Oral evidence: Brook House Immigration Removal Centre, HC 346

Oral evidence, 14 September 2017.

Witnesses

Rev. Nathan Ward and James Wilson.

Chair

Welcome to this morning’s evidence session, the first of the newly reconstituted Home Affairs Committee. I welcome Mr Ward and Mr Wilson. Thank you for coming to give evidence to us today. Please briefly introduce yourselves and explain your background for the panel.

James Wilson

Thank you. I am James Wilson from the Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group. Thank you very much for inviting me to give evidence today. I am the director of the charity that supports people in detention at Gatwick. We have been working in Gatwick, at Tinsley and later at Brook House, since 1996, when Tinsley House opened. We supported nearly 1,400 people in 2016, and we assist with a range of emotional and practical needs of detainees.

Rev. Nathan Ward

My name is Nathan Ward. I joined G4S in 2001 and became head of children’s services at Gatwick IRCs in 2011, head of Tinsley House in 2012, and resigned in 2014. Part of my role at the Gatwick IRCs was as a duty director, so it was a shared senior management team across Tinsley House and Brook House.

Chair

Thank you. We have called this evidence session because of the “Panorama” programme on Brook House. Could you start by telling us whether you were surprised by what you saw in the footage from Brook House?

Rev. Nathan Ward

Personally, I wasn’t surprised but shocked at the level of abuse that was going on. I had been raising concerns about practice within G4S since 2001. In particular, I raised concerns to Jerry Petherick upon my resignation.

Chair

What sort of concerns had you been raising?

Rev. Nathan Ward

I had been raising concerns about staff and management culture, and practices in relation to reporting figures to the Home Office.

Chair

Similar to those that we saw on “Panorama”, or different?

Rev. Nathan Ward

Similar. However, I had never seen anyone attempt to strangulate a detainee. It was not to that extent but, sadly, the cultures were prevalent, but also prevalent in other institutions within G4S, and I had raised concerns historically about those.

Chair

How widespread was this cultural problem? Are we talking about a small minority of staff or across the institution as a whole? What, in your experience, is the scale of it?

Rev. Nathan Ward

I would personally say that the vast majority of staff working in the institutions are good, honest people. However, they are caught up within a system and a culture where it is difficult to hold integrity to that extent. There was a group within Brook House residential staff team which was a concern. That infected, in one sense, the general atmosphere and culture of the place. But there was also a concern about the management culture that was established and developed in the later years that I was there.

Chair

That is the management culture within Brook House, as opposed to G4S as a whole?

Rev. Nathan Ward

Yes. I had raised concerns about other institutions and the management culture there, but also specifically in relation to Brook House.

Chair

Just to clarify, you raised these concerns during what period of time?

Rev. Nathan Ward

I raised concerns from 2001. In 2004 I went to Professor John Pitts, who wrote letters to Ministers in Parliament, raising concerns about staff culture and management culture—and that was before Gareth Myatt sadly died in Rainsbrook STC. Following that, I raised concerns with Kent police and was told to go away, because they did not really believe me. Then I wrote to MPs and met with MPs and met with the LADO at Medway, the local authority. I also met with the YJB monitors, so I have been systematically raising concerns at the highest levels, including ministerial level, since then.

Chair

Concerns about Brook House specifically?

Rev. Nathan Ward

Yes, Brook House specifically. I directly raised those concerns with Jerry Petherick, the managing director.

Chair

When was that, roughly?

Rev. Nathan Ward

That was when I resigned in 2014.

Chair

What happened about the concerns that you raised?

Rev. Nathan Ward

He said that he would take them seriously, and that was all I heard, because obviously I left the company. However, I did receive a postcard handwritten by Jerry on the last day of my formal employment at G4S, thanking me for my time and saying he would give me a reference at any point in the future.

Chair

What kind of system did G4S and Brook House have in place to deal with concerns from staff?

Rev. Nathan Ward

They had a whistleblowing policy in place and a whistleblowing helpline that staff could phone up. My personal experience of the whistleblowing system was that I first used it back in the early 2000s and was told by the gentleman on the other end of the phone, “I’m sorry. I can see it on my system but we haven’t had the training yet. Can I take your name and phone number, and I’ll call you back tomorrow?”, which I declined. At Brook House in particular, I am aware that three whistleblowing allegations have been made about myself, and I have not formally been interviewed on any occasion in relation to those three, so I have no faith in the whistleblowing system. I have also raised concerns directly with the managing director and am aware of an email that has been sent raising concerns to Peter Neden, the chief executive of G4S for the UK and Ireland.

Chair

Are you aware of any occasions of the whistleblowing system working?

Rev. Nathan Ward

I am aware of some investigations that have taken place, but I do not know the detail.

Chair

How far do you think some of the concerns about staff members are to do with G4S making the wrong employment decisions and employing people who are not suitable for those sort of roles? How far is it lack of support or the lack of framework for managing those staff?

Rev. Nathan Ward

I think, ultimately, it is a lack of clear policy framework that G4S is trying to implement, as well as a lack of support for staff on the ground.

Chair

Mr Wilson, what has your experience or evidence been? Were you surprised by the footage you saw in “Panorama”?

James Wilson

I would agree with Nathan’s description, in terms of being shocked and appalled but not fully surprised. Obviously, we are at a different stage from Nathan’s position of having been employed within the centres. We go in regularly and support people, and we support people over the phone. The information we receive about incidents of abuse by staff tend to be from detainees mentioning things but then telling us they don’t want things to go any further because they don’t have faith in steps going forward, or detainees telling us about people they are sharing cells with, where things are happening but they don’t feel able to raise them. I would echo Nathan’s description—certainly our impressions of frontline staff are that they are, in the main, people trying to do their best. Brook House feels to me a desperate place in lots of different ways, and ways that are primarily created by indefinite detention itself, as a concept and a system. People are increasingly in very cramped conditions. There have been 60 extra beds added to Brook House over the past year, and those extra beds are going into cells that already have two beds, mostly, so people are in ever more cramped conditions. We feel every day, on the phone and when meeting people in Brook House, a sense of desperation. Certainly when it comes to raising concerns, there is not a sense of people feeling empowered to do things to take things forward.

Stephen Doughty

I want to follow up on the issue of whistleblowing and complaints. James, you suggest a situation in which some of the detainees do not want to raise complaints. Nathan, you suggested that you have had counter-complaints made about you that have not been followed up. To what extent do you think there has been any organised intimidation or threats, of either staff or detainees, about making official complaints or pursuing them?

Rev. Nathan Ward

In my experience, as far as detainees are concerned, their main concern about making complaints is that it might affect their immigration case, which might cause reluctance. At Tinsley House I was worried when no detainees made any complaints in a three-month period and I actively encouraged them to do so. As far as staff are concerned, it is very hard for anyone to speak out against and step outside a dominant culture within an organisation. Actually, when staff are worried about their safety and have a fear of isolation and of being left alone, that enhances their fear. I am aware of cases where those who have been speaking out have been marginalised in the organisation.

James Wilson

I am not aware enough of internal dynamics to come to any conclusions.

Stephen Doughty

No, but your experience of the detainees themselves is that they quite often do not want to proceed because they don’t have the confidence.

James Wilson

Absolutely.

Stephen Doughty

In terms of the training, I was watching the programme and was shocked and sickened, and there was clearly some absolutely deliberate activity that was totally unacceptable. To what extent do you think it is down to a lack of training about proper restraint mechanisms, or how to deal with a self-harmer or with a suicide attempt and so on? There seemed to be a mix of issues there. The choking incident was absolutely deliberate, but on the other hand is some of it to do with people not knowing how to handle people in vulnerable situations properly?

Rev. Nathan Ward

I think that the training that G4S provided when I was there was comprehensive. However, we know that for training to be effective it needs to be followed through into a culture that can sustain that training, and that is where we see the detachment at Brook House.

Stephen Doughty

James, do you have any incidents or experience from speaking to detainees? Do they feel that quite often things go too far, in terms of how their colleagues are dealt with physically perhaps?

