The secretive risk assessment tool used in Australia’s immigration detention centres could not be replaced by a better model due to insufficient data collection by Australian Border Force, documents reveal.
The security risk assessment tool is meant to determine whether someone is low, medium, high or extreme risk for escape or violence. It calculates risk ratings based on factors including pre-detention history and episodes that can occur in detention, such as possessing contraband or refusing food or fluids.
The opaque risk rating system, used in Australian detention centres, is riddled with errors and effectively makes the company ‘judge, jury and executioner’, says one former detainee
Imagine there’s a secret rating that dictates where you sleep and whether you are forced to wear handcuffs to a doctor’s appointment. And imagine that rating is based on incorrect information, or unfair assumptions about the type of person you are.
In Australia’s immigration detention centres, each detainee is given security risk ratings decided by an algorithm – but they’re not even told it exists.
Leading Australian defence companies have announced new partnerships aimed at addressing the Australian Department of Defence’s (DoD’s) LAND 8710 Phase 1A programme, which calls for the supply and delivery of amphibious landing craft to replace Australian Army’s ageing fleet of LCM-8 landing crafts and LARC-V amphibious vehicles worth around A$800 million. Austal Australia announced in […]
Serco has enlisted the help of a lobbying firm run by the former chief of staff to the Victorian roads minister as the high-profile UK multinational looks to win a lucrative contract for the part-privatisation of VicRoads. Serco is among three consortiums shortlisted by the Victorian government to participate in a “joint venture model” for…
Hundreds of hospital workers including porters, cleaners and catering staff, will launch strike action from Monday in a dispute over pay.
Members of Unite employed by outsourcing company Serco at London hospitals St Barts, the Royal London and Whipps Cross, will walk out for two weeks.
Unite claimed that the mainly Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority staff are paid up to 15% less than directly employed NHS workers.
Serco said it had recently increased its pay offer to a total of 3%, backdated to last April, adding it was the same as that being received by people directly employed by the NHS.
“It’s time to end this injustice”
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said:
The NHS workers taking strike action have their union’s unwavering support. They face the same risks as NHS-employed staff. Why on earth are they being paid significantly worse while being treated disgracefully?
It’s time to end this injustice. It’s time to bring these workers, employed by Serco not the NHS, back into NHS employment.
Unite regional secretary Peter Kavanagh said:
Our members have worked tirelessly through the pandemic, they deserve better. Serco and Barts need to deliver a pay increase that addresses the poor pay and the inequality of treatment compared to directly employed NHS staff at other hospitals in London.
Shane DeGaris, deputy group chief executive at Barts Health NHS Trust, said:
Over the next 13 months we will be considering future arrangements of the facilities management contract, which could include bringing some services back in-house.
We are hopeful that this matter can be resolved but are working with Serco to put the appropriate measures in place and ensure hospital services are supported if strike action does go ahead.
A rally will be held outside the Royal London Hospital on Monday and later in the week at St Barts and Whipps Cross.
Hundreds of hospital workers, including porters, cleaners, and catering staff, are set to go on strike in a dispute over pay.
Workers united
Members of Unite employed by outsourcing company Serco at London hospitals St Barts, the Royal London and Whipps Cross, will walk out for two weeks from 31 January. The union warned that further strike action will follow if the demands of the workers are not met.
Unite claimed that the mainly Black, Asian and ethnic minority staff are paid up to 15% less than directly employed NHS workers. Serco said it had recently increased its pay offer to a total of 3%, backdated to last April, adding it was the same increase as that being received by people directly employed by the NHS.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said:
These workers face the same risks as NHS-employed staff but they are paid significantly worse and treated disgracefully. Barts Health NHS Trust have a golden opportunity to bring these workers back into NHS employment.
It’s time to end the injustice of a two-tier workforce. Unite is 100% behind our members’ battle against low pay and exploitation.
Shane DeGaris, deputy group chief executive at Barts Health NHS Trust said:
Over the next 13 months we will be considering future arrangements of the facilities management contract, which could include bringing some services back in-house. We are hopeful that this matter can be resolved but are working with Serco to put the appropriate measures in place and ensure hospital services are supported if strike action does go ahead.
Further strike action could also be on the cards (Peter Byrne/PA)
‘Wasted time’
Taddy McAuley, Serco’s contract director for Barts Health, said:
We are extremely disappointed with the notification of strike action from Unite as we recently increased the pay offer for our employees to a total of 3%, backdated to April 2021. This is the same percentage increase as that being received by people directly employed by the NHS.
While the increase matches NHS staff increases, that would not bring the employees up to the same level of pay. Additionally, the increase to NHS staff pay has been criticised as being inadequate given cost of living increases and previous pay freezes. McAuley continued:
Serco also recently announced a £100 ex-gratia payment for all of our 52,000 front line employees around the world, including all our colleagues at Barts Health. We look forward to further discussions with Unite and hope to work together to find a resolution that avoids the need for this unnecessary strike action.
