G4S set for welfare reform role G4S, the company at the centre of the Olympics security fiasco, is set to win a role in implementing the government's contentious and complex changes to child benefit and the universal credit. The FTSE100 company is among six companies selected to run call centres that will deal with queries on the most far reaching change to welfare benefits for the low-paid and unemployed in decades. The contracts - to be announced in February - are worth a total £150m over four years. G4S, Serco, Capita, Balfour Beatty and two other companies were selected from a total of 30 applicants by the Department for Work and Pensions. The inclusion of G4S suggests that the government has ignored MPs" calls for the company to be blacklisted from public sector work, after it failed to provide 10,400 security guards for the London Olympics. The company has agreed to reimburse the military after the army was called in to make up the shortfall, but remains locked in negotiations with the London Olympic Organising Committee over how much it will be paid for the botched security contract. Sean Williams, managing director of G4S employment support services, said the call-centre decision showed "we can still win business ... We've done a massive amount of work for the government over the past few years and we hope the government recognizes that. Universal credit, under which six benefits will be incorporated into a single payment, is due to be rolled out over the next five years. Pilot projects will start in the spring in advance of a national rollout next autumn. Call centres will be established to help employers and claimants deal with the changes. They will also deal with landmark changes to child benefit, expected early next year, as well as child maintenance payments. Ian Mulhern, director of the Social Market Foundation, said: "The universal credit was supposed to made simple by the amount of online contact but the complexity of claimants" lives and businesses circumstances are likely to make phone contact with the DWP integral to the running of the system." G4S, which also runs prison and asylum services for the UK government, was one of the more successful providers of the welfare to work programme. It ranked fifth out of 18 suppliers in finding employment for jobseekers during the first year of the scheme's operation, according to recently published government figures. The company lost two directors in the wake of the Olympics fiasco as an expected £10m profit on the £284m trophy contract turned into a £50m loss. But Nick Buckles, chief executive, has retained the investors" support and remains at the helm of the gobal security group, which operates in 125 countries worldwide.