James Wilson

They allude to it, but in our experience I would come back to a reluctance to take anything forward.

Rev. Nathan Ward

With all due respect, when a member of the Home Office staff says to me, “It’s all about who breaks first, whether the detainees or the Home Office, in relation to immigration cases”, it is a culture set not just by G4S but, far wider, by the Home Office.

Stephen Doughty

Sorry. A Home Office staff member said that to you?

Rev. Nathan Ward

A Home Office manager said to me, “It’s all about who breaks first”—the exact phrase—“whether it is the detainee or the Home Office, when it comes to immigration cases.”

Stephen Doughty

Can you name that person? Have you named that person?

Rev. Nathan Ward

That was Debby Weston, who was the Home Office manager at Tinsley House when I was there.

Stuart C. McDonald

Why do you think it has taken the “Panorama” programme to draw attention to the feelings at Brook House and to force G4S to try and remedy the situation? What has happened to the oversight mechanisms that we are supposed to have in place, and what does that say about how effective they are?

Rev. Nathan Ward

I think the lack of response to date, since the “Panorama” programme, can give us some sight of the kind of issues at hand. It would seem to me that, in one sense, immigration is a highly politicised subject at the moment and we have lost sight of the human beings within the system.

James Wilson

It is an obvious point, but the very nature of detention—the fact of the mass routine use of indefinite immigration detention in the UK—is still a relatively hidden topic. Sadly, this is not the first time that there has been a similar scandal. For example, there were the revelations from Yarl’s Wood in 2015 about very similar things, with staff being abusive and disrespectful there. It feels like these things happen, are addressed or not at the time, and then drift off the public radar. I obviously hope that the very serious allegations in “Panorama” last week are investigated thoroughly and all appropriate steps taken, but I also hope that does not stop with looking at the individuals involved, or indeed at G4S, but looks at wider circumstances that lead to such horrible places existing.

Stuart C. McDonald

If I am right, there is a monitoring board and inspections by the prisons inspectorate. Does this reflect on how well those systems work, or will it always be the case that they cannot pick up on everything that is happening in detention centres?

Rev. Nathan Ward

When you look at it, you have the independent monitoring board, which is a group of individuals who are not necessarily trained or professionals looking at the system, so to rely on them to critique and safeguard the institution—I think they can do that to a certain extent, but not fully. As far as the inspectorate is concerned, HMIP is a very good and robust inspectorate, but it can only inspect what it sees on the day it turns up. We have Home Office staff on site that should be looking on a day-by-day basis at what is going on, and raising pertinent questions. However, we have already seen here today that the culture within that group itself most probably isn’t one that has sufficient curiosity. When I was there, a very high-up civil servant was telling us that we were under tremendous pressure to get people through the system and deport them in that year in particular, because it was that year’s statistics that would be reported just before the general election. That is how politicised the system is.

Stuart C. McDonald

How big is the Home Office presence?

Rev. Nathan Ward

Off the top of my head, I’m unsure at this stage.

Stuart C. McDonald

Do they have full access to the detention centre?

Rev. Nathan Ward

They do have full access and, as we have heard in some of G4S’s responses, even open-book accounting, but actually the question is whether they have the capacity to access it sufficiently, because they are also dealing with the administrative burden of the immigration within the centre.

Stuart C. McDonald

I don’t know how much you know about the contractual set-up between the Home Office and G4S, but do you think it puts enough emphasis on detainee welfare, for example, over other considerations? Have you any idea whether penalties might be imposed on G4S because of some of the stuff that we saw on the programme last week?

Rev. Nathan Ward

I am fully versed in the contract that was in place at the time I was there. There are penalty clauses within it. However, I think that in one sense the relationship has become too close. The Home Office is reliant on G4S as an operator to actually undertake what it needs to do. That is part of the issue.

Stuart C. McDonald

Mr Wilson, do you have any further thoughts, on either the contractual arrangement or the role of the Home Office team?

James Wilson

I am not so familiar with the detail of the contract. I would agree that at local level the Home Office and G4S seem to work very closely. It is important not to lose sight of the fact that, whatever the contractual detail, the Home Office is ultimately responsible for the detention estate. It makes the decision to detain or not to detain, or to keep people detained. I don’t know whether you are going to speak to Ministers, but again I hope there are questions to come for the Home Office.

Stuart C. McDonald

That is a very useful suggestion. My final question is about access to legal advice. Is there a problem? I think I read that only about a third of detainees have access to legal advice at the centre. Is that because of lack of awareness or problems with legal aid? What is the explanation?

James Wilson

There is a big problem. There is a weekly surgery, and two legal aid firms currently have the contracts to come into Brook and Tinsley and see people once a week. There are long waiting lists to see advisers. Sometimes people in detention have never seen a solicitor and might be removed from the country before getting any form of advice. You go on to have problems of very restricted advice anyway, with most of immigration being outside the legal aid scope, so someone may well in the end just see a representative for 30 minutes and then be told that for anything beyond this they would have to pay an amount of money, which in most cases is impossible.

Stuart C. McDonald

Who is responsible for having put that contract in place?

Rev. Nathan Ward

The Home Office. When we are talking about legal advice, we need to be very clear about who the detainees actually get to see on the ground. Is it a solicitor or a lawyer, or is it just someone working on their behalf?

Stuart C. McDonald

So that is not something that G4S could remedy; that would have to come from the Home Office itself.

Rev. Nathan Ward

Yes.

Sarah Jones

I am keen to investigate who you think is really to blame for what has been going on. We have talked about lack of training and the culture in G4S. In terms of the structure within the UK, the UK is the only country in Europe without a limit on detention. We have mentioned this already, but to what extent do you think that is to blame for what is going on? I’m talking about the indefinite detention and the length of time that people are spending in detention, creating a culture that is just desperate, as you describe it. How much is that part of the problem?

Rev. Nathan Ward

I think it is central. I don’t think indefinite detention was the original intention of Parliament when it passed the legislation. Actually, it should only be used when removal from the UK is considered imminent. The word “imminent” has not been defined, so I would urge the Government to define that swiftly and bring in a 28-day cap. We can put that in the context of other countries. Ireland, for example, has a limit of 21 days, and France has an average stay in detention of 12.6 days, so 28 days is a fairly substantial amount of time. I would further urge the Government to bring in judicial oversight. Nowhere else in this country can someone be put into what is to all intents and purposes a custodial institution without judicial oversight. We seem to have fallen into a philosophical and legal gap, where this practice has emerged.

James Wilson

That is absolutely the biggest issue—the lack of a time limit. The sense we get from detainees, speaking to people every day, is of desperation and uncertainty. The minority of detainees who have formerly been held in prison would compare it to prison, in that in prison you at least have a timescale; a point where you know that there is the possibility of parole, or something changing or the sentence ending. In detention you never have that; you are just adding days. There is that sense of the uncertainty and of no recourse—no point when this is going to stop. It is constant.

Sarah Jones

In terms of the actual management of the centre itself, the programme talked about the induction wing, which was for new people, but actually there were drug dealers in there, and that was difficult; it talked about E wing, which was for vulnerable people, but they were not getting the services they needed; and it talked about staff numbers being at the very bare minimum, and having two people overseeing 100 people. So to what extent do you think just the management processes and the structures within the centre are responsible for what is going on?

Rev. Nathan Ward

I would say obviously the senior management team is responsible, but ultimately the Minister is responsible for what is going on. That is why he has been democratically elected.

Ms McVey

I want to understand what the mix of the detainees is. Who have we got mixing together in the detention centre?

Rev. Nathan Ward

My understanding is that around half of those in Brook House are foreign national offenders, and the other half are not foreign national offenders; but all the FNOs have actually served their sentences, so in that sense they should be free.

Ms McVey

So we have offenders mixed with asylum seekers.

Rev. Nathan Ward

In principle, yes, but I would like to push back on describing them as offenders. We would not describe English people who have served their prison sentence as continuing offenders, if that makes sense.