Unite regional officer Tabusam Ahmed said:
Unite gave Serco and Barts over a month to consider their positions before the union announced strike dates. Instead of using that time wisely, they’ve dragged their feet and offered too little too late. Barts and Serco must now deliver a pay increase that addresses the poverty pay and the gross inequality of treatment compared to directly employed NHS staff in other hospitals in London.
A protest inside two compounds of the Broadmeadows Immigration Detention Centre (MITA North) at the end of December prompted a solidarity rally calling for the detainees to be released. Chevy McBride reports.
Despite efforts by librarians and City of Melbourne councillors to provide library services to refugees detained in the Park Hotel prison it has still not been approved. Marlon Toner-McLachlan reports.
A refugee imprisoned at the Park hotel prison in Carlton told Green Left that three refugees had tested positive for COVID-19 and that many others have symptoms. Chloe DS reports.
Outsourcing giant Serco has won a new contract worth up to £322m to continue running coronavirus (Covid-19) testing sites for another year.
Bosses said they signed a new deal with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to operate regional, local, and mobile testing centres in England and Northern Ireland following a competitive tendering process.
The value of the new contract could change significantly due to its flexibility to levels of demand in coming months, they added. The contract is for 12 months with the option of a six month extension.
This is despite Serco’s involvement in last year’s Test and Trace system, which was denounced as “broken” and ‘unfit for purpose’.
Huge profits
This means Serco will continue operating around 20% of sites across England and Northern Ireland. This includes drive-through and walk-in test centres, alongside mobile sites.
Serco chief executive Rupert Soames, brother of Tory MP Nicholas Soames, said:
We are proud of the part we have played in building and operating the UK’s highly successful Covid-19 testing infrastructure.
From a standing start in March 2020, NHS Test & Trace has grown a network of regional, local and mobile sites which have delivered over 18.5 million individual tests, an average of 51,000 tests a day.
We are delighted that the DHSC has selected us to continue to support them in providing these services for at least the next 12 months.
He claimed that the new contract is unlikely to increase profits beyond previous guidance set out earlier this month.
On 14 June, Serco said it expects underlying trading profit to hit £200m this year. This is £15m more than previously forecast due to the extension of coronavirus restrictions.
Serco has operated around 20% of Test and Trace centres since the start of the pandemic (Peter Byrne/PA)
Serco has faced criticism over the large profits it’s made from the pandemic. Its decision to pay dividends to shareholders has also come under scrutiny.
Criticism
Labour leader Keir Starmer said in February it was “outrageous” that Serco would reintroduce dividends this year.
He tweeted at the time:
Taxpayers’ money shouldn’t be given to Serco’s shareholders via dividends. The Government should have placed Test and Trace in the hands of our NHS and local communities.
But Serco has defended its role, pointing out it repaid previously claimed furlough cash. Serco also highlighted that it shared a £5m bonus among 50,000 frontline workers. Bosses previously revealed they banked £400m in extra revenues from coronavirus-related services. However, it claimed profits from the pandemic were only £2m.
Despite a budget of £37bn for Test and Trace, a report by MPs said it had ‘no clear impact‘.
According to the National Audit Office (NAO), as of the end of October 2020 Serco had signed contracts worth £277m for Test and Trace operations.
Within that, Serco awarded a contact tracing role to company HGS UK, despite it being criticised for how it handled another government contract.
According to figures from October 2020, Serco and other organisations Test and Trace was outsourced to were only reaching around 64% of contacts. This was much lower than the 97% local public health teams reached.
Profits in detention
Serco has also been running Yarl’s Wood detention centre since 2007, which houses adult women and family groups “awaiting immigration clearance”.
Investigations of the centre found staff referring to people detained indefinitely there as “animals”, “beasties”, and “bitches”. Residents have also gone on hunger strike in protest of the centre’s conditions.
Detainees made six allegations of sexual assault over a three-year period. At the time, Serco said there had been no proven incidents of sexual assault at Yarl’s Wood.
Failure to hit targets
After the announcement that the government would give Serco the new contract, Labour MP Dawn Butler said:
Serco failed to hit any previous targets from covid contracts. Why on earth would they be given this lucrative contract?
Serco are a big part of the reason why test and trace failed!
Only four days ago, the NAO said the UK Test and Trace system is still missing targets. Handing a new contract worth millions to Serco leaves the government with serious questions to answer.
Additional reporting by PA. Featured image via PA.
Serco has pleaded not guilty to breaching health and safety at work laws after a mentally ill prisoner killed a guard who was escorting him.
Lawyers acting for the security company, which is currently courting controversy for its running of the UK’s coronavirus (Covid-19) Test and Trace, told Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday that it denies one count of failing to ensure that staff were not exposed to risks to their health, safety and welfare.
Inadequacy and failure
Prosecutor Natasha Hausdorff said this failure had led to the death of custody officer Lorraine Barwell while she was on duty at Blackfriars Crown Court in June 2015.
