Serco recently held its annual AGM and in a bid to air their views, a small group of protesters gathered outside the central London location who say they are “Sick of Serco”. Amongst the protesters were Pat Waterman, Chair of Greater London for NAPO and Cat Hobbs, a director at the anti-privatisation campaign We Own It.

According to a recent poll undertaken by We Own It, nearly 80% of the public think outsourcing company Serco should be banned from bidding on public service contracts. In an interview with IBTimes UK, Cat Hobbs called for “more transparency, more accountability and more of a say for public service users”.

Ever since the controversial news that Serco had been reportedly overcharging the Ministry of Justice for tagging offenders, they have featured in the news almost every week. Some stories have been good (recent contract win with Qatar in the Middle East), but many have been damaging; contract losses, lower margins, requirements for emergency funding, 62% fall in profits last year and a warning that profits would fall a further 20% this year, plus the fact they are still under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office and had suffered a ban on being awarded new contracts by the UK government that ran until January.

Let’s hope their new chief executive Rupert Soames, incidentally grandson of Winston Churchill, can effectively lead the outsourcing giant into battle against these protestors and win over the general public.

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