Ms McVey

But we have a different mix of people, and I was wondering whether you think that creates tensions. Do they have different needs? How do they interact with one another? I would have thought that an asylum seeker escaping persecution was very different from a convicted criminal, and I am wondering how that works within the detention centre.

Rev. Nathan Ward

I think they have their own issues, but they also share the issues of those who have not offended, so they still have their own issues of asylum. For example, I have worked with people who have grown up in this country, who have not really known their home country, and who have committed an offence that gets the 12-month sentence and therefore ended up being automatically deported. They have still got all the same stuff going on as someone who has not offended. So it is a complex thing. I don’t think it is binary, in that sense.

Ms McVey

Do you think that offenders should be mixing with asylum seekers, or do you think the actual mix or separation should be much stronger and set down in policy?

Rev. Nathan Ward

I think mixing them, on a very basic level, is just deeply inefficient. The Government know when someone is being sentenced to 12 months or more right at the start of their sentence, and if the Government’s policy is to deport that person at the end of their sentence, they have 12 months to organise the deportation. Why are they paying for the prison sentence and then paying further money to house them in an immigration removal centre?

Ms McVey

I guess that is what I am trying to understand; the mix and the flow. Who is being held, why are they being held and, really, should they be mixing? Could that be part of the tensions? Could you give us the sort of cycle of who could be there? How does that work? You sort of alluded to it there.

Rev. Nathan Ward

It works by them, after serving their prison sentence, being moved into the immigration estate, where it seems the process would start while they mix with people who have overstayed their visas or are claiming asylum and such things.

Ms McVey

I am just wondering whether that is adding into some of these incredibly poor practices on the ground. Is it the combination of people they are looking after and the tensions between the sets of people there?

Rev. Nathan Ward

Yes, that most certainly adds to it.

James Wilson

I would add that, in terms of the many useful things—grim viewing though it was—that the “Panorama” programme raised, for me, the distinction between people who had formerly been prisoners and people who had been in the asylum system was not the most helpful, because for us that does not seem to be a major source of problems. As Nathan mentioned, there are many other different types of immigration situations that may lead to people being in detention, but for me that distinction between groups is not particularly helpful. I would come back to the point that people who have been prisoners are just that—former prisoners. The fundamental thing, again, is the time limit. I think if you took any three of us from this room now to a cramped three-bed cell in a category B prison without a criminal charge, there would be issues and levels of desperation that came from that. I do not think categorising is the—

Ms McVey

So you don’t think that someone fleeing persecution, who could be in a very raw emotional state, should not be mixing with someone who has been a convicted criminal? You wouldn’t think there were tensions there, where I would possibly say the state of mind is quite significantly different?

James Wilson

I think that people who are vulnerable for a wide variety of reasons, including those reasons you describe, shouldn’t be detained. That was one of the key findings of the Stephen Shaw review in 2016. That is the point I would start from.

Mr Chope

Nathan, you asked the question, “Why are these people, if they have been sentenced to imprisonment for more than 12 months and they are liable for deportation upon release, not deported immediately at the time of release?” What is the answer to the question you have posed?

Rev. Nathan Ward

I would say that the Home Office need to get themselves organised and actually start doing the proceedings while those people are in prison. Or, at the point of the custodial sentence ending, they should release them like any other person and, if they are going to deport them, follow that system.

Mr Chope

There is obviously a cost associated with keeping people in detention after their prison sentence expires. Why is it that the Home Office does not take the cost-effective option of dealing with deportations during the time that people are actually in prison?

Rev. Nathan Ward

I think that would be a question for the Minister, my friend.

Mr Chope

Can I ask you about the throughput? On average, every day, how many people are leaving Brook House and how many people are arriving?

Rev. Nathan Ward

When I was there, the turnover each day was around 20 or 30, off the top of my head. But we know that we had about 28,000 people going through immigration removal centres in the last reported statistics from the Home Office.

Mr Chope

Taking the category of people who have come out of prison and are awaiting deportation, what would be the average time that they would stay in Brook House?

Rev. Nathan Ward

I don’t know the answer to that question, my friend. Sorry.

Mr Chope

What would be the minimum or the maximum time, do you think?

Rev. Nathan Ward

Well, for the minimum, they could just be there for a day, but that is highly unlikely. For the maximum, we know that there have been people there for in excess of two years.

Mr Chope

For two years post release from prison?

Rev. Nathan Ward

That is my belief, yes.

Mr Chope

As far as the other group is concerned—the people who are not foreign national offenders—everyone mixes together, do they?

Rev. Nathan Ward

Yes.

Mr Chope

What nationalities are these people? Do they all speak English?

Rev. Nathan Ward

Some of them speak English. Some have to interpret for each other. Off the top of my head, I am unaware of the top nationalities that are being held in detention at the moment, but my friend James might be able to answer that question.

James Wilson

I don’t have them to hand, but I can submit some details afterwards. I would echo Nathan’s point about the reasons why people are not removed when there are no apparent barriers to that. Again, that would be a question for the Home Office, but it is worth emphasising how expensive the process is. It costs around £33,000 to keep someone in detention for a year. There are delays in situations. There are a wide variety of delays that seem to mean that people are detained, for whatever is going to happen to them next, for far longer than they need to be. We recently worked with somebody who was trying to return voluntarily—they had agreed to return voluntarily five or six months before leaving Brook House. That could not be arranged. In terms of what is humane, fair and reasonable to the taxpayer, the system is just not working.

Mr Chope

When people leave Brook House, do they invariably go under custody to the airport? That is really the idea behind having it so close to the airport. Is that what happens? Is that how most people leave, or are some people released?

Rev. Nathan Ward

Some people are released, and some are actually just left on the street by the side of Gatwick airport to fend for themselves.

Mr Chope

I see. For what reason might they be released?

Rev. Nathan Ward

Because the Home Office have decided, for whatever reason, to release them, and they are left by the side of the road.

Mr Chope

How common is that?

Rev. Nathan Ward

I know of two particular cases where they actually refused to leave the centre because they had nowhere to go.

Mr Chope

That was during the time you were there?

Rev. Nathan Ward

Yes. We had to call the police on both occasions to remove them from the centre. That is how broken the system is, my friend.

James Wilson

It is worth stressing, in terms of what you want or expect from the term “immigration removal centre”, that per the recent immigration figures, the majority of people—52%—are released to the UK in the end; it is actually a minority who are being removed from the country.

Mr Chope

Even for foreign national offenders?

James Wilson

That is across the totality of the detention estate. I don’t know the proportion for foreign national prisoners. That figure is across all the people being detained. It suggests a number of things, including the fact that detention is not being used just as a last resort.

Mr Chope

How many of these people are foreign nationals of other EU countries?

James Wilson

I don’t have a figure to hand, but I can try to find out for you. Anecdotally, the numbers for EU nationals have grown quite significantly in the last year or two. I can look into it.

Chair

Were those individuals who were just left by the side of the road supposed to have had some support in place that just wasn’t there, or was there just no policy to provide them with any kind of support?

Rev. Nathan Ward

I believe that there is no policy to provide them with that support.

Naz Shah

Mr Ward, in response to a question from the Chair, you talked about raising concerns at ministerial level. What actually happened in that incident? Which Minister was it?

Rev. Nathan Ward

It was the Minister responsible for juvenile justice back in 2004. I believe they asked that Kent police meet me as the whistleblower, which I did straightaway. Following that, we don’t know what happened. I was told by the police officer, “I’m sorry, but I can’t take your evidence, because it might be seen as stolen property. Thank you for your time.” After the “Panorama” investigation into Medway secure training centre, Kent police undertook an internal investigation. They came back to me and said that the police officer concerned back in 2004 would have been investigated, but had since left the force, and that there would therefore be no further action.

Naz Shah

My next question is to both of you. Has there been any detrimental impact on detainees and staff as a result of the Home Office decision to expand some cell capacity to three occupants? Are you aware of that?

Rev. Nathan Ward

I am aware of that. I am also aware that there are set international guidelines on cell occupancy and square metres per prisoner. I do not believe that the cells are large enough to meet those requirements. However, those requirements are not, to my knowledge, part of legislation.

