Criminal Damage

Criminal Damage?

Our local non-emergency ambulances proudly display their allegiances as they drive by.  The G4S logo trumps the NHS in the statement emblazoned on the sides ‘G4S working in partnership with the NHS’.  This partnership has resulted in the death of a double amputee when his unsecured wheelchair tipped over backwards as he was being transported to hospital in an ambulance operated by G4S.

The employees had not been properly trained.   Private firms have a history of saving on training and G4S certainly has form in this department.  Their ‘just in time’ procedures left many Olympic guards waiting to be trained two weeks before the Olympics.

So when I see the logo on the local ambulances I feel aggrieved.  I pay taxes for a National Health Service, accountable and transparent, not for a service run by what I believe is a serial violator of human rights and international law which stints on training, the better to profit from a public service.

Worth posting a few stickers on the ambulance when the chance occurs.

 First time I visited the local hospital and spied the waiting ambulances it was fine.  The second time I was seen by the driver who proudly sports the G4S logo on his chest.  In true Ragged Trousered Philanthropist tradition, he shouted after me and shook his fist. My husband responded with a friendly wave and smile.  While my husband was waiting in the outpatients for me to complete my treatment, a furious driver and manager came in to berate him.  He was not intimidated and  very loudly, so that all in the outpatients could hear, he gave them a short expose of the company they were defending, including the fact that it had been responsible for the death of a patient through lack of staff training. The manager stated that they were not interested and if we were caught again we would be reported to the police for criminal damage.

So now we know.  The company is uninterested in its shortcomings and only worried that it will be publicly challenged.  The question arises as to who is guilty of criminality?

G4S: Voted 3rd Worst Company in the World

G4S Demonstration 2012 (source: demotix.com)

We apologise if you've been bombarded with messages about the Public Eye Awards, but you'll be glad to know that G4S have been voted the third worst company in the world! Even though we would have loved to see G4S topping the list, were pretty happy with G4S being given the bronze award considering the stiff competition from Goldman Sachs and Shell. 

If you voted for G4S, you'll be pretty well-versed in the reasons for naming and shaming this toxic company. From securing the apartheid wall in Palestine to exploiting the UK "asylum market", G4S are playing a pivotal role in the securitisation and criminalisation of communities across the globe. Unsurprisingly, G4S were not too keen to hear of their nomination, and the company sent a 150 word letter to the Business and Human Rights Resource centre contesting the grounds of their nomination. Here's an excerpt from their defence: 

The basis on which G4S has been nominated is inaccurate and very
misleading. Much of the information published as criteria for the
nomination is completely false, for example: it is not true that G4S staff
are “often badly trained and paid” or that “many have a criminal
record”. G4S staff do not “man checkpoints” or “manage prison
security” in Israel. Where the company does operate in complex
environments such as Iraq or Afghanistan, it often does so in support of
humanitarian programmes or on behalf of western governments helping
to resolve conflict or to provide a long term stable regime for the people
of the country.  

There's no need to repeat the brilliant responses articulated by John Grayson and Adri Nieuwhof in their recent Open Democracy piece, but put simply, G4S' pithy 150 word complaint is hardly demonstrative of a company that values their public image. Whilst their bronze prize from the Public Eye Awards is a brilliant step towards exposing the activities of this multi-national company, it is not going to be enough to change current practice. Campaigners and activists across the globe will continue to highlight G4S' complicity in human rights abuses; we said no to G4S, and we still mean it.

Reason Two: Company Anthem? Really?

As it's Sunday, here's a relatively light-hearted reason for you to vote for G4S as the worst corporation of 2012 . They've got a company anthem. They even had a video for this company anthem (although it was taken off YouTube promptly after the New Statesman ran a story on the song). And they are even rumoured to have a company flag. If you don't believe me, have a listen yourself:



If you found yourself wanting to sing along, here are the terrifying lyrics:

Making a difference is what you do

But consider all you have at stake
The time is now don't make a mistake
Because the enemy prowls, wanting to attack
But we're on the wall, we've got your back
So get out front and take the lead
And be the winner you were born to be
G4S! protecting the world
G4S! so dreams can unfurl
24/7 every night and day
A warrior stands ready so don't be afraid
G4S! secure in your world
G4S! let your dreams unfurl
We're guarding you with all our might
Keeping watch throughout the night

CAST YOUR VOTE HERE...

