Serco Chairman Roy Gardner to step down

Serco is looking for a new chairman after Roy Gardner decided to step down five years after joining the public services outsourcing group.

Gardner, a former chairman of Manchester United FC, joined Serco in June 2015 and became chairman a month later. He has worked with Chief Executive Rupert Soames to revive Serco after a series of profit warnings and scandals that threatened its relationship with the UK government, its biggest customer.

Serco is one of the companies recruiting, training and managing the UK's Covid-19 contact tracer recruits who do not have clinical training. It apologised last week after sharing almost 300 recruits' email addresses in an apparent breach of data rules.

The FTSE 250 company announced Gardner's decision two weeks after he presided over Serco's annual general meeting. The company, whose services include managing prisons, border control and health services, said it expected Gardner's successor to be in place before the next meeting.

Serco said: "Sir Roy Gardner has been chairman of Serco since 2015 and has been instrumental in leading the turnaround of the business during his tenure. Sir Roy has decided that he will not seek another term and has asked the board to start the process to find a successor."

The company did not pay a final dividend for 2019 and cut directors' bonuses to save cash during the Covid-19 crisis. It said in April that demand for cleaning staff from hospitals across the world had soared.