For the third year running, Serco has sponsored an arts contest organised by the London Transport Museum, in partnership with the Association of Illustrators. Among many other lucrative 'public' services, the notorious outsourcing giant operates London's Barclays Cycle Hire Scheme, the Docklands Light Railway and the Woolwich Ferry.

Ironically, given Serco's reputation as “the biggest company you've never heard of”, the theme of the Serco Prize for Illustration this year is “Secret London”. The contest entrants are asked to submit illustrations that "explore a hidden side to the city" and "depict little known or unusual aspects of the Capital's history, culture, characters and communities".

The winning illustration will appear as a poster on many Transport for London services and receive £2,000. The top 50 entries will also be displayed in a special exhibition at the London Transport Museum at the end of this year. This, of course, will be a great PR opportunity for Serco, whose logo will appear all over London and be associated with interesting artistic works.

Corporate Watch has written to the event's organisers highlighting the “secret, hidden or little known” aspects of Serco's business empire, and asking them to drop Serco's sponsorship, which only serves to obscure the company's controversial activities.

Open letter to the London Transport Museum and the Association of Illustrators

Dear London Transport Museum, the Association of Illustrators,

We are writing to you to raise serious concerns regarding Serco's sponsorship of your contest Serco Prize for Illustration.

Serco is a multinational outsourcing company that is involved in many controversial businesses, not just transport – something your description of the company in the event's publicity material fails to mention. It has frequently been the subject of controversies and protests, not least due to its involvement in immigration detention in the UK, Australia and elsewhere. Your event will inevitably be used by Serco to polish its image and associate its logo with creative artistic works rather than prisons, nuclear weapons and stories of abuse.

It is ironic that this year's theme for the prize is “Secret London”. We would like to bring to your attention some of the “secret, hidden or little known” aspects of Serco's business empire, in the hope that you will reconsider Serco's sponsorship and dissociate yourselves from a company with such a horrendous track record.

Serco is one of a handful of private security giants that run immigration prisons around the world. In the UK, it runs the notorious Yarl's Wood detention centre in Bedfordshire and the Colnbrook detention centre near Heathrow airport. It also provides detainee escort services and electronic tagging for immigration detainees. In December last year, Serco, along with G4S and Reliance, was also awarded contracts to provide asylum accommodation across the country for the next five years (see here).

Most immigration detainees are asylum seekers who are detained on arrival or pending their forcible deportation. Their only 'crime' is to have sought refuge in this country. Serco is happy to make huge profits from locking them up for lengthy periods in inhumane conditions.

Serco has been the subject of many claims of abuse and assault by detainees. For example, in February 2010, 84 women detained in Yarl's Wood went on hunger strike in protest at their prolonged detention and inhumane treatment at the hands of Serco security guards. On 8th February, Serco security guards broke up the protest with brutal force. Some 70 women were locked in a corridor for up to eight hours without access to food, water, toilet or medical care. Many collapsed and about 20, who tried to climb out of the windows, were beaten up and taken into isolation cells. Four of the women, singled out as “ringleaders”, were transferred to Holloway prison in London and held there for months without being charged with any offence or brought before a judge (see here for more details).

A similar mass hunger strike in Yarl's Wood in June 2009 was met with similar violent assaults on detainees by Serco security guards. Both times, testimonies by detainees, many of whom had fled torture, rape and destitution, revealed that racial, psychological and physical abuse had been inflicted on them by Serco staff (see here and here, for example). Furthermore, women detained at Yarl's Wood are reportedly being paid 50p an hour to do menial tasks, which is clearly exploitation of this captive labour force (see here). For more on the exploitation and abuse of Yarl's Wood detainees by Serco, see this Corporate Watch briefing.

In July 2010, two detainees in Colnbrook, which is also run by Serco, were found dead in their cells. Around the same time, a leaked memo by Serco revealed that the company had dismissed similar incidents in Australia, where it runs all immigration detention facilities since 2009, accusing detainees of “creating a self-harm culture” and using it as a “bargaining tool” (see here). The revelation came as the Australian prison ombudsman announced a decision to launch an investigation into suicide and self-harm in the country's immigration detention facilities, where more than 1,100 incidents of threatened or actual self-harm had been reported in 2010-11. Serco has been the subject of ongoing inquiries and negative press coverage in Australia, where it is accused of systematic negligence and repeated assaults on immigration detainees (see here).

Last but not least, Serco is taking over the management of an increasing number of public services in the UK, such as health centres and welfare programmes, where it is accused of prioritising profit over quality of service. In November last year, for example, Corporate Watch revealed that Serco's “efficiency savings” in the pathology departments of King's College, Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals in London had led to the number of clinical “incidents” rising as experienced scientists are lost and not replaced. Staff say morale is at “an all time low” and complain their new managers appear more concerned with marketing than laboratory work. A biomedical scientist called the partnership with Serco a “reckless adventure” that “risks damaging irreparably a high quality clinical service” (see ).

In light of the above information, we urge you to drop Serco's sponsorship of the 2012 Prize for Illustration.

We look forward to hearing your positive response.

Corporate Watch