Reason One: Cockroaches & rotten floorboards: Housing G4S style

As promised, throughout the month of January, we'll be recounting the reasons for you to vote for G4S as the worst company of 2012, and we'll probably be finding more.

Today, we're looking at their multi-million COMPASS contracts with the UK government. 

The COMPASS contracts saw the provision of housing for asylum seekers in the UK completely privatised. The country was split into six multi-regional contract zones, and the provision of services was put up to tender. In March 2012, Serco, G4S and Clearel were revealed as new service providers, with G4S managing provision in Yorkshire, Humberside and the North-East and the Midlands.

Since taking over the management of asylum housing from local authorities, G4S and their chosen property providers have continued to provide sub-standard, unsafe housing for people seeking protection in the UK. For a small indicator of the level of service provided by this multi-million pound company, read John Grayson's account of a young mother's experience of G4S housing. 

Vote G4S: Worst Company of 2012

It's 2013, and we're all looking ahead at the new year. But it's not quite time to forget about what happened in 2012. The Public Eye Awards, run by Greenpeace Switzerland and the Berne Declaration, has opened the online voting for 2012's worst company. Hardly to our surprise, G4S is one of them.

The whole procedure is aimed to help campaigners hold the most culpable companies, those at the heart of human rights and environmental abuses across the globe, to account. If you still need a reminder of why G4S deserve this honourable title of the worst company of the year, this video clip will hopefully trigger some memories:

 Far from just providing abominable asylum housing in Yorkshire and Humberside, securing Israeli apartheid and even targeting 'high-risk areas' of conflict and war as emerging markets, the tentacles of G4S' subsidiary companies are steadily creeping around the globe. Your vote can help bring this murky outsourcing giant into the critical spotlight it deserves.

Over the next few weeks, we'll be providing you with a new reason every day to name and shame G4S as the worst company as 2012. It's time to hold this corporate giant to account. 

CAST YOUR VOTE HERE.... 

As they say every new year, out with the old ... 

National No to G4S Convergence // OCTOBER 6th

Activists from various anti-G4S campaigns are coming together for a UK-wide gathering in Sheffield on Saturday 6^th October. Individuals and campaign groups are invited to attend to share, network, strategise and plan how to build an even more effective Stop G4S campaign. The gathering is open to all who oppose G4S and want to work with others to Stop G4S from taking over public services for private profit while violating human rights.

Despite its track record of complicity in human rights abuses in the UK and abroad, G4S is being handed control of public services - everything from policing to “asylum markets” to the welfare system. Even after the Olympics débâcle, G4S looks set to take over even more control of our communities.

Campaigns have begun to highlight the appalling record of G4S and to work to prevent it from putting profit before human rights and dignity. From local campaigns to pressure G4S as it cuts corners, to demonstrations targeting the company’s AGM and headquarters, we’re beginning to damage the G4S brand.

The gathering will launch the UK 'StopG4S' campaign coalition, bringing together grassroots campaigns, networks and organisations with the aim of providing support, resources, guidance and skill-sharing. This coalition will be inclusive and non-hierarchical.

Please respond to: stop-g4s@riseup.net to reserve a place, find out more or to request a speaker to attend a meeting to discuss campaign plans. If you or your organisation (if you have one) wish to endorse this call please let us know. Facebook event

Reasonable travel costs may be paid to those unable to fund themselves. Overnight accommodation will be provided by local activists.

The many reasons to Stop G4S:

G4S and Public Contracts:

• G4S has recently been awarded £210million of public money to provide housing services to asylum seekers in Yorkshire, Humberside, Midlands and the North East .
• With profit its only motive in what it calls “asylum markets”, it’s expected that over 1000 asylum seekers will be uprooted from their communities to live in slum housing.
• G4S profits from the privatisation of policing, courts & prisons
• Workfare: G4S profits from forcing the unemployed to do unpaid work or risk having benefits cut.
• G4S won the contract to provide security for the Olympics and failed to deliver on time but still insists on receiving payment.

