Asylum Support Contracts

Jo Stevens Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) on securing the debate, which comes on the back of extensive media coverage over the past three weeks about Lynx House in my constituency and, before that, the G4S accommodation contract in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald).

The coverage initially centred on the Clearsprings policy of requiring people at Lynx House to wear wristbands so that they could access food, which made them identifiable to the public as asylum seekers. Some of them suffered abuse and threats as a result of having to wear the wristbands. That was followed by reports of overcrowding and unsafe and unsanitary conditions at Lynx House. There is further coverage in The Guardian today about the likelihood of prohibition notices being served on Clearsprings by the City of Cardiff Council, and the partial closure of Lynx House following an inspection last week that was prompted by concerns raised by South Wales fire and rescue service.

I shall offer two perspectives, first as the MP for the constituency in which Lynx House is situated, and secondly the wider perspective of my growing concern at what are at best inadequacies and, at worst, possible incompetence in the management of taxpayer-funded contracts, which are extremely lucrative for the private contractors who have them. I have a number of questions that I hope the Minister will be able to answer when he responds. If he is not able to address them all, will he write to me following the debate, as I am yet to receive a reply to the letter I sent him on 1 February in which I raised some urgent issues about Lynx House?

The story about the wristband policy at Lynx House broke on 24 January. I immediately contacted Clearsprings and, that afternoon, spoke to the operations director to raise my concerns. We had a conversation in which he readily accepted my view that the policy was inappropriate and agreed that it would be withdrawn. I asked him to implement an alternative identification system for people to get food, such as photo ID cards. He confirmed that a pilot was already under way and that it would be fully implemented within the next few weeks. That change was confirmed in a statement issued by Clearsprings on 25 January.

The Home Office had declined to comment at all on the issue. I wrote to the Minister on the same day to outline my concerns and to ask him 10 questions about Lynx House. I was grateful for his response on 5 February, but it did not answer all my questions. The policy was implemented in May 2015. The Minister’s letter makes it clear that his Department was aware of complaints about the policy in Lynx House as long ago as October 2015. Between May 2015 and January 2016, Home Office compliance officers inspected Lynx House eight times, but nothing was done about the wristbands. It took an exposé in The Guardian and call from me on a Sunday afternoon for the policy to be withdrawn. I asked for the inspection reports to be published, but I have not heard from the Minister, so I repeat that request today. I also asked what improvements the Minister was making to the inspection and monitoring regime for the private companies with which the Department has contracts, but, again, I have not received a response.

There have been further allegations about unsafe and unsanitary conditions and overcrowding, with up to 11 people having to share a small room. The Home Office inspected Lynx House on 27 and 28 January. Subsequently, people have been moved out to a local budget hotel in the constituency, and some have been moved to London. Clearsprings told me that that was so that some painting and decorating could take place; in the light of the probable prohibition orders, it would seem to be much more than that. I do not know whether the Minister has seen today’s Guardian report about the prohibition notices, but it has been reported to me that another 30 people have been moved out to Southall and to accommodation near Gatwick.

I visited Lynx House in November because I had heard concerns about safeguarding issues. I was reassured that those issues had been dealt with, but the managers told me that the numbers of people being sent to Lynx house were “crazy at the moment”. A lot of single men had been sent through by the Home Office—individuals who had been through a lot to get to Cardiff. Many were injured, and there were cases of scabies. I was told that 397 people were at Lynx House that week. That is the biggest number ever, and the staff told me that it was

“well over double the amount we are here for and can manage properly. It’s a crisis.”

Yesterday, I listened to the Minister, along with Mandie Campbell, his director of immigration enforcement, give evidence to the Home Affairs Committee about the inspection regime and the key performance indicators that are discussed at monthly management boards. I suggest to the Minister that that structure does not seem to be working. Will he please make improvements to the inspection regime?

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[Stuart C. McDonald]

I agree absolutely with my hon. Friend. That case fits in exactly with the narrative that we have heard from so many hon. Members today.

A final piece of evidence comes from an October 2015 investigation by Jonathan Darling at the University of Manchester, which highlighted similar problems, including increased distance between asylum seekers and providers, with buck-passing between contractors and subcontractors; breakdowns in communication between key partners; and considerable variations in dispersal accommodation quality, support and opportunities for community integration. In any view, all that is a considerable evidence base and a considerable cause for concern.

As hon. Members have noted, the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), is always quick off the mark, so we have already heard evidence from G4S and its Middlesbrough subcontractors about the red doors incident, and yesterday we heard from the contractors responsible for the wristbands in Cardiff. There was extraordinary consistency between the two evidence sessions. Everyone in essence said, “Our performance under the contract is fine,” and, “We meet our key performance indicators”—indeed, staff at one contractor were actually paid bonuses for meeting those KPIs. “We are inspected,” they said, and Clearel even said that Home Office inspectors were well aware of the wristband scheme and had raised no complaints. Clearel also said, “We don’t get many complaints.” In fact, at one point the Clearel manager seemed to be saying that there had been about 19 complaints from 6,500 householders over a certain period of time, if I noted his evidence correctly.

I am not usually a cynical person, but what all that says to me is that we should also be concerned about the key performance indicators, the complaints system and the inspection system, because those processes are not flagging up red doors or wristbands and, too often, not flagging up the myriad other complaints that we have heard about today. The hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth made that point well.

[Jo Stevens]

On the KPIs, I understand from the evidence to the Home Affairs Committee yesterday that nine or 10 things are looked at monthly by the contract management board. An executive oversight board provides further scrutiny. Does my hon. Friend agree, however, that that system does not seem to be working at all, because nothing is picking up the problems that we have all been talking about this morning?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

The hon. Lady makes an excellent point and I agree wholeheartedly. Having only 17 Home Office inspectors for some 36,000 placements seems wholly inadequate. Furthermore, the lack of complaints is not surprising given the vulnerable nature of many of the people who use the services, as hon. Members have said, and given the evidence that induction packs are often insufficient, if they are even given out at all. It is little surprise that it is not the KPIs, inspections or complaints that are throwing the problems up—it is campaign groups, non-governmental organisations and diligent investigative journalists.

