: the Board recommends restarting dividends, last
paid to Serco shareholders in 2014, with a payment of 1.4p in
respect of the 2020 financial year.
- Underlying Trading Profit: increased by 36% to £163m, with
NSBU adding 8%; net impact of Covid-19 around £2m, or ~1% of UTP.
- Reported Operating Profit: increased by 75%, or £77m, to
£179m, as a result of the 36% increase in underlying profit and
an exceptional gain on disposal.