Human Rights Abuses:

• Jimmy Mubenga, an Angolan asylum seeker died, following restraint by G4S employees. The DPP recently ruled that no prosecution was necessary.
• In 2011 G4S Australia admitted liability and was fined for the death of Warburton Elder Mr Ward.
• It profits from imprisoning refugees while it abuses families and children in their 'care'.

G4S and Israel’s occupation of Palestine:

• G4S provides equipment and services to Israeli prisons in which Palestinian prisoners, including child prisoners, are illegally held and tortured.
• G4S supplies equipment and services to Israel’s illegal settlements and Wall.
• Palestinian civil society has called for action to hold G4S to account for its role in profiting from the detention of Palestinian political prisoners, 1,600 of whom recently held a mass hunger strike.

Selection of actions taken so far:

• Local campaigns in cities and campuses across the UK
• G4S headquarters rooftop occupation.
• Demonstrations in Birmingham, Sheffield, London and beyond
• Successfully pressuring companies to drop their ties with G4S
• Publishing detailed analysis online (see http://bit.ly/R9JbkB, http://bit.ly/PRhYMi, http://bit.ly/Kz0Uhn)

Endorsed by:

Boycott Israel Network

No Borders UK

Newcastle Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Stop Deportations

SYMAAG (South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group)

(Belated) G4S News Update // 22nd August - 29th August

G4S run Wolds Prison has clear weaknesses, inspectors find, BBC News, 22nd August 2012: An East Yorkshire jail, run by G4S, has improved inmate safety but still has been unable to tackle high levels of illegal drug trade and poor behaviour.

UK Police forces to consider G4S despite Olympic failure, Reuters, 23rd August 2012: Despite failing to provide sufficient security staff at the Olympic Games, G4S remain a key player in the outsourcing of police services. the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire forces' joint working group has decided to continue co-operation with the multinational security company. (Also covered by the Independent on the 24th August). 

G4S advertising for civilian investigators to work on cases for Warwickshire Police, Coventry Telegraph, 24th August 2012: G4S has started to act as a recruitment agency for the Warwickshire Police force, advertising for civilian investigators to assist detectives by taking statements and retrieving CCTV footage. 

Homes for asylum-seekers present new crisis for G4S, The Independent, 25th August 2012: G4S' subcontractors have until the 2nd November to find new homes for 1,200 asylum seekers now being housed in Yorkshire and Humberside. Transition moves were meant to take place from June onwards, but most people still haven't moved yet. 

G4S leaves refugees in limbo, Inside Housing, 28th August 2012: Inside Housing covers the fact that hundreds of asylum seekers face uncertain futures because a private company (G4S) is struggling to find suitable housing. 

G4S confirm £50m hit on Olympics security contract, The Guardian, 29th August 2012: G4S reported pre-tax profits of £61m for the first half, down from £151m in the first six months of 2011, with the drop in profits accounted for by the Olympic security fiasco. Further coverage found in pretty much all newspapers, with Nick Buckles claiming that he needs to restore investor and shareholder faith in the company. 

Another shambles as G4S is entrusted with running asylum seeker housing

(See the original article here, at Open Democracy/Our Kingdom )

While the world’s biggest security firm has suffered international humiliation over its mishandling of the London Olympics, another more modest piece of business has been unravelling in its hands. 

Back in June, when G4S was looking forward to making a big impression as lead security contractor to the London Olympics, the company signed off a less glamorous but more profitable piece of business – managing housing for thousands of asylum seekers in the north of England. The seven-year £211m contract with the UK Border Agency’s commercial arm COMPASS was especially welcome to G4S, which had lost a deportation escort contract with the UK Border Agency, after the death of Jimmy Mubenga in October 2010.

But the contract has not been plain sailing for the security giant, who have been harried by campaigners across Yorkshire working with asylum rights groups, outraged that a prison guard and immigration detention centre company can privatise the housing of around 1000 asylum seekers presently housed and supported by local councils.