James Wilson

Anecdotally, it has been a significant factor in the last years, as those beds have been added to already cramped environments. It is frequently reported as another source of stress and difficulty, often from people who are very vulnerable in any case and who we do not think should have been detained.

Rev. Nathan Ward

In the rooms in Brook House, the windows do not open, so now we are putting three grown men into a room that is supplied with air solely by a ventilation system. That is never going to be conducive to mental health or mere behaviour.

Naz Shah

Mr Ward, you left in 2014.

Rev. Nathan Ward

Yes.

Naz Shah

So for that 10 years when you blew the whistle to a Minister, how many more complaints were you a part of?

Rev. Nathan Ward

I have lost count. I have met MPs to raise concerns. I met the Bishop of Rochester at the time, who was also a member of the House of Lords, to raise concerns. I raised concerns with the LADO and the YJB, and in 2008 I ended up going to Eric Allison at The Guardian to raise concerns, which then led to the “Panorama” investigation into Medway secure training centre. I think it is pertinent to note two things in relation to that. When “Panorama” investigated Medway, the Minister, Michael Gove, set up an independent board to investigate what was going on there. Their recommendation 19 stated: “The Improvement Plan should include G4S’s analysis of what went wrong with organisational culture at Medway to enable staff to feel they could act as they did towards children and how they propose to address this.” That recommendation was published on 12 May 2016. My question would be whether they actually did that analysis, because the culture we see at Brook House is not too dissimilar to that of Medway STC. Ben Saunders was the director of Medway STC for the majority of the time that I was raising concerns and is also the director of Gatwick IRCs.

Stephen Doughty

Another particularly shocking aspect of the programme was the extent of the drug use that there appeared to be within the facility. What are both of your experiences or understanding of the extent of that problem, and what is G4S doing about it? Where are the drugs coming from? A load of the detainees seemed to be on Spice, totally out of their heads on the floor. What on earth is going on?

Rev. Nathan Ward

Spice wasn’t an issue when I was there in 2014. We know that it has since become an issue across the custodial estate in this country; it isn’t just specific to Brook House, or in fact to the private sector. I am aware of an email sent to Peter Neden, the chief executive of G4S, raising concerns about specific members of staff dealing Spice to detainees.

Stephen Doughty

In Brook House?

Rev. Nathan Ward

In Brook House.

Stephen Doughty

What action was taken?

Rev. Nathan Ward

I don’t know what action was taken.

Stephen Doughty

When was that email sent?

Rev. Nathan Ward

In January this year.

Stephen Doughty

In your experience, whether for Spice or any other drug, and apart from staff allegedly dealing, are people getting things through visits? How is the material getting into the centre?

Rev. Nathan Ward

I have a master’s degree in security and risk management, so I speak with some knowledge. First, Brook House has drug netting over all of the courtyards, so throw-overs are very limited. The use of drones has also been cited in the media as a way of getting drugs into prison. We know that Brook House is on the side of Gatwick airport, so any drone use would be spotted straight away by the control tower, so it is not that. That leaves three main routes: visits—all visitors should be searched—the postal system, all of which should be x-rayed; and staff. I would say that it is a mixture of those three, as they are the only three routes in.

Stephen Doughty

So inadequate interception on visitors and post, and then possibly staff?

Rev. Nathan Ward

Yes.

Stephen Doughty

In terms of conversations you have had with detainees, to what extent do issues around drug use come up as a problem?

James Wilson

I don’t think the word “rife” is too strong for the issue of Spice. People in detention are telling us about the amount of it around and about cellmates being on Spice and it being difficult to communicate with them. In many cases people have talked to us about having never been in any situation before where they would have been tempted to take drugs, but with the level of desperation being so great, and the availability of it being such, it is becoming hard to avoid. It seems to be a huge issue.

Stephen Doughty

In terms of violence related to the drug use, have you had reports of people attacking other detainees or acting violently or aggressively?

James Wilson

Very anecdotally about skirmishes.

Stephen Doughty

Nathan, did you see stuff when you were there?

Rev. Nathan Ward

The level of violence towards staff needs to be held in context, because that it partly the issue as well. I have had a discussion with Callum, the undercover journalist for “Panorama”, who said that staff are constantly under threat. When I challenged him on that and said, “How many times have you actually been personally threated in the two years that you have worked there?”, he said about four or six times, so that is actually about once every six months, isn’t it?

Stephen Doughty

And between detainees?

Rev. Nathan Ward

For detainees on detainees, there were threats made and violence when I was there. I am aware of that, yes.

Chair

Can I ask you about the contracting and profit situation? There were reports last night and in this morning’s papers of G4S making around 20% profit on Brook House and 27% on Tinsley. Does that sound plausible to you?

Rev. Nathan Ward

Absolutely, and also Cedars. When I was there, I was aware that the pre-departure accommodation was running on the same levels of profit as well. Put in the context that the Shaw review recommended that the Cedars pre-departure accommodation was closed because it was uneconomical, the question should be asked: if G4S had not been taking so much profit out of it, would it have been economical? Would we still have one of the best custodial institutions in the country?

Chair

Does the 20% or 27%—that sort of scale—include overheads, or is that before G4S overheads?

Rev. Nathan Ward

My understanding of the contract is that initially G4S would have tendered for the contract, and that tendering process would outline all of the financial costs involved. Schedule F of the contract is the schedule that outlines the costs at the beginning of the contract, and within that are overhead costs. Then, after that total what I think is called profit contribution is applied, and then after that VAT is applied. So overhead costs are already calculated within the contract. There may be some overhead costs that are not, but the vast majority of them, in my understanding, are built into the costs that were presented at the trading reviews.

Chair

So you would expect that 20% figure to be after all of the relevant overheads and also to fit with your experience of the level of profits being made at Brook House over that period.

Rev. Nathan Ward

Yes, and I think the email that I saw, which was sent to Peter Neden, actually went above 20%

Chair

What did it go to?

Rev. Nathan Ward

Off the top of my head, I think 30%. I have certainly seen presentations with 30% profit margins put on them. Chair: There was also an email reported in The Guardian today from a manager at G4S that refers to inaccurate information being given to the Home Office about the contract. It says: “At this point, I was questioning the staff we had formally asked the Home Office for as I knew we had only requested 60 to run Tinsley, yet we were asking for money for 80 staff.” Does that sound plausible or fit with your experience?

Rev. Nathan Ward

Absolutely. I had an email from the accountant when Cedars’ pre-departure accommodation was set up with an Excel spreadsheet detailing all of the assets that they were charging the Home Office for and asking me to highlight the ones I knew we would never be buying, on the premise that the Home Office only asked for invoices over the sum total of £5,000, so anything under that would not be scrutinised.

Chair

Explain that again.

Rev. Nathan Ward

I received an email from the accountant with the asset list for Cedars’ pre-departure accommodation, asking me to highlight the items that were being charged to the Home Office but which we would never actually buy in the end. I am also aware of inaccurate staffing reported to the Home Office, and that is part of the concern that I raised to Jerry Petherick on my resignation, and other financial matters like that.

Chair

So you think it is plausible that G4S, or people working at G4S, have deliberately been giving false information to the Home Office.

Rev. Nathan Ward

Categorically, yes.

Chair

Thank you very much.

Rev. Nathan Ward

And, just to say, at the point of leaving both Medway STC and Brook House IRC, I took a carbon copy of my hard drive with all of the information on the senior management team—all of their spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations. I gave a copy to Kent police and to the Ministry of Justice. My solicitor has the only other copy, the third copy, in a safe in London.

Chair

What action are you aware of that has been taken in pursuit of any of that?

Rev. Nathan Ward

Kent police have made me aware that last year, when I raised all these concerns with them, they passed it on to Sussex police, because it was happening in that force area.

Chair

And has it been passed on to the Home Office as well—to the Home Office contract management?

Rev. Nathan Ward

I am not aware of that.

