The "Gemini" system was commissioned by the government from G4S (and I think Capita and others). Over the decade 2012 to 2022 the MoJ spent £98 million specifically developing the Gemini software platform... before writing it off completely.
By the time Gemini was scrapped, the "transformational" project had spent £157 million
In late 2023, the MoJ awarded Serco a £200m contract to take back the delivery of electronic monitoring services which had been given to Capita.
It wasn't going to be the same as the 2012 expectations.
...Then they gave the whole thing back to Serco.
By September 2024, hundreds of released prisoners were left untagged when they were expecting tagging because Serco faced staffing shortages and administrative backlogs, meaning field officers could not keep up with releases.
Basically, what I'm saying is there is a long history of incomplete tagging.
In my experience they always got out to the sex offenders and "high risk" released offenders but not all the others. Eventually they seemed to - but not always initially.
It takes time to tag someone.
As my home has very poor signals I expect if someone needed tagging here it would take a good couple of hours (if it could be done).
Yes, any release will put extra pressure on the system - but we are tagging better this year than last year!
2023: 85%–95% tagged as expected
May 2024 service change by MoD, combined with 20% "wrong addresses" and more early releases led to a 45% 1st completion rate.
It's not as straightforward as you would like to think Primrose
Just saying.
