Rupert Soames, chief executive of Serco, says his “shit-o-meter hasn’t pinged in almost a year”. That might not have quite the rhetorical elegance of his grandfather Winston Churchill, but the message is clear. The shocks that shook the outsourcing group two or three years ago seem to be dying out.
They haven’t disappeared entirely and Serco is certainly still on probation with some public sector clients but Mr Soames is getting more of a grip on the business, following the scandal of charging the British taxpayer for tagging non-existent prisoners in 2013. He’s also ended many lossmaking contracts signed up to by the previous regime at Serco.
Costs are being cut, debt is down, cashflow has turned positive. And, for the second time this