Nearly 80 per cent of the public think Serco, the scandal-hit outsourcing company, should not be allowed to bid for public service contracts, according to new research.
The polling, carried out by Survation for campaign group We Own it, showed an increase in support for the government running public services when companies are found guilty of mismanagement or defrauding taxpayers.
The new polling also found that outsourcing companies such as Atos, Serco, Capita and G4S have the lowest levels of trust compared to other organisations like central government, the civil service, the NHS and the police, with just 21 per cent trusting them – compared to 64 per cent who don’t.
Since a previous poll by We Own It conducted in July 2013, 6 per cent more people believe that services should be renationalised and run by the government in cases or fraud or mismanagement.
Commenting on the findings, director of We Own It Cat Hobbs said people were feeling “more than a little sick of Serco – too big to fail, too sprawling to deliver but too profit-hungry to serve us properly”.
“Politicians are colluding in this corruption. We want to see them commit to giving public service users a real say,” she added.
We Own It are holding a protest outside Serco’s AGM in London today.
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