Two groups — South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group (SYMAAG) and Why Refugee Women? — in May and June criticised  the chosen partner of G4S, private housing company UPM (United Property Management), for forcibly moving a mother and sick baby a hundred miles from Bradford to Doncaster. The UPM flat in Doncaster was condemned by the UKBA itself, but the mother and baby had to endure six weeks there before being rescued by the local children’s services department in Doncaster. UPM was dropped from the G4S contract.

On June 18 a rather rattled G4S announced through the UKBA that it was finally able to take on the asylum housing contract and would have four totally new housing companies as its partners: Cascade, Live Management, Mantel, and a charitable housing association, Target HA, based in Sheffield. Cascade did have some form in asylum housing, but apparently only briefly subcontracting for UPM and Kirklees council. Live Management, registered as a private company only since January 2012, had no form at all. Mantel, part of a commercial property company, was to play no part in the first stages of the contract. Only Target HA emerged as a housing provider with a history of local authority contracts for housing vulnerable people – in its case ex-offenders.

Target Housing as a fig leaf for G4S

For more than fifty years Yorkshire councils had provided housing for refugees. Now that was being handed over to the world’s biggest surveillance and detention company, with a well regarded local charity acting as front man and figleaf. Just as children’s charity Barnado’s rents its reputation to G4S and the Border Agency at the Cedars family detention centre, providing cover for the continued detention of children, Target Housing was to give a credible face to G4S, as it moved from its profitable asylum markets into the expanding markets for private capital in social housing.

It was a good choice; the CEO of Target was a Chilean refugee, Gino Toro, with personal experience of working for refugee housing associations. In early summer 2011 G4S had organised a competitive bidding process for voluntary sector housing providers. Target, like most voluntary organisations, and many specialist housing associations, had been badly hit by cuts in public expenditure, and a resulting drying up of contracts. In 2011 they had a bad year, they told the Charity Commission:

‘Given the economic climate and funding cuts one of our objectives was to avoid any compulsary (sic) staff redundancies’ (1)

Gino Toro says he won a sub contract from G4S in 2011 to house around 250 asylum seekers, in family groups in Sheffield, Hull and Derby. Target, according to Moro, underbid its rivals to win the contract estimated at £2.5 million. Their present total annual turnover is about £2 million, so the contract was important for Target’s survival.

So Target are now players in a game where privatisation means cutting staff costs and reducing service to ensure profits for lead organisation G4S. Target’s unqualified ‘Team Leader’ for their new asylum contract, will be paid the equivalent of £8 per hour gross, roughly what G4S casual employees recruited as guards for the Olympics were paid. Slimmed down staffing will mean vulnerable asylum seeker families will not get the support the councils have offered them.

The G4S assumption that buying a ‘social housing’ provider would scale down opposition in Sheffield totally backfired. Gino Moro was well known in the Chilean refugee community in Sheffield – a community still based on memories of the politics of the Allende years in Chile, and still active in asylum rights campaigning. The Chilean community website invited comments on the Target contract and started a campaign, with SYMAAG, to get Target to withdraw from the G4S contract here.

G4S sanitises its reputation and wins over the charities

The Target experience demonstrates the way in which G4S can be sanitised, losing its reputation in the ‘tainted trade’ of private security, and accepted as a credible ‘partner’ in providing housing for vulnerable tenants like asylum seekers, and perhaps become a major player in the social housing market (2). 

Gino Toro defended working with G4S because he said other well known associations with refugee housing experience ‘like Metropolitan’ (Housing Partnership) were also involved in releasing refugee housing for the G4S contract. Metropolitan, with 80,000 tenants and clients, is the largest UK regeneration and ‘social business’ housing association. Its origins lie in the Metropolitan Coloured Peoples Housing Association of 1957 which housed Jamaican and West Indian immigrants. Metropolitan has in recent years taken over Safe Haven, previously involved in asylum housing in Yorkshire, and the Refugee Housing Association, and still runs the Sheffield Station Foyer for refugees that was founded in 2005. The chair of Metropolitan is Barbara Roche a former Labour immigration minister.

