(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. 

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.

The Disassociation Game: UPM sacked by G4S?

(originally published on SYMAAG's website) 

United Property Management (UPM) will no longer be sub-contracted by G4S to provide asylum housing in Yorkshire and Humberside. On June 18th the phrase “G4S has selected United Property Management (UPM) as its primary housing partner” disappeared from the G4S COMPASS website. Simultaneously, UPM’s website stopped referring to G4S as “partners”.

UPM has provided sub-standard housing to asylum seekers in our region for years, while UKBA sub-contracted to them, despite frequent complaints from asylum seeking tenants and asylum rights campaigners. Their recent evictions of tenants in Bradford were the focus of a campaign led by Why Refugee Women and SYMAAG. In one case, a woman and her 3 month old baby were moved 40 miles, from Bradford to Doncaster, to a bare flat with no cooker, chairs and only a tiny sink next to the toilet for all their washing needs.

In what could be a remarkable coincidence UKBA announced on the same day (in a letter entitled Corporate Partners – Transition Announcement Letter (2) that “the Transition phase of the COMPASS project has now begun in the North East Yorkshire and the Humber region”. That is, UKBA no longer have to sub-contract to a company who are regarded as unacceptable, even by the standards of G4S!

The next few weeks will see G4S in a frantic search for other sub-contractors paid for by £135 million of public money in Yorkshire and Humberside. We will be subjecting them to the same scrutiny as we put UPM under. No doubt there are also issues of legality relating to the COMPASS contract which was signed with UPM as the named primary sub-contractor (not their replacement organisations).

Whichever sub-contractors G4S select we maintain our view that G4S are prison guards not landlords. Their record is one of abuse towards asylum seekers in this country and elsewhere. We should not be paying them public money to operate this contract.

Mobilising Outrage

In another excellent article from John Grayson on Open Democracy, the processes of our no to G4S campaign are put in context:

How does a company with G4S’s reputation clean up on so many public privatising contracts now worth well over £1 billion a year in the UK alone? 

Firstly, it simply coopts, employs or buys former senior politicians, civil servants and diplomats to ‘advise’ and lobby for its contracts. The best known is former Home Secretary John (now Lord) Reid, a G4S board member. In recent months G4S has appointed to the new post of Director of Probation and Community Services David Griffiths, recently Deputy Director (justice policy) at the Ministry of Justice. 

In January Richard Northern joined G4S Risk Management as an adviser. He is “the former British Ambassador to Libya during the period leading up to and throughout the 2011 uprising”. According to G4S, he will be “pivotal in identifying, introducing and developing relationships with prospective clients and key Libyan decision-makers”.

(First published in Open Democracy on the 12th April, 2012)

Guardian covers asylum housing "super contracts"

Thanks to James Legge, national media have finally covered the shocking accommodation 'super-contracts' awarded to our favourites: G4S, Serco and Clearel (Reliance Ltd and Clearsprings Ltd).

Have a look at his brilliant Guardian article here.

First they came for the asylum seeker...

Again, we have to thank Jon Grayson for another brilliant article on the Institute for Race Relations' website. Published just before G4S won the government contracts for the provision of asylum seekers' social housing in Yorkshire and Humberside, Grayson puts the "asylum market" (G4S' words, not mine) in the important context of wider privatisation in the UK. 

Below is a short extract from Grayson's article:

"The UK is amongst the most intensively covered by private security with one private guard to every 170 people compared with one police employee to every 382 citizens -figures comparable to Hungary and Serbia. Germany on the other hand has much lighter private security with one private guard for every 484 citizens and one police employee for every 326 citizens. The private security business in the UK is worth £3.97 billion annually. Across Europe this is a very powerful lobby for privatising and marketising state functions. Just three companies have 46 per cent of the market in the UK. Just three companies have 56 per cent of the market across the EU. Published data from the EU does not directly name them but itwould be strange indeed if G4S and SERCO were not amongst them."

Please take a moment to read the whole article here.