The question is, what more would we discover if we had a thorough inquiry into how the contracts are working? At the moment we can only speculate, but we can all agree that there are enough danger signs for us to say that we definitely need such an inquiry. I have asked for the Home Affairs Committee to undertake that task, although I agree that other possibilities exist.

In fairness to the Immigration Minister, he did not make the decision to switch to the COMPASS contract. That decision was made in 2009, with the then target contracts phased out in time for COMPASS kicking off in 2012. As the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) pointed out, the ambition was to save £140 million on services over seven years by replacing 22 separate contracts with six larger COMPASS contracts.

Although the Minister was not responsible for instigating the contracts, he will soon have to decide whether to extend them and I hope that he will not do so without a thorough and wide-ranging review of contractor performance. I also hope that the Home Office will wait for such a review before pressing ahead with the welcome plans to broaden the number of local authorities involved in dispersal.

We on the Opposition Benches doubt whether such services can ever be amenable to contracting when the only possibility to maximise returns is cutting corners and costs and the people accessing services have no choice in who provides their housing. In other words, they have to like it or lump it, and many asylum seekers will lump it silently. Serious consideration should be given to changing fundamentally how we provide housing for asylum seekers, including a possible return to provision by local authorities. We also have to consider whether the savings envisaged by the COMPASS contracts have been delivered.

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[The Minister for Immigration (James Brokenshire)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) on securing the debate, and on his approach to it. I want to give credit to the charities and organisations that he referred to, which provide support to refugees and asylum seekers in his constituency and across the country.

This country has a proud history of many years of offering sanctuary to those genuinely fleeing persecution. We can look at our record with pride. That was underlined in the speech of the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), who also described the welcome that asylum seekers and refugees fleeing conflict receive in his area. It is important to recognise that clear message, and the Government remain committed to providing an asylum system that protects and respects the fundamental rights of individuals who arrive on our shores seeking refuge from persecution. I have made it clear in previous speeches in the House that I expect those who arrive and receive support to be treated with dignity and respect. I have also underlined the fact that actions that stigmatise, isolate or publicly identify asylum seekers should not be taken. Obviously, several cases that have been mentioned this morning highlight such a picture. Such actions are completely inappropriate, and I welcome what has been done to remedy the situation.

I will come on to the inspection regime and reflect on some of the results of the audit of properties in Middlesbrough. During this financial year, about 50% of properties in Middlesbrough have been visited as part of the most recent audit, in addition to ongoing work. The focus of the team of inspectors is on inspecting about one third of all the properties in the overall portfolio.

The Government provide support through the COMPASS contracts with three contractors—Serco, G4S and Clearsprings Ready Homes. Those contracts provide asylum seekers who claim to be destitute with full-board accommodation in so-called initial accommodation while their means are assessed and, following that, in dispersed accommodation in dispersal areas throughout the country. Since 2012, following a rigorous governance and approval process, UK Visas and Immigration has delivered asylum support services via the COMPASS contracts with the three external providers: Serco in the north-west, Scotland and Northern Ireland; G4S in north-east Yorkshire, Humber and the midlands; and Clearsprings Ready Homes, in London and the south and Wales. The COMPASS suppliers are contractually required to provide safe, habitable, fit for purpose accommodation to comply with the Housing Act 2004 and the decent homes standard. The Home Office has governance and approval processes for all services that we procure externally, including consultation with other Departments as appropriate. All Home Office service contracts include performance standards, which are defined in the contract and managed using key performance indicators.

I want to talk about the issue raised in the National Audit Office report, and some of the assessments that have been made since. As the report highlighted and as hon. Members have said in their speeches, it was clear that the transfer to the COMPASS contracts in the initial period was difficult and bumpy. There were issues, and that was reflected in the fact that the service credits that we impose where key performance indicators are not met stood at £5.6 million in 2012-13 under the COMPASS contracts.

Since the NAO report we have worked closely with COMPASS suppliers to improve standards, using the NAO’s recommendations. That has included conducting joint accommodation inspections and training to ensure consistency in monitoring activities. It has also involved suppliers improving the policies and processes that they use to deliver their maintenance service, investing in existing stock, and replacing properties that did not meet quality standards. In the early years quality standards were not good enough. The situation has improved since then, and in the financial year 2014-15 the service credits that were levied had fallen to £158,000.

[Jo Stevens]

Is there anything in that contract—because, of course, we cannot see it—that provides for the Government to terminate it if there is persistent failure against the KPIs?

[James Brokenshire]

The contracts, with commercial details redacted, are available through the gov.uk website. Obviously I can point the hon. Lady to the relevant details. However, I want to underline the change in the KPI position and the fact that sums levied under service credits have markedly reduced. That is not to say that I am satisfied with the issues that hon. Members from across the House have presented to me today, particularly about the complaints process and the complaints that are being raised.

One issue that has come from the Middlesbrough audit, which I hope to publish later today, relates to inspection. I mentioned that a third of properties were being inspected, and I believe the focus is primarily on the accommodation itself—whether the decent homes standard is being met and what steps are being taken to remedy defects that are identified. The audit has not indicated complaints coming through about the red doors issue, for example, or indeed wristbands. Therefore, as one of the actions coming out of the audit, I have asked my officials to review the issue of complaints and how they are escalated, as well as the questions that inspectors ask the people who use the accommodation, to see that any concerns related to the performance indicator on complaints can more readily come to our attention.