Scots call centre boss back in business after taxpayer left to pay £350k bill for his redundant staff

A call centre boss who left the taxpayer to pick up a £350,000 staff bill when one of his companies went bust is back in business.

David Harper has taken over energy mis-selling claims firm Panoserv, which boasts of helping businesses claw back £10million in overpayments.

It takes a 35 per cent fee of every successful claim.

But Harper, 43, was the owner of Glasgow-based Go-Centric, which shut before Christmas 2022, leaving staff high and dry.

Go-Centric was handed £10million by the Scottish Government for its Test and Protect contract during the pandemic and £1.4million from the UK Government to run its Warm Homes Discount scheme.

Ex-employee Raymond Young said: “He seems to have landed on his feet once again… It is disgraceful.”

Go-Centric staff have started getting Redundancy Service payouts of around £2000 each.

Paul Kissen of Thompsons solicitors, who represented about 140 of them, said: “We’ve managed to win approximately £350,000. What they’ve all won is a protective award, which is something people can get when a company makes a large number of people redundant and it doesn’t carry out a proper consultation process before doing so.”

Harper was contacted for comment.

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