Chair

In terms of the source of these additional profits, would it be accurate to say that, from your experience, this includes things being claimed for that were then not actually provided? The G4S and Home Office response says that there were savings on the contract and efficiency measures introduced over the life of the contract that reduced charges to the Home Office as a result. Would that include reductions in staffing or training?

Rev. Nathan Ward

A good, easy example would be that part of the contract was that G4S would employ a hairdresser to cut detainees’ hair. A cost saving was put to them because they could not actually recruit a hairdresser, saying, “We will get rid of that post as a cost saving and buy hair clippers from Argos and detainees can cut their own hair.” That is the type of cost saving offered up. I am aware that in the email sent to Mr Neden, they sent the wrong spreadsheet that declared the actual profits to the Home Office back in 2016, and the Home Office demanded cost savings. I believe that they were offered £120,000 in return for a 12-month extension on the contract, instead of what I think would be fit and proper to do, which is to send the auditors in at the point when you discover that they are making more profit. I am aware that staff vacancies are held, for example, and I am aware that at one point there were 18 vacancies. Each vacancy was at £26,000, so you can see how profit is made quite quickly. Also, the contract is uplifted each year, rightly so, in relation to RPI. However, the costs of running the centre are not necessarily in line with that. The cost of rice, for example, does not go up 4%. However, schedule S of the contract explicitly compels the contractor to look for cost savings and report them immediately to the Home Office. Therefore, if profit has gone above the original contracted price, they should be declaring that not as extra profit, but as a cost saving to the authority. Numbers can always change, but the percentage should always remain the same.

Naz Shah

I am used to hearing a lot of stuff in this Committee, but today’s session would be shocking by anyone’s standards. For 10 years you have gone to the police—to two different police forces—to Ministers, to the House of Lords and to MPs. You have whistle-blown for 10 years on the systematic abuse of power and on the fraud. You have been suggesting that that has been happening and has been allowed to continue under this programme. That is in addition to the Medway “Panorama” programme, and it still was not addressed. Is that what you are saying?

Rev. Nathan Ward

Yes, and since then I have had my car tyres slashed four times. I have had four anonymous letters. In the last week, I have had 12 anonymous phone calls.

Naz Shah

Wow. I am so sorry.

Stephen Doughty

What action have the police taken about any of that?

Rev. Nathan Ward

There has been no further action on the car tyres or the anonymous letters or the phone calls.

Stephen Doughty

And you reported that to—

Rev. Nathan Ward

Kent police.

Stephen Doughty

On what date did you report these incidents?

Rev. Nathan Ward

As and when they happened.

Stephen Doughty

But over the past few months, basically.

Rev. Nathan Ward

Yes. I must say on the record that Kent police have been tremendously supportive. I am deeply grateful to them, and I thank them for the job they do in tough circumstances, but that just sets the context. Last week, I was phoned up by G4S asking me to participate in their investigation. That was Peter Small, who I believe is the director at Rye Hill prison. He asked me to share the document that was seen on television in relation to the notes I took to Jerry Petherick. I shared that with him, but one of my points to him was, “I raised concerns with your line manager. Are you telling me that you are investigating your own line manager?” One of the questions is: why is it that the Home Office are allowing G4S in one sense to mark their own homework and do their own investigation? Who is doing an independent investigation into this? This is a humanitarian crisis in what is supposed to be a civilised country. It demands a response from Government. It is a shame that the Minister has not spoken to Parliament in relation to this to date. It is a shame that no statement has been made on the Home Office website. It is a shame that my friend’s early-day motion has been signed by only 15 people to date—none from the Conservative party and only one from Labour. To be fair, it is a disgrace.

Chair

Are there any further questions that you think need to be raised with G4S?

Rev. Nathan Ward

Who is looking after the 500 or so people, today, at Brook House? What we know is that the people tasked to safeguard them have systematically failed, so who new is being put in place to ensure that this is not happening today? Who is looking after the children at Oakhill STC, who are still being looked after by the same people that I raised concerns about at Rainsbrook STC and Medway STC? Why is it that the Government have not instigated the independent board for STCs, after Medway? They haven’t got it organised.

Chair

In terms of questions for the Government and the Home Office, what would you say they are?

Rev. Nathan Ward

To be honest, the only way I can describe it is that it seems that there is an awful lot of collusion between G4S and the Home Office in relation to this matter. Who is holding them to account?

Chair

Finally, would you be able to provide as much as possible of the information that you talked about to the Committee?

Rev. Nathan Ward

Yes. I am more than happy to do that. I can ask my solicitor to pass that on to you.

Chair

That would be immensely helpful. Mr Wilson, do you have anything to add?

James Wilson

In terms of questions for the Government and the Home Office, I come back to the point that I hope that the incidents are investigated very thoroughly and that that is taken as far as possible, and that this Committee, Parliament and the Stephen Shaw review, which has now begun, don’t lose sight of the fact that it is ultimately the Home Office that is responsible for the detention and for the safety of people in detention during that time. In the last two years, following the previous Shaw report and the APPG findings on 2015, there have been Government commitments to reform detention seriously, and they have not happened at all.

Rev. Nathan Ward

The only point that I would like to make is that this is not about me or anything apart from vulnerable people held in detention centres. I would urge the Government to bring an end to indefinite detention, capping it at 28 days. I would urge the Government for judicial oversight after 72 hours and to adopt an immigration policy that has a de-emphasis on detention, simply because it is costly and ineffective.

Chair

Mr Wilson and Mr Ward, thank you very much for your evidence, which has been immensely helpful. We would be grateful for any further evidence that you are able to provide. We will continue to pursue this, in the next evidence session and beyond. Mr Ward, can I also say that I am very sorry that you have experienced personal threats and attacks as a result of speaking out? The fact that you have continued to do so and have spoken to the Committee is very much appreciated. If there is any further abuse or incidents following this Committee and they are not taken immensely seriously by the police, we as a Committee would be extremely concerned and would appreciate knowing if that happens.

Rev. Nathan Ward

Thank you. Examination of witnesses

Witnesses

Peter Neden and Jerry Petherick.

Chair

We begin our second panel session. Mr Neden and Mr Petherick, welcome to the panel. Could you briefly tell us your roles within G4S?

Peter Neden

Yes, certainly. I am Peter Neden. I lead G4S’s business for the UK and Ireland. That includes all our work with businesses and all our work with Government. We employ about 35,000 people in the UK, and the split between Government and our commercial business is that around 11,000 of those people are deployed on Government, and the remainder are employed on our commercial business.

Jerry Petherick

Good morning. I am Jerry Petherick. I am responsible for our custodial and detention services business, which covers five prison establishments, one secure training centre, obviously the immigration removal centres and the community contracts that we operate either directly or in a consortium in south Wales.

Chair

Thank you very much. We are obviously conducting this hearing as a result of the “Panorama” programme. Let me ask you first about some of the abuse and mistreatment that was shown on the screen. There was abuse, mistreatment and bullying; a restraint expert using and encouraging very racist abuse; threats and reports of violence and aggression towards detainees, with one member of staff saying, “Hit him with the edge anywhere between the knee and the throat,” another saying, “If he dies, he dies,” and another saying, “I’m going to put you to fucking sleep”; and a failure to properly handle serious mental health problems, to document restraint and to intervene to stop drugs circulating. Would you have been aware of any of those things or taken any action on them, had there not been a “Panorama” programme?

Peter Neden

I was ashamed of what I saw and am very sorry for what we saw. I can assure you that if we were in any way aware of any of that behaviour, we would have taken action. Of course, since the “Panorama” programme, we have taken action. We immediately suspended 10 members of staff and have now dismissed three of them, and there are ongoing investigations into the conduct of the other people involved. We have informed the police and provided all the evidence we can to assist them with their inquiries, and we are also undertaking an immediate action plan to make sure that this cannot happen again. We take these events very seriously indeed. There is no place for behaviour like that in our business.

