A private company that operates prisons for the government has been paid more than £1m for running an empty secure children’s unit for seven weeks, the Guardian has learned.

Serco, which operates six prisons in the UK and jails in Australia and New Zealand, had managed Hassockfield training centre, near Consett, since it opened in 1999.

Reported by The Guardian. You can read the full story here. 

I am a journalist and author. I am a journalist at the UK edition of WIRED magazine. In 2015, my first book Freedom of Information: A Practical Guide for UK Journalists, was published. My second book Reed Hastings: Building Netflix, was published in March 2020. I created FOI Directory in 2012 and have maintained it in my spare time ever since.