G4S – the outsourcer that is never far from controversy
The Birmingham furore is not the first time the firm has faced tough questions, reports Jack Torrance
The damning report that led the Government to take back control of HMP Birmingham from its private operator G4S yesterday depicts a grim facility beset by drugs, squalor and violence.
“Communal areas in most wings were filthy,” Peter Clarke, chief prison inspector, writes in the letter, addressed to David Gauke, the Justice Secretary. “I saw a shower area where there was bloodstained clothing and a pool of blood that had apparently been there for two days, next to numerous rat droppings.”
G4S’S lack of control meant “those perpetrating violence could do so with near impunity”, he adds, leaving many inmates to spend all their time in their cells where they merely had to put up with “other prisoners squirting urine or throwing faeces through their broken observation panels”.
Clarke said his tour of the prison was the first time he had ever had to leave a wing after becoming physically intoxicated by the haze of drugs in the air. Little wonder when one third of those housed in the 170-year-old facility were found to have used some form of illicit substance. G4S wasn’t the only party at fault, Clarke acknowledged, accusing government officials in charge of monitoring the prison of “inertia” in failing to intervene sooner.
But for critics of the giant security outsourcer, which has worldwide operations ranging from handling companies’ cash to monitoring offenders’ electronic tags, it is just the latest instance in a long-running pattern. This isn’t the first time HMP Birmingham has caused a stir. Two years ago 500 prisoners ran riot across four wings of the prison for 14 hours after one got his hands on a set of keys.
Staff at another jail, a youth offender institution at Medway in Kent, went on trial earlier this year accused of misconduct including violence and threatening inmates, though they were later cleared.
But it was G4S’S handling of security at London 2012 that will have stuck in many people’s memories. It had been contracted to provide around 10,000 staff to keep order and help shepherd the millions of visitors and thousands
‘I saw a shower area where there was bloodstained clothing and a pool of blood, next to rat droppings’
of athletes around the Olympic Park in Stratford and other venues. But little more than two weeks before the jamboree was set to begin, G4S told the Government its recruitment efforts had fallen short, leaving ministers with little choice but to draft in 3,500 military personnel.
Having expected to make a £10m profit on the contract and bag the positive PR that comes with working on one of the biggest events to ever grace Britain’s shores, it instead ended up with an £88m loss and reams of excoriating press coverage.
Nick Buckles, its then boss, managed to hang on to his job, despite admitting to having overseen a “humiliating shambles” before a parliamentary inquiry. But only until the following May, when he made way for current chief Ashley Almanza.
Controversies have continued to dog G4S in the years since, including over its work with asylum seekers and illegal immigrants. In 2014, three staff members were found not guilty of manslaughter after the death of Jimmy Mubenga, an Angolan who they were escorting on a deportation flight from Heathrow Airport.
Two years later, the company faced criticism after the front doors of asylum seekers it was housing in Middlesbrough were painted red – though it denied this was a deliberate policy. G4S involvement in electronic tagging of offenders has also drawn fire. Use of the technology has been growing as the Government seeks to cut costs and stop the prison population rising. But in 2014 G4S was forced to repay £109m to the Government after overcharging on tagging contracts, in some cases by claiming to have tagged offenders who were actually dead or in prison.
More recently, it was criticised after claims a faulty batch of tags could have meant some offenders were wrongly accused of tampering with them.
With care and justice services now making up just 7pc of G4S revenues, AJ Bell’s Russ Mould says this latest debacle is unlikely to have a huge impact on its overall fortunes. But he warns it risks giving ammunition to those who oppose the private sector’s role in delivering public services, particularly after the high-profile collapse of Carillion and the renationalisation of the East Coast rail franchise earlier in the year. He adds: “It certainly won’t help the case, and it will continue to keep those questions at the forefront of everybody’s mind.”