Hunfeld Prison
Serco provides a wide range of services to this new, purpose-built, 500-bed male prison near Frankfurt-am-Main.
Under German law some custodial functions including security cannot be privatised so these are undertaken by state-employed prison officers. However Serco provides almost all the other services in the prison, including healthcare, psychology, education, recreation and building management.
Overall 45% of the prison’s services have been outsourced to Serco, at a 15% saving compared to full state provision. Serco’s contract with the Hessen Ministry of Justice runs for five years from 2005.
Hunfeld is a demonstration of how Serco can develop new models of service provision in response to customer need - in this case proposing a partnership approach to running the prison hand in hand with state personnel.