In their efforts to extend their ‘asylum markets’ and ‘detention estates’ into asylum housing, all the private security companies involved in the £620 million contracts — G4S, Serco and Reliance — set out to encourage voluntary organisations, and charitable housing associations with experience in refugee and asylum housing and services, into partnerships as subcontractors. None of the security companies favoured by the Home Office had any previous experience in the field of housing – they needed to absorb and build in this experience, and credibility, to the contract bids. Reliance, the smallest of the security companies, privately owned by Brian Kingham, a Tory party donor since 2001, simply formed a joint venture, Clearel Ltd, with private company Clearsprings who had held asylum housing contracts with the Home Office since 2000. Clearel have the contract for London, the South West and Wales (3).

G4S set about its lobbying and PR project by recruiting Rebecca Woodhouseas Senior Bid Manager for G4S Security Services in February 2011. Between 2006 and 2010 Woodhouse had been Business Initiatives Officer for the Metropolitan Support Trust. Previously she had been a support manager for the Refugee Housing Association (Metropolitan Housing Trust) from 2004 to 2006.

In Yorkshire and the North East, G4S brought in housing consultant, Andrew Gray, a former president of the Chartered Institute of Housing, to set up its asylum housing sub contractors. Gray was well known in the field of social housing, and added housing expertise, and mainstream respectability, to the G4S contract bid. As the £120 million contract unfolded, G4S then recruited Duncan Wells as its Social Cohesion manager. Wells was the chief executive of RETAS, a Leeds based refugee organisation with an established reputation and strong links into the voluntary and charitable asylum support networks. Tiffy Allen, the national convenor of the extensive City of Sanctuary (CoS) movement, is a former colleague of Wells at RETAS, and, according to campaigners, is currently trying to get City of Sanctuary groups to support Wells to set up G4S consultation forums for asylum support groups.

It is perhaps worth noting that Sheffield City of Sanctuary, which started the national City of Sanctuary movement in 2007, was the organisation which actually instigated the campaign in January 2012 against G4S taking over asylum housing in South Yorkshire, by calling on SYMAAG (South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group) to lead a coalition of charities into a campaign and a protest demonstration.

This careful public relations and recruitment strategy by G4S, and its tireless efforts to network and appear as a mainstream private corporation simply pursuing contracts for outsourcing asylum housing and services, gradually neutralised any active opposition. A Report sponsored by the Joseph Rowntree Trust and Metropolitan, in conjunction with the Chartered Institute of Housing entitled ‘Housing and Migration: UK Guide to issues and solutions’, published in 2012, in the middle of the contract furore on G4S, is totally uncritical of SERCO, G4S and Reliance. The Report, written by John Perry, simply states:

“In 2012 a new challenge is to forge partnerships between the private companies that will provide asylum accommodation, local services, and migrant support organisations . . . it is going to be vital to encourage the companies to take a strategic view, recognise the ‘civic’ role they need to fulfil and contribute to successful integration.’ (p.14)

The Yorkshire G4S contract unravels

The campaign success in removing UPM from the G4S contract brought chaos and indecision to G4S and the UKBA in Yorkshire – not unlike the ‘shambles’ of the G4S Olympics contract. UKBA announced that G4S had removed Gray from contract supervision; as they euphemistically put it he was given a ‘different role’.

Despite all their undertakings to keep asylum seekers and families in the same areas where councils have housed them, G4S and the UKBA are now simply tearing up agreements. On June 13 an official UKBA statement was issued saying

“There is no intention during transition to re-house individuals currently residing in Yorkshire & Humberside to the North East.”

On 24 June a family was forcibly moved from Sheffield to Stockton, a hundred miles away, and other single asylum seekers have been moved, or threatened with moves, to Stockton or Middlesborough. Barnsley asylum seeker families have been threatened with moves 120 miles away to Newcastle.

