G4S

The Financial Times reports that the Ministry of Justice will put prison maintenance contracts out to tender 'within days'.

The contracts, worth an estimated £100m per year, will cover activities such as cleaning, waste management and grounds maintenance at 117 prisons across England and Wales. According to the paper the country will be divided into four contract areas, with any one bidder being allowed to win up to two of the areas.

The National Audit Office (NAO) praises three new prisons built by the National Offender Management Service, in a new report out today.

According to The Daily Telegraph, the NAO singles out screened in-cell showers and toilets as particularly important. When completed, the prisons are set to house around 2,500 individuals.

Six prisoners at G4S-run Oakwood prison staged a seven hour rooftop protest yesterday, BBC news reports. Last month three prisoners mounted a rooftop protest at the same prison.

Last month the Chief Inspector of Prisons described his latest report into Oakwood as 'unquestionably a concerning report'. There was, he wrote in his Foreword:

The appearance of four senior executives from Atos, Capita, G4S and Serco before the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee got off to a slow start yesterday. It soon warmed up.

In advance of the appearance of G4S, Serco, Capita and Atos senior executives before the Commons Public Accounts Committee tomorrow, CBI Director General John Cridland has warned that criticism of the companies threatens to undermine a 'great British export success'.

According to The Financial Times, Mr Cridland said:

G4S and Serco are under criminal investigation after claims that they have been overcharging by ‘tens of millions of pounds’.

The Guardian reports that the Ministry of Justice was billed for tagging 18,000 people when only 15,000 were being monitored.

The justice secretary is to allow G4S and Serco to bid for Ministry of Justice contracts despite both facing alleged fraud investigations.

The Guardian reports that both companies have been 'ordered to go through a "a process of corporate renewal" which Grayling has said involves both companies demonstrating that they have addressed "internal cultural issues" that allowed the overcharging to happen and have "purged" the staff involved'.

John Grayson gives the low down on the involvement of private companies in the provision of housing for asylum seekers on the Institute for Race Relations website.  

More woe for G4S as a former employee claims cost-cutting at the global security company caused tags to fail:

'Because they recycled the kit, it would break down. The batteries would run out and then on our system it would show up as them not being there. This means that people would be home but showing on our system as absent.'