Serco wins Covid-19 test-and-trace contract despite £1m fine

Serco, one of the companies that has secured a lucrative government contract for the Covid contact-tracing programme, was fined more than £1m for failures on another government contract just months ago, the Observer has learned. The revelation has led to campaigners against the privatisation of public services to call for the £45.8m test-and-trace contract to be cancelled. Serco has a range of government contracts both in the UK and overseas, much of it focused on criminal justice and immigration. It has already had to apologise after breaching data protection rules on its test-and-trace contract by inadvertently revealing the email addresses of new recruits. The junior health minister, Edward Argar, is a former Serco lobbyist.