G4S desperation and ‘reverse privatisation’

G4S is becoming so desperate that it is, remarkably, trying a form of ‘reverse privatisation’ by paying local authorities, and housing associations, like InCommunities in Bradford, to allow them to take over and manage asylum accommodation with sitting asylum seeker tenants from previous local council contracts. This is because G4S and their private contractors cannot find any local private rented sector accommodation to put the families in, when they have to leave local authority housing. Campaigners in Kirklees (Huddersfield) say the council there has turned down at least two offers from G4S.

Target Housing, the only social housing provider willing, so far, to openly partner G4S in Yorkshire, is now reeling from exposure in the national housing press, and the local media in South Yorkshire. Demand for them to withdraw from the contract is gathering momentum. The trustees are now being lobbied, leaflets are being prepared and actions scheduled.

With the G4S shambles in the Olympics being reflected in chaos in the asylum housing contracts, the G4S hold on the Yorkshire and North East contract is uncertain. Campaigners are calling for a rapid return to contracts held directly with the local councils throughout Yorkshire, with no G4S involvement; contracts grounded in public service values, welcoming asylum seekers, instead of the profit-oriented values of an international security company exploiting its ‘asylum markets’ with the tacit support of the social and refugee housing establishment.

Radio 4 documentary on G4S' Olympic disaster

Thanks to the flurry of reportage on G4S' failures to provide security for the London Olympic Games, many are starting to seriously question how and why the government were so keen to get into bed with G4S. Mukul Devichand, a reporter and broadcaster at BBC Radio 4, presented a 30-minute long programme investigating G4S' failures at the London Olympic Games - it's worth a good listen.

G4S News Update // 31st July - 1st August

G4S booted out of Old Trafford after failing to provide sufficient security, Manchester Evening News, 31st July: After a further string of problems, G4S are no longer providing security for Olympic football matches at Old Trafford this summer. Exacerbated by rumours that G4S' subcontractors walked out on the contract due to non-payment from the company, a smaller security company have taken over the responsibilities at the legendary football ground. 

G4S ban high level executives from corporate events during the Olympics, The Argus, 1st August: With the global shit-storm gathering around G4S Olympic fiasco, G4S management has barred top bosses and senior executives from attending corporate hospitality events in order to avoid further embarrassment. Nick Buckles, despite reaping the benefits of G4S' status as an official sponsor of the Olympic Games in order to bulk-buy tickets to Olympic events, will no longer be attending.

G4S contracted to provide security at Tory Party conference in October, The Sun, 1st August: The Tory Party's next conference, held in Birmingham in October, will be guarded by G4S providing the "same service as they do every year." Both Labour and the Tories will use G4S for their conference security in 2012. 

G4S: The Millwall of the Olympics, The Guardian, 1st August: Another dispatch from the Guardian's 'Secret Security Guard.'

Target Housing criticised after co-opting with G4S, 24-dash, 2nd August: Target Housing Association, a charitable housing provider in Sheffield has been criticised after taking up a "£2.5 million' asylum housing contract with G4S. Featuring statements from SYMAAG!

50% of Olympic Security made up by military personnel, The Independent, 2nd August: Despite the fact that the total number of G4S staff is quadruple that of the army, half of Olympic security is now being managed by military personnel. 

[Daily Mail ridiculous headline WARNING] 82 Year-old nun arrested after breaking in to high level US nuclear facility guarded by G4S, The Daily Mail, 3rd August: The 82-year-old nun joined two other environmental activists and managed to dodge the 'high level security' provided by G4S to engage in some direct action against a huge nuclear facility in the US.

G4S take over Wakefield's Angel Lodge, Wakefield Express, 4th August: As we all eventually learnt to expect, G4S have finally managed to get their hands on the notorious Angel Lodge in Wakefield. 

G4S News Update // 23rd - 29th July 2012

Here's a summary of the big G4S stories from the last week:

The Secret Security Guard, The Guardian, 23rd July 2012: A G4S employee at the Olympic park has gone rogue and is now blogging for The Guardian. Seems like he/she doesn't have much else to do, anyway.

Security staff lose keys to Wembley stadium, New Zealand Herald, 30th July 2012: Proving their penchant for creating stories with fantastic headlines, G4S are now involved in a confusion over the keys to the national stadium.

