Megaprofits from taxpayers' pockets

Serco runs Yarl's Wood immigration detention centre and several private prisons as well as Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment and state schools in Yorkshire and the Midlands.

The firm also has extensive interests in health, local government and private finance initiatives.

And Serco provides support to the armed forces of Britain, the US, Germany and Australia.

According to the firm's most recent accounts, published this week, its annual profits for last year rocketed by 39 per cent to £229.7 million while the salary of CEO Chris Hyman increased by 42 per cent to £1,578,682.

While the country struggles to emerge from recession and the major parties propose swingeing cuts to the public sector, the future for Serco, according to Mr Hyman, looks rosy.

He was recently quoted as saying: "Fiscal pressures are increasing in all of our global markets, presenting ever greater opportunities for the efficient delivery of essential services."

Union leaders were quick to condemn the profiteering nature of Serco and other firms involved in wholesale privatisation of public services.

Public and Commercial Services union general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "These results are further evidence that the belt-tightening we were all told we must endure to get out of the recession does not seem to apply to the boardrooms and shareholders of big business.

"We might find this slightly less disgraceful if Serco wasn't involved in privatising public services and angling for yet more. Public services cannot and should not be run for profit."

Prison Officers Association general secretary Brian Caton said: "These companies are not about providing services, they are about privatisation.

"The more they lust after profit the more the standard of service is driven down.

"Serco is bidding for the next tranche of private prisons and is a prime example of this. These companies are privateers and racketeers and they are all about making a profit."

Serco's role in supporting the British and US military in Iraq and Afghanistan was also condemned.

War on Want campaigner Yasmin Khan said: "Companies like Serco are complicit in war efforts throughout the world, putting profit before people and often legitimising and fueling conflict.

"It is time for the UK government to introduce tough legislative controls to regulate the murky private military and security industry."

Serco held its annual general meeting in the QEII Centre in Westminster yesterday, at which asylum campaigners protested over numerous alleged abuses of human rights at Yarl's Wood.

"Serco is profiting from children's misery," said Clare Sambrook of End Child Detention Now.

"If CEO Chris Hyman cares about Serco's reputation he should give the new government every assistance in ending child detention."