It is not everyday that you get the chance to question officials, yet that’s exactly what you may do on the 1st June 2010. when SERCO come to town, to visit Manchester Users Network in Mainway at Park House Crumpsall, Manchester.
Serco: The Guardian newspaper has called Serco “probably the biggest company you’ve never heard of.”
The international services provider will be explaining and taking questions about the Government’s Flexible New Deal initiative to support jobseekers in returning to and remaining in work.
The value of this contract depends on the number of jobseekers involved in the scheme, but Serco believes the Greater Manchester deal could yield up to pounds £250m over the contract period. (5 years the same as the present coalition Government’s term in office). Serco also run the Manchester Metro Link and many of Manchester Tag Systems that help to keep control of those sentenced by the courts and who are placed on tagging orders. Chip systems that alert the Police if a person is outside of his home when they should remain within their homes between the Courts ordered hours.
Last Sept 2009, Serco announced a 32.8% increase in half year pre-tax profits to pounds 83.4m, on a 30.8% hike on turnover of pounds 1.95bn.
Serco entered 2010 with a record order book of £17.1bn, and significant opportunities of £28bn across the UK and internationally, supported by their substantial capabilities in helping their customers to transform fundamentally the efficiency and productivity of essential services.
The Group reports that it has continued to perform strongly in the first half of 2010, delivering high levels of operational performance, and growing by expanding the scope and scale of existing contracts and by winning new contracts. Their financial position remains strong, and they anticipate good free cash flow generation for the year. The Group says it is on track to deliver on its financial guidance for 2010, and they report that they will continue to see substantial opportunities around the world, in existing and new markets. Manchester Users Network viewed the companys financial statements on Sunday 16th May, 2010 . We have only viewed the companys published statements from September of last year , until yesterday.
In the year to date, Serco have signed contracts across a wide variety of markets with a total value of approximately £1bn.
However, many have made complaints against the company due to its treatment of people in this country and in other countries where Serco operate. In a news story on the London Indy media website in February of this year, it was reported…” Around 50 people demonstrated on Friday 12 Feb, 2010 outside the Holborn offices of SERCO in Hand Court in support of the women detained in Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre, run by SERCO, who are protesting at the inhumane treatment they receive there and whose hunger strike was broken up in a violent assault by SERCO officers .” ..(Read Full details at this link).
http://london.indymedia.org/articles/4310
Below is what a Doctor who is also, a shareholder in the company Serco said in a press release made last week. So make sure you are at the Manchester Users Event to put your questions.
Press Release Tuesday 11 MAY 1.30PM
At Serco’s annual meeting in London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall this morning Dr Frank Arnold, torture scars expert and Serco shareholder asked the following question:
‘Serco is expanding its activities in Healthcare to include NHS hospital management, polyclinics and GP services. At the same time, the company is receiving serious criticism and reputational harm because of its role in the incarceration of children at Yarl’s Wood Immigration Detention Centre under contract to the UK Borders Agency. As the Chief Inspector of Prisons and Children’s Champion have publicly insisted, it is not possible to lock up children (who have done no wrong) without harming them, Will the board agree to take legal steps to obtain release from its contracts with UK BA over administrative detention to improve the company’s reputation?’
According to Dr Arnold, Serco chief executive Chris Hyman replied that Serco had made improvements at Yarl’s Wood including fewer locked doors, a reduction in uniforms and new educational facilities. ‘We weren’t required to do that under the contract,’ said Mr Hyman.
Speaking after the meeting, Dr Arnold said, ‘Chris Hyman invited me to come to Yarl’s Wood with him. I said I’d want to include, subject to patient consent, him sitting in on a consultation so he could see what should be done with patients like this and compare it with what has been done by Serco staff. I’d really rather bring Phil Woolas or Meg Hillier, but Chris Hyman will do.’
Serco director of group communications Dominic Cheetham was at the meeting. His mobile: 0771 804 2605
Dr Arnold’s background note below:
Each year the UK detains around 1000 children (1) in Immigration Removal Centres (IRCs). These children are members of families identified for removal from Britain, who are detained under administrative order. They range in age from very young babies to older teenagers, as well as so-called ‘age disputed minors’, who are alone. They have committed no crime but can be detained without time limit and without judicial oversight. During a recent six month period 83 children were held for more than 28 days
Many of these children suffer neglect of serious medical conditions, both physical and psychological which are frequently made worse by their imprisonment. Examples include children detained while in sickle crisis, continuing detention in ignorance of a vital central venous feeding line in place, failure to provide immunisation and malaria prophylaxis when due, weight loss, behavioural regression, onset or deterioration of pre-existing PTSD and depression, and suicidal behaviour. All of these failures of care have been documented by clinical experts and in parliament and the media (3,4).
The vast majority of these children are locked up at Yarl’s Wood, where Serco is the company responsible for detention management and healthcare. The company has recently made investments in trying to improve the conditions. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that this has actually improved outcomes for these children, and there is considerable recent evidence to the contrary. However prettily you paint the walls, these children are still imprisoned, dealing with the traumas of dawn raids and being locked up. The administrative detention of children is simply too harmful to be accepted in a civilised society.
The Royal Colleges of Paediatrics and Child Health, General Practitioners and Psychiatrists, the Children’s Commissioner and the Prisons Inspectorate have all recently called for an end to the detention of children. This shameful and damaging practice must cease. Serco should seek to terminate contracts which require the company to collude in state-sponsored child abuse.
Notes:
1) Home Office. Control of Immigration: Quarterly Statistical Summary, United Kingdom, April–June 2009. http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs09/immiq209.pdf
2) Lorek A et al. The mental and physical health difficulties of children held within a British immigration detention centre: a pilot study. Child Abuse & Neglect 2009; 33: 573.
3) House of Commons Home Affairs Committee. The Detention of Children in the
Immigration System. November 29, 2009.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmhaff/73/73.pdf
4) Porter H. The brutal truth of child detention. Guardian. November 24. 2009.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/henryporter/2009/nov/24/child-detention-yarls-wood
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“MANCHESTER USERS’ NETWORK”
IMPORTANT MEETING!
Invite’s,
Tracey Phillips of
SERCO (Welfare to Work).
Tuesday 1st June 2010, 10.30am is followed by a light buffet at 12.15.
Held in, “Mainway”
Park House Hospital.
Patients’ views, suggestions needed!
Common Concerns
* Will we all be assessed for work next year?
* Under qualified staff assessing people at Job Centres!
* There is over 2.5million unemployed. It seems obvious they want to diminish our benefit!
* We are charged at Day Centres if we are unable to do voluntary work!
* If we refuse to take medication, can we lose benefit(ESA)?
ALL PATIENTS,
WELCOME.
(Sufferers from Mental illness)
“We need to support 🙂 and help each other.”
Further information Tel Tracey phillips (0161)786 8666/ Alan, (0161) 918 4343/492 0790.
Stories Connected to this Story:
https://www.manchesterusersnetwork.org.uk/?p=9264&preview=true
Important Meeting – Welfare to Work – 1st June added by Paul Reed on
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