Serco faces $680,000 hit in fines
WA's private prison operator Serco is facing fines of up to $680,000 for a series of prisoner escapes and protocol breaches under its watch last financial year.
The costs are revealed in the annual report on the Department of Corrective Services' court security and custodial services contract, tabled in Parliament yesterday.
The report detailed at least 18 separate incidents triggering financial penalties. They included four escapes from an "unsecure environment", four escapes from custody, six failures to provide a service, one serious failure to provide a service and three unauthorised releases from custody.
The maximum fines, which are not paid to DCS but instead come off Serco's contract fees and are yet to be finalised, range from $2763 to $110,520 and total $681,000.
Penalties of about $11,000 were levied for late deliveries to court.
In the report, DCS Commissioner James McMahon said it had "been a year of challenges for Serco . . . after a number of escapes".
Of particular concern were the escape of two prisoners in custody at Geraldton airport in January, the escape of four prisoners attending hospital and two prisoners - a juvenile and an adult - escaping from court, he wrote.
Shadow corrective services minister Paul Papalia said the figures demonstrated that the contract was not being properly fulfilled by the private operator.
"All this does is confirm the need for the independent inquiry into the court security and custodial services contract which the Opposition has been calling for since last year's Geraldton escape," he said.
"All we get is internal inquiries kept secret under the guise of commercial in-confidence and operational security."
Corrective Services Minister Joe Francis insisted he was happy with Serco's stewardship of the contract, saying the number of escapes as a proportion of the prisoner population had declined dramatically under the Barnett Government.
Mr Francis said prisoner transport was the weakest link in prison security and Serco was responsible for about 35,000 prisoner transports each year. "While no escape is ever acceptable, they sometimes occur," he said.
