Thursday 11th July, 2013

The Justice Minister, Chris Grayling has revealed that the Government's two major suppliers, Serco and G4S have been over-charging for their electronic tagging services for a number of years. As reported by Channel 4 news, the matter may now be forwarded to the Serious Fraud Office.

The companies have been accused of mis-charging for the electric tagging of some inmates, some of whom had already been sent back to prison, left the country - or in some cases, died. Mr Grayling told the Commons: "In some instances, charging continued for a period of many months, indeed years, after active monitoring had ceased." He said the auditors estimated that the sums involved are "significant" and "run into the low tens of millions in total for both companies since the contracts commenced in 2005."