According to Grayson, policies that affect asylum seekers have continually been used as trial-runs for wider policy-making. The government's obsession with making 'guinea pigs' out of asylum seekers is testament to the extent to which they have been dehumanised, demonised and deconstructed in the media. It seems like they've created a perfect scapegoat; with real lives and experiences obscured an obscene caricature, the asylum seeker is forced to be both invisible and grossly overexposed. When an individual is so heavily obstructed by layers of institutionalised prejudice and preconceptions, it is little wonder that much of the inflammatory press and political coverage goes unquestioned and almost unnoticed.

Dehumanising, not dignified: SERCO's training manuals for detention centre guards

Today, Australian investigative journalists released Serco's 400-page induction training documents for their employees working in Australia's detention centres. Dated in 2009/10, this training manual takes on a strictly prison style technique in its explicit instructions on how to control detainees.

SERCO, the multinational security company contracted to run Australia's detention centres, have a $1 billion contract with the Gillard Government, running 9 different asylum outputs. They also already run two detention centres in the UK, Yarl's Wood and Colnbrook. And to no surprise, they are the preferred bidders - alongside G4S and Reliance Security - for the new asylum housing contracts across the UK. The North West and Northern Ireland can look forward to SERCO providing accommodation for asylum seekers in the imminent further.

The release of SERCO's 2009/10 training manual, allegedly after refusing to release similar documents on multiple occasions, reinforces existing concerns about the capacity for private security companies to provide dignified and respectful services for asylum seekers in detention, deportation or temporary accommodation. Much of the document focuses on key "control and restraint" techniques, recommending using a tactic of "pain" to defend, subdue and control asylum seekers. In a frighteningly dehumanising sentence, employees are advised to "subdue the subject using reasonable force so that he/she is no longer in the assailant category [...] If justified, necessary force is to be used to bring the subject to cooperative subject status whereupon they respond favourably to verbalisation."

Continuing to describe countless different 'defence' techniques, their "control and restraint" tactics sound more like excessive force. Employees are taught to use pressure points, batons and physical restraint to cause "high level of pain and mental stunning" in order to coerce the detainee into submission. Void of any compassionate or reconciliatory language, SERCO's training manual hardly brings "service to life."

Aside from dubious restraint techniques, SERCO's training guide reinforces many other unsavoury tactics. Elsewhere in the document, SERCO describe their use of a "Detention Discipline" interview as something that "appears to be very similar to the one that many parents adopt in responding to the actions of a son or a daughter who appears to have behaved unacceptably." According to SERCO, asylum seekers are to be reprimanded like unruly children. SERCO released a statement this afternoon, declaring that "We are committed to treating the people in our care with dignity and respect, and to keeping all those we are responsible for from coming to any sort of harm." Can they honestly claim that treating asylum seekers as children and submitting them to high levels of pain as a coercion technique provides dignity, respect and care for detainees in their centres?

Furthermore, SERCO advise that the use of force should only be undertaken by male guards. Whilst male employees are told to be "tough, strong, in the lead, in control and not back down and give as good as you get, show no weakness, win if you can, never mind the cost", female guards are told to be "gentle, follow, be compassionate, put others before herself, to share, not to argue and not to get angry." This level of gender stereotyping and categorisation is frightening.

Chris Bowen, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship in Australia, released a statement this afternoon, claiming that this SERCO manual is outdated and no longer in use. Reiterating comments made by SERCO's spokesperson, Chris Bowen trundled out the familiar phrases of "defensive actions", "last resort" and "dignity and respect." Regardless of whether the training manual has been superseded by a new edition, these guidelines were in place in 2010, only two years ago. Even last year, a freedom of information request revealed that the government's official contract with SERCO allowed for guards to be hired with no experience, or only with nightclub bouncer training. This training document is hardly a single blip in SERCO's record.

This is another failure of government "outsourcing." It is time to tackle the government-endorsed "asylum market" and remind the authorities of the human lives they are putting at risk in favour of "cost-effective solutions." Private companies, focusing on profit rather than people, are hardly the perfect candidates to provide care, dignity and safety for those seeking sanctuary across the globe.