G4S plan boardroom shake-up, Sky News, 27th July 2012: Surely expectant of further headwinds and post-Olympic scrutiny, G4S are sounding out "heavyweight" directors.

Ed Miliband's G4S nightmare over party conference security, New Statesman, 25th July 2012: Slightly embarrassing little nugget

G4S guard at St Anne's church during metal theft, BBC, 25th July 2012: Just a small story, but extremely significant. Shows how just the simple involvement of the company in any story has become headlineworthy. The disproportionate amount of interest almost makes one feel sorry for them...... Almost. 

G4S: Olympic Chaos, Asylum Housing Chaos: A SYMAAG Statement

Private security army G4S have been in the news a lot recently. And not just because they are being paid £135 million of public money to house asylum seekers in Yorkshire, despite their record of abuse and racism towards them (for example, see here or here or here or here).

Most spectacularly, the world’s biggest security army have, of course, failed to provide security at the Olympic games (this time they were paid £284 million of public money). In response, G4S are now trying to recruit a new public relations manager.

An emergency bulletin from SYMAAG notog4s

As most of you will know we in the notog4s campaign have tended to assume that the UKBA /G4S undertakings and official statements have meant that evictions and movements of single people and families would, for the majority, mean movements, at worst, within the broad region of Yorkshire and the Humber.

The latest official UKBA Transition bulletin makes it abundantly clear that the claims we made early on in the campaign that in South and West Yorkshire in particular there simply was not a market in ‘decent’ PRS (Public Rented Sector) housing for G4S to exploit was absolutely correct.

Target Housing off target

One family of two adults and a one year old were moved on Tuesday 24^th July 100 miles from Sheffield to Stockton onTees. The UKBA Transition Bulletin openly threatens more families with such a move.

This case is even more significant because it was from an existing private landlord property, although the new G4S contractor in Sheffield, Target Housing claim to have accommodation available for families – so why have the family been sent 100 miles away from contacts and support?

In Barnsley asylum seeker families have been warned by the outgoing asylum team of moves possibly to Hull and Newcastle. One family interviewed this week ,of grandparents, parents and school age children,  were given this warning and told they would probably have to move their household possessions in two bags each.

Live Management, the G4S contractor in Barnsley is, we understand, considering acquiring unsuitable properties which they propose to use on a ‘temporary’ basis until they can find contract compliant ones.

The Return of Angel Lodge

The dreaded Angel Lodge inWakefield, purchased from Angel Housing, has emerged as the new Yorkshire IA centre from September. SYMAAG executive members have horrific memories of actually staying in this dreadful accommodation, oppositeWakefieldhigh security prison. We are campaigning against this decision.

This chaos in UKBA and G4S also indicates that our campaigning (removing UPM and now mobilising against Target) has deepened the crisis for the UKBA and G4S. The ‘soft’ approach of Andrew Gray has now been replaced by the asylum market business approach of Jules Bickers, already deeply unpopular with voluntary sector asylum organisations in the regions he has worked in.

This is yet another indication that we were right to claim that g4s had no experience of asylum housing and that their failures under the contract would constantly punish asylum seeker single people and families who are simply housed awaiting the outcome of asylum claims.

Moreover our fears about the contract fundamentally challenging the basic human rights of families, children and vulnerable asylum seekers seem also to be proving unfortunately to be correct

We have to challenge the UKBA now to cancel the contract with UKBA and extend the target contracts with local authorities and transfer housing associations inYorkshire.

Chaos on the Olympics contract now chaos on the asylum housing contract

G4s are demonstrating exactly the same failings exposed in the Olympics contracts, as one MP put it: ‘their aspirations run far ahead of their abilities’

Their chaotic and incompetent management structures are even more exposed in the asylum housing field – after all in the Olympics contract they were in their key business of events security.

Their incompetence in a field they know nothing about -  housing – is much more serious – here they are embarking on a contract which they know will threaten the rights and well being of up to a thousand vulnerable asylum seekers in Yorkshire, whom we should be welcoming to our region, not punishing and threatening them, using tax payers money – our money.