Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the (a) recruitment and (b) vetting process for people employed to tag offenders.

During the procurement of the Field and Monitoring Service contract, all suppliers were required to provide details of their vetting, staff recruitment, training and retention processes and these were assessed as part of the evaluation process. As with all of our contracts, we have robust mechanisms in place to hold Serco to account, including provisions to address under-performance. We have set out that Serco must deliver robust training that they are continually reviewing it for areas of improvement

The contract outlines the ongoing requirements Serco staff must meet in terms of pre-employment checks, additional vetting and specific national security vetting clearance.

There are 14 Key Performance Indicators within the Field and Monitoring Service contract held by Serco. Detailed information on the 14 Key Performance Indicators is available on Contracts Finders under Schedule 3 of the contract: Electronic Monitoring Field and Monitoring Service (FMS) - Contracts Finder.