Serco, an outsourcing specialist, holds the London probation contract, supervising 15,000 offenders carrying out "community payback" sentences.
Yet A4e is passed as fit to take on a probation contract – despite having zero experience in the field.
Napo, the union for the probation service, has already spelled out what this procurement process looks like, having seen it at close range: in London, in 2012, Serco won the probation contract for £37m.
The row over the appointments follows the resignation last year of Paul McDowell as chief inspector of probation after it was disclosed that his wife runs a private probation company that won six of the 23 probation contracts in England and Wales.
Experts in contract writing are being rushed in by the MoJ to negotiate the private probation contracts, shoring up a depleted civil service that is usually outsmarted by the private sector.
"With future Ministry of Justice contracts up for grabs, including more than £600m of probation contracts, the government must act swiftly and bar G4S from bidding for any more until the SFO has concluded its investigation.
Better that, it seems, than taking on probation contracts being let by the justice secretary, Chris Grayling, or doing work capability assessments on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions.
Grayling has said that both Serco and the other company involved in the tagging allegations, G4S, can continue to bid for prison and probation contracts but will not be awarded them unless they are given a clean bill of health.
Janine McDowell was promoted 10 days ago to the job of managing director of Sodexo justice services, which has been named by Grayling as the preferred bidder to take over the largest number of regional probation contracts early next year.
Grayling told the Commons justice select committee he accepted there was a conflict of interest involving Paul McDowell, the chief inspector of probation, and his wife, Janine, who was promoted 10 days ago to managing director of Sodexo Justice Services, which has preferred bidder status for six of the 21 probation contracts.
Grayling admitted that a conflict of interest row surrounding the sell-off has become more acute after the wife of the chief inspector of probation was promoted last week to run the company that is to take over the largest number of probation contracts.
