With the London Olympics a mere ten days away, this is a bit of an embarrassment for Boris Johnson to admit. With the decision to outsource security of the games to private security firm G4S, their last-minute withdrawal has left politicians with no choice but to call up members of the military. Many have just returned from deployment in Afghanistan.

G4S has stated that it will not be able to provide the 10 400 security as promised at the award of their contract with the Games. The staffing disaster is said to have been caused by a glitch in the company’s internal software, which runs the rostering system. This is not the first large blunder for the world’s largest security company either. Last year the company was responsible for leaving prisoners at a UK jail locked up for 24 hours after losing the keys to the cells. This is a far cry from the company’s confident claims little over a week ago that it could stage a similar event at the same time of needed.

Whilst 3 500 members of the British military will make up the shortfall, one has to wonder what level of damage has been done to G4S, who has already lost £650 in market capitalisation. G4S CEO, Nick Buckles, has stated:

We have had a fantastic record of service delivery over many years in many countries but clearly this is not a good position to be in.

He also added that G4S will still be taking their £57 million management fee.

[Source: Business Day, CIO]