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05.07.03
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Group
4 Falck A Corporate Profile By Corporate Watch
UK 5. Corporate Crimes
“We lead the privatisation programmes in both the prison services and the court services. We pioneered all these things” Jim Harrower, Group Chief and Operating Officer of the executive management board25.
‘However, Group 4 Falck considers its most important social responsibility to be ensuring that the company has a good and sound financial position and preserves the ability to generate growth and create jobs.’28
Group 4 Falck has recently won a it’s first contract to build a hospital - the Nuffield Orthopaedic Clinic in Oxford.29 The outsourced education market is already worth more than £2.5bn.30 Group 4 Falck is mostly cashing in on the privatisation of education through Ensign, a joint venture with Tribal Group. Tribal group provides support services and training to the education sector. It owns SfE, an online education provider that covers around 70% of secondary schools and provides online training to around 20,000 teachers.31 Ensign bids for contracts to intervene in poorly performing local authorities. Ensign withdrew from its bid for a contract in Waltham Forest after it was alleged that it had offered £5,000 to two consultants working for PPI if the bid was successful. PPI is owned by Tribal and provided management support to Waltham Forest.32 When Henry Pitman of Tribal Group was asked about the suitability of its partner in Ensign he told the Financial Times that its experience with young offenders would be useful, “They have a lot of experience in dealing with difficult pupils”33. In education, Group 4 won a £12 million contract in 1996 to administer the inspection of up to 20,000 nursery schools and playgroups participating in the then Conservative government’s controversial nursery voucher scheme.34 The NUT and teachers groups were sceptical about Group 4’s suitability35. Group 4 Managed Services now does the annual inspection of and reporting on educational provision at over 8000 nurseries on behalf of Ofsted.36 Group 4 Falck has a £12 million PFI contract with Wiltshire County Council for building and operating a secondary school in Chippenham, including support services such as catering and sports facilities, and extensions to two other secondary schools.37 Campsfield House is the largest immigrant detention centre in the UK holding around 200 detainees (over 80% of them are asylum seekers). The detainees are held without charge, time limit, or proper access to legal representation. It basically operates like a high security prison for people coming to the UK seeking political asylum. The detention centre has been criticised repeatedly by campaigners and government officials, both in principle, and for the way Group 4 is managing it.
Group 4 Falck runs three prisons in the UK on behalf of the Prison Service: HM Prison Wolds in East Yorkshire, HM Prison Altcourse in Liverpool, and HM Prison Rye Hill on the Warwickshire/Northamptonshire border48. They also run two juvenile prisons: Medway Centre and Onley. In 1999 Group 4 Falck's prison and escort services earned them £86m a year. When Group 4 became the first company to take on private prison escort in the UK, they became the laughing stock of the nation after managing to lose seven prisoners in one week. Nowadays their involvement is less of a laughing matter and more a cause for concern. 49 Juvenile Prisons (The Medway Centre and Onley) A report on the Medway Centre published in 1999 by the Social Service Inspectorate (SSI) found that staff were using unauthorised methods to restrain the inmates up to 150 times per month. The unauthorised neck and wrist locks used by the staff are against medical advice and the centre’s own rules. The Medway Centre has also been criticised by the social services for using excessive force when trying to contain a riot there.50 The special education programmes were reported to have ‘simply failed’, and it was concluded that the centre was more likely to strengthen criminal behaviour than to lessen it.51 A fine of £68,000 was imposed at Medway for failure of service and £ 638,000 was withheld for services not provided at Medway and Wolds.52 HM Prison Lectors (Liverpool) HM Prison Buckley Hall HM Prison Wolds (Humberside, East Yorkshire) Frances Crook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform was refused entry to the Wolds after having criticised the prison following an earlier visit.58 In March 1995 the inquest into the death of Darrell Barson ruled suicide. Barson was on 15 minute suicide watch, but had not been seen for several hours before his death. The prison doctor said staff were too inexperienced to tell suicidal behaviour from signs of drug abuse, and that 90% of the prisoners he saw were “drugged up to the eyeballs”.59 Rye Hill (Warwickshire) Prisoner Transport In August 1993, a Home Office inquiry criticised Group 4 for using excessive restraint in handling a prisoner. Despite her asthma and low security risk status she was handcuffed and locked in a van cell for two hours.62
Opened in August 1997, Port Philip (Australia) has been blighted by drug abuse, violence, and suicides. 60 staff resigned in the first 7 months. In March 1998 a serious riot at Port Philip prison, Melbourne, was initially described by Group 4 management as a “passive demonstration”. Group 4 was severely criticised for cost-cutting, understaffing, inexperience and bureaucratic error.64 In 2002 Group 4 Falck were forced by media attention to withdraw security guards from their subsidiary Hashmira, which operates in the Occupied Territories. It was revealed that many of security guards were settlers, and routinely prevented Palestinian villagers from cultivating their own fields, travelling to schools, hospitals and shops in nearby towns, and receiving emergency medical assistance.65 Group 4 was at the centre of a corruption scandal at the European Commission in Brussels. It was alleged that Group 4 beat the 12 other companies competing for the contract to run the Commission’s security because it was allowed to change its bid after the submissions deadline. The investigation into the matter by the commission found that there was ‘strong circumstantial evidence’ that the bid had been manipulated.66 After Group 4 had secured the contract, it changed the terms and conditions of it so that they increased its profits. It later admitted to overcharging inadvertently. The Group 4 spokesperson tried to blame the managers of the security services at the commission, saying they were a bunch ‘nasty and very right-wing Belgians’. For example, they made Group 4 put ghost workers on its payroll (something Group 4 does not deny). In this way retired Belgian police officers were given second careers in the European security services. In response to these allegations a Group 4 spokesperson stated that 'we were told to hire these people by the managers of the security service, so we did.'67 Group 4 Falck is part of consortium of three firms who got a 30 year contract to build and run the new £300 million GCHQ building (Britain’s spy centre to monitor communications worldwide).68
Group 4 guards the oil and gas fields for various companies, including Exxon Mobil and British Gas in Kazakhstan, in the Caspian Region.69 The exploitation of these fields has already caused massive environmental damage70. Wackenhut is responsible for guarding the Nevada nuclear bomb test site71. In September 1994 Group 4 agreed not to use excessive force at the Stanworth Valley protest camp after an injunction application made by Chris Maile, and son Philip, from the local Green Party. In October of the same year, Philip Mail was hospitalised after a Group 4 security guard illegally used a pressure point hold to the back of his head. He spent three weeks in a neck collar.72
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Footnotes 25 Weale, S. (1999) The Great Escape, The Guardian,
15/11/99. |