A4E, and SERCO are important players in the ‘welfare-to-work’ business.
A4E’s finger in the Work Programme and other pies is well-known.
SERCO runs the Work Programme in Coventry and Warwickshire, Staffordshire and The Marches; and South Yorkshire.
SERCO also runs a host of dodgy outfits, including the immigration detention centre at Yarl’s Wood.
Apparently they are up to get slice of the Probation Service as well.
First we have A4E (Guardian today),
The training company A4e has been found guilty of racial discrimination and been ordered to pay out £50,000 in compensation, the Guardian has learned. Employment tribunal judges found that the company, paid £345m by the Department for Work and Pensions for its back-to-work employment services since 2010, racially discriminated against Rohim Ullah when it unlawfully dismissed him from its Bradford office in 2011.
Two other white managers who were facing almost identical allegations of failing to follow proper procedures – one of whom was also accused of commenting that an Iraqi customer should “fuck off back to his own country” – were not subject to a similar standard of investigation, tribunal judges found.
Ullah, from Yorkshire, who was “very pleased” at winning the two-year battle, said he was picked on by the company because of the colour of his skin.”I believe the reason why they discriminated against me was they had to find a scapegoat [for failures in the office] … and they thought, we’ll get this black person here.”
In their judgment, the tribunal said it could not understand why A4e, which is appealing against the ruling, chose to proceed with allegations of serious misconduct against only Ullah and ignored the similar allegations made against two white members of staff which were “swept under the carpet or treated as minor misconduct [issues]“.
“The other managers were not even questioned regarding these allegations, but every comment that was made against me, they took it [their investigations] to the extreme limit,” Ullah said.
Giving their verdict, the judges said that 40-year-old Ullah was “the subject of unlawful detriment in facing disciplinary proceedings leading to his dismissal and that he was unlawfully dismissed as an act of race discrimination”.
Then we see this about one of SERCO’s lucrative wings (Observer yesterday),In a statement, A4e said it was proud to have a diverse community of people within its organisation and that it had in place robust policies to protect their rights and to ensure that all staff were treated with dignity and respect.
Three more women have come forward to corroborate allegations of inappropriate sexual contact between inmates and staff at Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre, including claims that such behaviour is still going on.
Their accounts support allegations made by a former detainee in theObserver on Septhember 15 and challenge the assertion made by Serco, the private-sector company that runs Yarl’s Wood, that alleged sexual contact between women and staff is not widespread.
You wonder exactly how they treat their welfare
clients as well.
