End privatised prisons call

A prison in Birmingham run by outsourcing firm G4S will be taken back under public control, amid accusations of mismanagement that’s seen violence and drug use soar alongside deteriorating prison facility conditions.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) announced on Monday (April 1) that it would be permanently taking over running HMP Birmingham from July, after it temporarily seized control in August last year following inspections which revealed the prison in a ‘state of crisis’.

Inspectors found blood, vomit and rat droppings on floors, rat and cockroach infestations, staff falling asleep on the job and widespread use by prisoners of synthetic cannabis known as ‘spice’.

Chief inspector of prisons Peter Clarke likened the Birmingham establishment to ‘a war zone’, with inmates walking around ‘like zombies’.

HMP Birmingham, which was the first prison to be transferred from the public to the private sector, was the site of a major prison riot in 2016. The riot lasted 12 hours and saw prisoners take over four wings of the prison, start fires and gain access to medical supplies. 240 prisoners were moved out of the prison after the riot.

G4S, which has come under fire in a number of scandals involving its failure to manage public sector contracts competently, jointly agreed with the MoJ to terminate its 15-year contract at HMP Birmingham, which the firm had taken up in 2011.

Now, outsourced staff at Birmingham HMP will be transferred over to the public sector to carry on their work when the contract formally ends in July. Unite has a number of members at Birmingham Prison whose jobs include building maintenance and mental health nursing.

Unite hailed the news that running of the prison will be taken back in-house – the union has argued it should herald the starting point of bringing back all prisons under public control.

“We welcome the news that the Justice ministry has decided to terminate G4S’ Birmingham contract,” said Unite regional officer Caren Evans. “It was almost inevitable following the chief inspector of prisons Peter Clarke’s damning report into its appalling stewardship of the prison.

“Prisons minister Rory Stewart pledged last summer that he would resign if he had not managed to reduce the level of drugs and violence in England’s prisons,” Evans explained.

“Unite would suggest that one way that Rory Stewart can keep to his bold pledge is that all outsourced contracts relating to prisons in  England are terminated as speedily as practical.

“Once again, the outsourcing model being imposed on public services has been found to be flawed and wanting – remember it was G4S that was responsible for the security shambles at the 2012 London Olympics.”

This isn’t the first time G4S has been stripped of a public sector contract either – in 2016, the firm was forced to relinquish control of Medway Secure Training Centre, a youth detention centre, after an undercover BBC Panorama investigation revealed children being mistreated.

In a separate undercover investigation by BBC Panorama in 2017, cameras filmed G4S staff harassing, insulting and assaulting detainees at the Brooke House immigration centre near Gatwick Airport. Nine staff members were sacked following the scandal but G4S continues to run the contract at Brook House.

Unite has long highlighted the failures of privatisation, especially in critical public services such as prisons.

Most recently, in March, Unite called for the Amey maintenance contract covering all the prisons in the north of England and the  Midlands to be brought back in-house, after what it described as Amey’s ‘total mishandling’  of the contract over the last four years.

The call follows a safety scandal at Liverpool Prison where two Amey maintenance workers were sacked last year after raising safety concerns at the prison.

Unite national officer Jim Kennedy said the “case demonstrates the government’s folly of privatising this vitally important public service.

“It is morally repugnant that companies are making profits out of the prison service and these contracts need to be permanently brought back in house at the earliest opportunity.”

Ongoing privatisation scandals such as at HMP Birmingham come at a time of financial woe for giant outsourcing firms running public contracts – Carillion infamously collapsed last year, taking with it thousands of jobs, while Interserve likewise collapsed into administration earlier this year but is now being run by its lenders.

“The model for providing public sector infrastructure and services is broken,” Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said, commenting on Interserve. “Big business has no business with our NHS, our schools, our prisons, our infrastructure and public services.”

• Pic of abandoned prison corridor