Serco’s performance

Stuff reports:

Private prison operator Serco has failed to meet half of its performance targets since taking over Auckland’s Mt Eden Prison.

A report card on Serco’s performance released today reveals three inmates were wrongly released, one escaped and there were three wrongful detentions.

The percentage of sentenced prisoners with an appropriate plan in place within required timeframes was only 28 per cent – two thirds lower than the 90 per cent target.

Of 37 targets Serco was to meet in the nine months to April half weren’t met.

While it is not good that Serco is only meeting half its targets, what is great is that a prison operator actually has targets that they are being held to. When is the last time you heard about the public prison service being subjected to the accountability of such targets.

And if Serco continue not to meet the targets, then they will be financially penalised and eventually can be sacked. This is how it should be.

The full set of performance targets and results is here.

Some of the “failures” are pretty minor such as only 99% instead of 100% of prisoners were seen by a health professional within four hours of arrving.

The KPIs look pretty good. Does anyone know if the prisons run by the Corrections Department have to meet the same KPIs?