Redundancies emerge on the rocky road

Coming under the financial watchdog’s microscope adds to a long list of woes at Interserve, which had two profit warnings in 2017. New boss Debbie White last month admitted its operating model is “inefficient”.

The UK based Interserve company has long been in the news for the wrong thing, at one point in UK it wsa being said that the company was on the verge of collapse. So, it is not surprising that the ills affecting this company should have spread to Gibraltar, where 5 employees might be made redundant. Here, the company has contracts with the MOD.

DEFENCE CONTRACTS

A year ago Interserve said it had won a two-year contract extension to continue providing infrastructure support at four international bases of the UK’s armed forces, including Gibraltar.

The contract, which is worth up to £265m, covered bases in the Falkland Islands and Ascension Island in the South Atlantic Ocean, as well as Gibraltar and Cyprus in the Mediterranean. It has been awarded by the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) on behalf of the Joint Forces Command (JFC).

Interserve is responsible for infrastructure support at the bases, including planned and reactive work to maintain the sites. The company also provides a range of site-specific services such as support for visiting vessels in Gibraltar.

A statement then said: “From supporting visiting vessels in Gibraltar to delivering aircraft services at Ascension Island, the smooth running of these Permanent Joint Operating Bases is vital to the security of our Armed Forces and the civilians that they protect. We are extremely proud to support the building and maintenance of the infrastructure required for our country's defence efforts both at home and abroad.”

Interserve’s capital investment is limited because of the £834m in total borrowing that it has to start paying down to meet financial covenants by June 2020.

“I think that when we get into an unbalanced contract where risk is passed onto a contractor but they don’t have that control over it, then you’re onto a rocky road.”

Against this bleak background, the Unite union in Gibraltar is trying to save the five jobs that are on the redundancy list and yesterday staged a walkout.

The union expressed their initial disappointment in the manner the company has communicated the compulsory redundancies, and says it intends to fully support its membership in its endeavour to stop any job losses.