Chair

Well, it did happen, and you weren’t aware of it and clearly had no systems in place to ensure that, if anything like any of those incidents happen, they are reported and that senior management is aware of it, to prevent it from happening. You clearly have a system failure to allow those things to happen in the first place.

Jerry Petherick

As Peter says, we were both absolutely ashamed and disappointed, because it does not reflect the behaviour of the vast majority of our staff, either at Brook House or elsewhere, who do a very good job in very trying conditions. We need to remember and acknowledge that. Obviously, we are looking at the systems because I expect such uses of force to be examined on a regular basis by committee. I believe that had that happened, some of these cases would have been identified and dealt with.

Chair

Had what happened you would have identified the cases?

Jerry Petherick

Well, the examples that you quoted and were shown on “Panorama”, the most appalling one of which was the incident in the room where a member of staff—a former member of staff—used inappropriate restraint techniques. He is obviously not taught about those, because all the staff actually go through fully recognised, fully certified training on control and restraints, and they are renewed in that training every 12 months.

Peter Neden

If I may just provide some context here, we do not operate the centre in a vacuum. There are Home Office representatives present every day, we are inspected by HMIP—the most recent being November ’16, when the centre received a rating of “good”, which is the third highest—and we operate under the scrutiny of the IMB, which visits every day. That said, it is absolutely true that, with all those safeguards and, indeed, our own whistleblowing facility, the whistleblowing facility was not used in these cases. The system does work. It has been active over the last two years, since I have been in this role, but on this occasion it was not used. I am as upset as anybody about that, which is why in addition to the immediate actions that we are taking to ensure that this cannot happen again, we also intend to commission an independent review to understand the root causes.

Chair

How do you know that the system works if it clearly didn’t in this particularly disturbing case, but also in terms of the wider apparent culture among a group of staff?

Peter Neden

I know that it did not work in this instance because these particular incidents were not reported through our whistleblowing line, but the system is active and operating. We have a group-wide programme and facility for whistleblowing that reports cases. I get a regular stream of them. I actually see that as a sign of a healthy business, where people are prepared to speak out. For every one of those cases we allocate a proper investigator—it might be a lawyer or it might be a senior manager, but always from outside the operation—and each of those cases is reviewed thoroughly and we take appropriate action depending on what we find. That system is working, but it was not used in this case and that is one of the things that we really need to get to the bottom of.

Chair

How many reports a month do you have on your whistleblowing system?

Peter Neden

In the last two years, I have received around 100 through our whistleblowing system.

Chair

One hundred over a period of two years.

Peter Neden

Over the period of two years, I have received, through our system, around 100 cases, but that is across a business that employs 35,000 people.

Chair

How many from Brook House?

Peter Neden

There have been 11 matters in relation to Brook House, and all of them have been in relation to staff behaviour or employee behaviour. None of them have been in relation to detainee behaviour.

Chair

So, 11 over the last two years at Brook House in relation to staff behaviour?

Peter Neden

Yes. Staff-to-staff behaviour.

Chair

Staff-to-staff, not staff-to-detainees?

Peter Neden

No.

Chair

So you have had no whistleblowing in the past two years on behaviour by staff towards detainees?

Peter Neden

Not that I can see in our records, no.

Chair

So, “Panorama” produces footage showing not just violent abuse but verbal abuse, repeated examples of contemptuous attitudes towards detainees who they should be protecting and keeping safe, a series of failures to implement proper procedures on mental health and safeguarding and serious incidents that took place. Yet you say that you had no complaints through the whistleblowing process by a member of staff about another member of staff at all, and you think your whistleblowing procedure is working. Do you want to reconsider that answer?

Peter Neden

No. I am saying the system is operating but it did not bring to light the instances raised in “Panorama”.

Chair

Is there is a difference between saying a system is operational and saying that it is working?

Peter Neden

Well, the system is active and we receive matters of concern being raised to us, but it did not bring to light these particular matters.

Chair

But it does not seem to have brought to light any matters about the treatment of detainees by staff.

Jerry Petherick

Can I just say that this is an area that obviously concerns us? We will be looking at it and re-energising it. It will be for the independent review also to look at that. We should also remember that detainees have other avenues of complaint. I want the whistleblowing line to work because that is when I will be at my happiest, but detainees can also complain direct to Home Office officials, who will instigate a number of investigations. The independent monitoring board is an experienced group of lay people. Intriguingly, one of the IMB members at Brook House is a retired former prison governor, so is very experienced in this way and, I have no doubt, very well attuned to looking into issues such as this. When I visit, I walk around and talk to detainees. I fully accept that this has not been raised with me. I need to look at that in itself and to have mechanisms by which I can have wider discussions with detainees.

Chair

But we just heard evidence from Nathan Ward who said he had reported and raised concerns repeatedly, including about staff culture and the way in which staff behaved towards detainees, and including raising this personally with you, Mr Petherick, in 2014. Did that just not happen?

Jerry Petherick

No. I met with Nathan Ward in 2014. What was not said this morning and has not been said in the media is that I was not on my own. I had a professional human resources manager with me. That meeting will be part of the investigation into his claims and that is ongoing.

Chair

It is 2017.

Jerry Petherick

I have searched my files and my memory and I have to say that he did not raise any specific complaints about individuals at that meeting. There may well have been general conversation about ethos and so forth. In the aftermath, I have looked at what emails I might have received from him, and I did receive one that was entirely about the terms and conditions of his departure.

Chair

You have said that you are appalled, shocked and that this is all unacceptable and that you are now doing various reviews. That is remarkably similar to what G4S said in response to the footage that came out about Medway a few years ago, in which Paul Cook, the MD of G4S children’s services, said: “We are appalled by the behaviour of certain members of staff at Medway…I would like to apologise personally…The wellbeing, safety and care of the young people…is our primary objective and we are shocked any member of staff would behave in this way…There is no place for the conduct shown in the programme…it will not be tolerated. We take any allegations…extremely seriously.” And so on, and so on. There were then various inspections and follow-ups that took place. How can you still be saying the same thing as you said so many years ago and still not have done anything to address it?

Jerry Petherick

I don’t accept that we haven’t done anything. We have worked very hard at addressing this kind of behaviour, making it very clear that it is unacceptable. Where we see it, and when we can prove it through investigation and so forth, we deal robustly with it. We are reliant on people on occasion telling us about that and it is our responsibility to investigate that, and I believe we have done so. There may be the occasional lapse that should not happen but we are all human beings. We need to put in systems to prevent anything like that, and I believe we are doing that. I believe we take robust and determined action. I have worked in this vocation for 35 years, in a range of facilities. I know my personal standards, and I know what I take forward and deal with. I will not tolerate any behaviours such as this.

Chair

But the challenge for you is whether you have any kind of system in place that would allow you to be made aware of these kinds of thing happening.

Jerry Petherick

We have systems in place. We need to check why it didn’t happen in this case; I fully accept that. That is on my shoulders, and no one else’s.

Chair

It didn’t just happen in one case, though; it happened in a whole series of cases. None of the incidents of abuse, inappropriate language or inappropriate response to mental health circumstances documented in the “Panorama” programme appear to have come through your whistleblowing system at all.

Jerry Petherick

Can I please address the issue about mental health, looking after detainees at risk of self-harm and so forth? It is a matter of real concern and interest for us. On reception at Brook House, every detainee is seen and evaluated. When there is an immediate need for mental health intervention, an immediate referral will be made to the appropriate medical facilities, either within 24 hours in extreme cases or within 72. There is ongoing care for the individual. We train people in that. There is an ongoing system of looking after people who are at particular risk of harming themselves. That is the same system as in every other immigration removal centre, or indeed prison establishment. It is very effective. Where I have a concern about an individual—another member of staff, a detainee—we will put in a supported living plan where necessary, which Stephen Shaw commended. Our interventions range from periodic interaction with the detainee right up to 24-hour-a-day, one-on-one supervision and observation of that detainee. It is a really important aspect of our work. The chief inspector, on the last inspection, as ever, conducted a survey of detainees looking at a number of dimensions. In that report, Peter Clarke states that 41% of those detainees surveyed expressed, on arrival at Brook House, concern about their depression or indeed thoughts of self-harm or suicide. That is vitally important to us, and I absolutely expect us to take every possible care of those individuals. Mental health is a vitally important area of our work.