Humphrey Burke was found by an Old Bailey jury to have killed Serco custody officer Lorraine Barwell (Metropolitan Police/PA)
She also said the incident had happened in the context of “inadequate staffing levels” and “inadequate training”. There had been a second incident at Woolwich Crown Court.
District Judge Vanessa Baraitser sent the case to Southwark Crown Court to be heard on 17 May.
The court ruled that prisoner Humphrey Burke was unfit to stand trial for Mrs Barwell’s murder as he has paranoid schizophrenia. But a trial of the facts at the Old Bailey in 2016 found that he had carried out the fatal attack on the 54-year-old grandmother.
The court heard that he had kicked her twice, once in the arm or body and then a blow to the head, causing catastrophic brain injuries.
Mrs Barwell died in hospital from a brain haemorrhage two days later.
Services Australia has been “run down” by a reliance on outsourcing and private contractors which has led to substandard ICT delivery programs, the public sector union says.
In a submission to a Senate inquiry into Australian Public Service capability, the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) said that under-investment in ICT and an increase in outsourcing had damaged the department’s ability to deliver services for Australians.
“The CPSU is greatly concerned that capability in the APS has been devastated by years of budget cuts, efficiency dividends, the government’s Average Staffing Level cap and the rapid rise of labour hire, consultants and contractors,” the CPSU submission said.
“In Services Australia, core work has been contracted to private providers driven by commercial intent at a cost of over $1.6 billion to the taxpayer.”
Deskilling: Outsourcing has been detrimental to tech delivery capability in the public service
There has been a reduction of 6000 staff at Services Australia in the last seven years, the union said, with permanent employees being replaced by casuals and contractors.
The department’s contracts with labour hire and service delivery partners are worth over $1.6 billion, while consultancy expenditure is expected to hit $20 million in the 2020-21 financial year.
“These are eye watering figures that demand robust checks and balances to see if they bring value to the taxpayer,” CPSU said.
CPSU members have estimated that half of the ICT workers in the Canberra and Brisbane delivery centres are contractors, and insecure employment at the agency is at “unprecedented scale”.
“Services Australia has lost sight of the benefits of in-house ICT development. A lack of career paths for ICT professionals and the government’s bargaining approach have impacted the agency’s ability to attract and retain ICT talent,” the submission said.
“Additionally, the government’s Average Staffing Level cap has driven the increasing use of ICT contractors for both day-to-day and specialist ICT work.”
The Digital Transformation Agency, which is housed in Services Australia, has already spent more than $20 million on “temporary personnel services” in this financial year, across 141 contracts with recruiters and HR firms, as InnovationAus reported.
There is a steep reduction in transparency and accountability when private contractors and consultants are brought in, the union said.
“Valuable funding has been directed to a growing component of insecure workers and to corporate interests to deliver core in-house work. This is driving down the wages and conditions and reducing the employment security of the workers undertaking agency work or engaged by privatised contract call centre providers doing Services Australia work,” it said.
“These corporate interests operate without the same lines of reporting and accountability expected of departments of state, leaving the public with a distinct lack of transparency for the thousands of millions of dollars being expended.”
The Coalition government has “run down” Services Australia through program budget and job cuts, and this reliance on outsourced work, the CPSU said.
Services Australia has listed 31 contracts with labour hire and service delivery firms, with a total value of $1.64 billion. CPSU said these numbers are “staggering and previously unseen” at the agency.
These contracts include $491 million with ADECCO Australia over four years, $145 million over four years with Serco and $121 million over three years with Datacom.
The department should be required to prove that it can’t complete the necessary work in-house before going to outside contractors, the union said.
“The CPSU has been vocal about the phenomenal increase in consultancy expenditure both in Services Australia, and the APS more broadly in the past five years,” the CPSU submission said.
“Agencies must be required to demonstrate their assessment of whether they have the in-house skills and capabilities, and the benefit of nurturing specific in-demand skills and capabilities, prior to going out to tender for consultants and contractors. Agencies must rein in the amount of work that has been opened to private providers.”
As of October 2020, there were 2,277 employees in the Services Australia technology services branch, equating to 7.3 percent of the workforce. But while ICT contractors were previously used mainly for surge capacity, there is now a “strong prejudice” to go to private contractors as a first option, the CPSU said.
“The agency appears to have lost sight of the benefits of in-house ICT development. There is a lack of career paths for skills ICT professionals and this is hamstrung by an APS-wide bargaining policy that limits enhancing APS conditions to attract the best and brightest to tech APS, along with the staffing cap,” it said.
“Members also advise that skilled APS ICT staff are leaving because they have no career anymore in Services Australia.”
Four days after compounds were set alight, detainees report another disturbance involving fire, rubber bullets and tear gas
Further unrest among detainees on Christmas Island is due to the Australian government holding people in “inhumane” conditions, refugee advocates have said.
There were riots on Tuesday night that resulted in two compounds being set alight and advocates and detainees claim a further disturbance on Saturday evening involved fires, rubber bullets and the use of tear gas at the detention centre.
