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* Serco contract could be worth up to 322 mln stg
* Mitie deal worth up to 365 mln stg
* Contracts run for 12 months with option to extend for 6
more
(Adds Mitie deal, background, detail)
By Yadarisa Shabong
June 28 (Reuters) - Serco and Mitie have won
new testing contracts collectively worth up to 687 million
pounds ($956.1 million) to continue supporting Britain's
much-criticised COVID-19 test-and-trace programme, the groups
said separately on Monday.
The scheme, which Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged would
be world-beating when he launched it with a 22 billion pound
budget in May 2020, has repeatedly missed targets, with the
opposition Labour Party criticising the government's use of
private firms.
Serco's contract, which is worth up to 322 million pounds,
covers services such as site operations, cleaning and security
at around 20% of test sites in England and Northern Ireland,
down from the roughly 25% of sites covered by its previous deal.
Mitie's deal, worth up to 365 million pounds, covers the
management of around 28% of testing sites across England,
Scotland and Wales, up from about 23% of sites in its former
contract.
The two agreements are focussed on testing only but form
part of the test-and-trace scheme, which oversees testing of
people who think they have COVID-19, and then tracing contacts
of those who test positive to require them to isolate.
While Serco also holds contracts for contact tracing, Mitie
only looks after testing sites.
Parliament's spending watchdog said on Friday the scheme had
improved but was still missing targets, and the results of
millions of tests to find asymptomatic cases had not been
reported.
Britain has the highest COVID-19 death toll in Europe and is
seeing a surge in cases driven by the new Delta variant of the
virus, although an advanced vaccination campaign has kept
hospitalisations and deaths far below previous infection waves.
Serco earlier this month raised its 2021 profit forecast in
part thanks to its work on COVID-19 services. It did not change
its forecast on Monday following the contract win.
"We expect that the margin is slightly below group average,
but in line with expectations," Liberum analysts said on Serco.
Shares in Serco were up 0.7%, while Mitie was down 2.5%.
($1 = 0.7185 pounds)
(Reporting by Yadarisa Shabong in Bengaluru; Editing by Louise
Heavens, Mark Potter and Jan Harvey)