Chair

So when you—

Peter Neden

Forgive me—I was just going to observe that of course we are not operating in a static system. In the area of drugs, for instance, as we get good at closing down one route by which drugs come into our facility, another route will be opened up. Things are constantly evolving, and we need constantly to stay ahead.

Chair

We will want to come back to the drugs issue. On the mental health issue, is it your contention, Mr Petherick, that the incidents of mental health cases shown in the “Panorama” programme were handled appropriately? Were they a minority, or a more extensive problem that you need to address?

Jerry Petherick

Let me be very clear: I do not contend at all that any of the actions we saw on “Panorama” were acceptable in any way, shape or form. That is absolutely clear. I always want to do more on the issue of mental health and self-harm. As a company, we do. A year ago, Peter instituted a committee to look at such issues. We meet regularly, and we the operators are challenged on it, because the company’s expectation is that we continually do better. That is absolutely the right expectation. I will never sit here and say we are doing everything we can, because there will always be something else. Any custodial professional manager who sat here and said anything other than that would not be believable, because that is in our DNA. That is what we believe. We are here to look after and care for people, because we are all human beings, at the end of the day.

Chair

In that footage, we saw a series of individual staff members—not just one, but a series of staff members—who clearly exhibited very contemptuous and hostile attitudes towards detainees. Why was that not picked up by line managers?

Jerry Petherick

I’ve asked myself that ever since the programme, because that is my expectation, and ultimately I am accountable for this business, so ultimately I have failed in driving in those expected behaviours. I cannot give you the entire answer, because some of that is down to the investigations that we have commissioned, but I think it’s a very fair question and it is one that I examine myself on.

Stephen Doughty

The Chair has already covered the information about the complaints that were made to you, Mr Petherick. Mr Neden, you mentioned drugs a moment ago. We’ve been told that you were personally told in January this year of allegations regarding staff dealing drugs, including Spice, to detainees. Did you receive such a complaint and what is your assessment—what action have you taken?

Peter Neden

I don’t recall the specific incident. As I say, I receive a number of—

Stephen Doughty

No, no—have you received a complaint about staff dealing drugs?

Peter Neden

I don’t recall that particular incident—

Stephen Doughty

Have you checked your records?

Peter Neden

You’re only just telling me. As you can imagine, I receive a number of areas of concern, occasionally directly or more likely through the whistleblowing facility that we have, and in every case we allocate an investigator to look into those claims and take appropriate action.

Stephen Doughty

So have you ever received allegations about staff dealing drugs at the centre?

Peter Neden

I do not recall ever receiving—and I am not trying to obfuscate. I really do not recall—

Stephen Doughty

Have you, Mr Petherick?

Peter Neden

But I do know that occasionally some of our staff do indeed enter into inappropriate relationships and start to bring contraband into our centres—

Stephen Doughty

How many staff have been suspended for those reasons?

Jerry Petherick

We have ongoing operations at the moment, and this is an issue—drugs, and Spice in particular over the past 36 months—that’s become a real problem, as we’re all aware, in all custodial detention settings. It’s something that concerns us and we obviously look at how these things are coming into any centre. Let’s look specifically at Brook House, because some of the ways that drugs come in to other custodial establishments don’t apply at Brook House, and that’s primarily the method of throwing drugs over the perimeter fence, because there is heightened security against drones and so forth because of the physical location. Drugs come into these establishments in a number of ways: through visits, and we’ve had success in intercepting that; and internally, in detainees themselves, as they come into the centre. It’s a well-known fact that detainees and other people in custody and detention will actually act as mules to import drugs. They will secrete drugs internally, in body passages that we have absolutely no right or ability to search.

Stephen Doughty

Can I just come back to your staff specifically, though? How many investigations have there been? How many staff have been suspended?

Jerry Petherick

The answer to the question is “nil”. There are ongoing operations that, for very obvious reasons, I don’t want to go into. It’s something that we’re very well aware of—the risk—because the risk and the reward—

Stephen Doughty

When were you first told about staff allegedly dealing drugs?

Jerry Petherick

Oh, many years ago, because—

Stephen Doughty

But nobody’s been suspended or—?

Jerry Petherick

Well, no, in terms of the possibility of staff dealing drugs—many years ago, across the estate, because that’s one of the ways in which drugs come in. In terms of Brook House, as I say, there are ongoing operations that it would be inappropriate for me to give any details of in a public arena.

Peter Neden

But we have—I think I’m right in saying—dismissed staff on previous occasions where it’s been proved that they’ve been bringing drugs into a centre.

Stephen Doughty

But you can’t tell us? You haven’t got a number? You can’t tell us—I mean, you said you’d known for “many years”, but you say there have been zero suspensions or investigations—

Jerry Petherick

We are very happy to write to the Committee with the details of who has been suspended or dismissed as a result of drug-trafficking into our facilities.

Stephen Doughty

I want to ask about whistleblowing and the consequences for the whistleblowers. I have been shocked by some of the evidence that we have heard. We are aware from evidence from the previous panel and from stuff that I have seen that the whistleblowers about Brook House have been intimidated since the allegations have come to light. We have heard allegations about tyres being slashed, threats on social media and threats to them personally, and I know that the latter are being investigated by the police. When I commented on social media about the programme, individuals responded by making allegations about the individuals making the allegations in the programme. Do people feel safe or able to make allegations because of that behaviour? Is that a problem?

Jerry Petherick

I need to make it absolutely clear that this is the first I have heard about those allegations, because I am not aware of any tyres being slashed or anything like that. I really don’t know that, and I have to make it clear that this is the first that I have heard about that. Let me also be very clear about my expectations. Anybody using the whistleblowing line has protections, and I expect those to be absolute. Where they are not, they need to be referred to the appropriate authorities. I would certainly do that and encourage other people to do that. This is one of our safeguards and I will protect that safeguard in every way that I can. Before this morning, I had not heard any of those allegations.

Peter Neden

If I could provide a bit of context on the whistleblowing facility, it is run by an organisation external to G4S. Any allegations raised are investigated by someone from outside the operation, often a lawyer, although not always a lawyer, and then I review the cases to make sure that we have done the right thing. In addition, each year we provide a report to a sub-committee of our main board and the overall functioning of the whistleblowing facility across the group is reviewed by that committee and it forms part of our annual report. There is absolutely no place for—

Stephen Doughty

One last question. When I asked you about whether you had received the email on drugs, Jerry, you said that you get lots of emails, and that you cannot recall a specific one. Why is the correspondence coming in to your accounts directly, Peter and Jerry, not being sifted appropriately for whistleblowing that may be sent directly to you or to internal complaints?

Peter Neden

If I receive something that I consider to be a whistleblowing complaint, I will refer it.

Stephen Doughty

So it is about your judgment.

Peter Neden

As you would imagine, I receive a very large amount of correspondence, and where I consider that someone is raising something that is rightly a whistleblowing complaint, I will refer it to our legal counsel to be taken through the normal process.

Stuart C. McDonald

As far as we know, the behaviour we saw on the “Panorama” programme could have been going on for years, and as far as I can tell from the programme—perhaps you can comment—the staff involved were not new recruits but had all been there for several years. Should we have questions about whether the oversight mechanisms in place are failing us?

Peter Neden

I think we absolutely should be questioning our own management and the oversight mechanisms in place: the role of the HMIP, the Home Office and the role of the IMB. We are taking immediate action because we need to make sure that such behaviour cannot happen today, but, as you say, this is a long-term challenge. These are demanding places in which to operate; they are distressing for the detainees and demanding for the staff who operate there. That is why we wish to commission an independent review to understand the root causes and what we do to make sure that it can never happen again.

Jerry Petherick

Additionally, we are looking at how we deploy staff, and the team structure in which we do so. We must get a balance between people being confident with the people they are working with, and not being complacent about or complying with behaviour and so on. We are looking at how we can rotate staff, and indeed managers, to minimise the risk, while maintaining some of the necessary confidences and balances of staff who operate in these environments.

Stuart C. McDonald

But am I right in thinking that the staff involved in many of the instances highlighted have been there for several years?

Jerry Petherick

Yes, they have. One of the other things that we are already acting on is to place an order to increase the number of body-worn video sets that will be issued to staff, because our increasing experience is that the wearing of such sets is actually a major safeguard for the individuals. It actually enhances the security and control in the centres, so we are looking both at the human bits of staff teams and deployments and at where we can bring technology in to utilise it better as a safeguard for everyone.

Stuart C. McDonald

Do you accept then that the concern is that, for example, had “Panorama” done what it did recently two years ago, it might well have found the same thing? Despite the fact that your mechanisms have not been picking up whistleblowing or complaints or otherwise, this could have been ongoing for two, three, five or six years, or a decade, for all we know.

Jerry Petherick

It would be a speculation for me, and this is not the place to speculate in that way. I come back to a number of things: the experience of the IMB and the experience of the inspectorate. We should remember that the inspectorate is largely staffed by very experienced operational managers who do not just walk round and take things at face value; they dig. It is quite right that they dig and they follow the trail. I absolutely support them and value them in following the trail. I know how well they follow the trail. There are a number of mechanisms that we have that we place some reliance on, but ultimately it is an issue about the reliance I have on myself and my management structure to detect this kind of behaviour.

Stuart C. McDonald

Mr Neden, you referred earlier in your evidence to the presence of the Home Office on site. What is it that the Home Office is doing? What are the roles? How big is its presence there?

Peter Neden

Jerry can take that one.

Jerry Petherick

It is an extensive presence that certainly we encourage. When I visit it is usually the case that the Home Office monitor is in the morning operational meeting, which happens at every establishment. Events are discussed and cases and other operational things are discussed. It is an entirely open session. Incidents from the day before are discussed. Concerns about individual detainees or an upcoming chartered flight are discussed. So they are there. Their prime role is casework and helping us to deliver the role of the centre, which is to move people through the centre, either on admittance to the country or out of the country. This is a very busy centre. In the 12 months up to 30 August there were over 14,000 movements through Brook House, so the throughput is large. It is therefore important that we have a close but challenging relationship with the Home Office. In the same way as the IMBs talk about being the critical friend, we need the Home Office to challenge us, which they do.

Stuart C. McDonald

I’m sure they do challenge, but the question then becomes how much do they challenge you on standards of welfare, for example. On the contract that you have with them, what emphasis does that place on standards of detainee welfare? Have any penalties ever been imposed on G4S because of failings with regard to detainee welfare, for example?

Jerry Petherick

Yes, there have.

Stuart C. McDonald

Would you be able to provide us with details?

Jerry Petherick

Certainly. It is important that there is that challenging contract management. That is what it is about, but ultimately it is about our facilitating the movement of the detainee appropriately and carefully, either into the country or out of the country.

Stuart C. McDonald

Can I ask you a little more about the contract? In your written evidence you suggested that the revenue that G4S obtained from Brook House was £11.2 million in 2016. Generally speaking, it varies from quarter to quarter. It costs about £35,000, or maybe £30,000, every year to detain one detainee. Based on almost full occupancy, that would mean a cost to you guys of about £14.7 million, so a loss of £2 million or £3 million, and yet today all the newspapers are reporting a profit of 20%, of several million pounds. How does that all add up?

Peter Neden

Last year we charged the Home Office £11.2 million for the running of Brook House. I am not sure what is in the papers. In terms of what the papers have reported on profit margins, they are simply wrong. They have not shared with us the information that they are looking at, but they are simply wrong. Our profit levels are lower than that. The Home Office have a complete breakdown of the charges that we make to them and the profits that we made going back over the last seven years. Where we have made savings, we have reduced charges to the Home Office for the last five years.

Stuart C. McDonald

Are you making a profit? Does that cover your costs for Brook House?

Peter Neden

We are making a profit on these contracts, but we are not making the profit that is reported in the media.

Stuart C. McDonald

How much does it cost you, on average, to detain someone at Brook House for a year? If you are making a profit on £11.2 million, it must be well below the average cost that the Home Office publishes every quarter.

Peter Neden

I don’t know. We would have to look at that. I don’t have those figures.

Stuart C. McDonald

If you could look at that and break it down for us—as I say, it is generally about £85 to £92 per night, per detainee. On the basis of some of the numbers you have provided, that would mean you are making a loss of millions of pounds. It would be good if you could break that down.

Peter Neden

The centre, of course, does not run at full occupancy.

Stuart C. McDonald

Sure. That was based on 435 places being taken up, which I think was the figure for June this year. Earlier we heard evidence about some of the ways that you make efficiency savings. For example, there was a suggestion that staff vacancies are kept open for longer than would be ideal, simply to save money on wages. There was an allegation that rather than pay for a hairdresser, clippers will be purchased, but you still charge the Home Office for that service. There was even a suggestion that claims are made for items that cost less than £5,000 because essentially the Home Office does not ask for evidence of that. What are your comments on those suggestions?

Peter Neden

I simply don’t recognise any of that.

Stuart C. McDonald

Any of them at all?

Peter Neden

I don’t recognise any of those. We have a contract that is output based in nature. We have an agreed charge rate for the running of the centre, and that is what we charge the Home Office. A couple of years ago the Cabinet Office commissioned an independent audit, carried out by Moore Stephens and PwC, into all our large contracts, including this contract. They tested our invoicing and charging against the terms in the contract, and they found the charging to be correct. So it is simply not true that we charge for individual items. We have a charge for the running of the centre.

Stuart C. McDonald

Finally, the slideshow that various reports have referred to as showing a 20% profit—you don’t understand what that document is?

Peter Neden

Nobody has provided that document to me. I am aware of what was put in the media. What I would say, though, is that we run a large, complex business in the UK and, like many businesses, we run some of the services as shared services. Our insurance, our legal support, our finance function, our HR support and our IT systems are all shared services. The centre management team just never see the costs of those shared services because we don’t want them worrying about the support services. They are all real costs, but we don’t want the centre management team worrying about those things. Even Jerry—I don’t want Jerry worrying about those things. I have other people to worry about those things. So even Jerry does not see the contract profitability; only myself, the finance director and the finance community in the group would see contract profitability.

Chair

The evidence we heard from Mr Ward in the previous session suggested that those sorts of overheads were taken into account in advance, as part of the contracting process and the figures that would have been produced. His assessment in the evidence he gave us was that that 20% to 30% level of profit on Brook House and Tinsley House was plausible and fits with information and data that he had seen over many years.

Peter Neden

All I can say is that the centre management team do not see the contract profitability. They simply cannot, because of our shared services. It is true that we bid for this contract back in 2007, and there would have been an expectation of a profit that we would receive for the risks that we were taking on at that time, but the actual profitability that we achieve is just not visible to the centre’s management team. On some contracts, it is true that we make more than we were expecting when we bid, and on others, some of which were very publicly disclosed, we make much less—indeed, we make losses on some of those contracts. That is just the way those contracts work. There are other ways of running those contracts that we would be very happy to operate if our client wished us to do so.

Chair

Are you saying that you do not make over £2 million of profit on Brook House and Tinsley House?

Peter Neden

No, I don’t think we do.

Chair

Are you saying that you do not make profit of over 20%?

Peter Neden

We don’t make profit of over 20%, no. That is overstated.

Chair

Do you make profits of between 10% and 20% on the contract?

Peter Neden

I am afraid I am just not at liberty to disclose the profits that we make, because that would put us at a disadvantage with our competitors.

Chair

I think unfortunately the fact that some very serious allegations have been made about G4S not providing full and accurate information to the Home Office and, also, the fact that this is profit on a service in which there has now been very serious evidence of abuse and mismanagement taking place, means that actually it is not acceptable for you simply to provide no information about the profitability on these contracts.