- BPP bids to manage 10 public university campuses
- After prisons and escort services, G4S now bidding for asylum accommodation contracts
- Government launches consultation to criminalise squatting and protect business
- Voluntary action 'under threat' from government’s public service reforms BPP bids to manage 10 public university campuses A private, for-profit university has announced plans to jointly run at least 10 publicly funded universities. BPP, named after Alan Brierley, Richard Price and Charles Prior, the men who founded the company in 1976, currently offers undergraduate and postgraduate business and law degrees at 14 UK study centres and is looking to take responsibility for the commercial side of university operations, such as campus estates, IT support and buying goods and services, while the universities themselves would continue to control academic decisions. The company, which would not disclose the names of the institutions it is in talks with, claims that universities could save a quarter of their costs if they agreed to the model. Last July, BPP was granted degree-awarding powers, and with them the right to call itself a university college, making it the first new private university in the UK for more than 30 years and only the second in total with the University of Buckingham. Since 2009, BPP has been part of the Apollo Group, a leading for-profit US educational company that owns the University of Phoenix, now the largest university in America. Phoenix offers degrees by distance learning, which saves on costs, such as contact time with lecturers. The majority of the money saved on teaching is spent on marketing, which amounts to 25 per cent of Phoenix's expenditure. Rarely free of controversy, the university was fined $9.8 million in 2004 for unethical practices in the recruitment of students and in 2009 had to pay $67.5 million to settle out of court a lawsuit alleging that it had used an illegal recruitment strategy. If BPP follows this model and is able to offer lower fees than publicly funded universities, which, from next year will be able to charge up to £9,000 a year, it could soon be on the way to emulating its US cousin. This would sit neatly beside the government's intention to encourage the expansion of private institutions in higher education.
Links:
www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n11/howard-hotson/short-cuts
www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jun/21/bpp-private-bid-run-public-universities
After prisons and escort services, G4S now bidding for asylum accommodation contracts "G4S is delighted to announce that it has been invited by the UK Border Agency to bid to deliver services for COMPASS in all of the six regions...” G4S, the Danish-British security company accused of causing the death of Jimmy Mubenga during a violent attempt to forcibly deport him to Angola in October last year, has been invited to bid to offer “asylum accommodation contracts” by the UK Border Agency's Commercial and Operational Managers Procuring Asylum Support Services (COMPASS) project.
G4S styles itself as "the world's leading international security solutions group", specialising in the outsourcing of state operations such as prison and detention centre management, and the escort and transportation of prisoners and immigration detainees, and patrolling international borders. The company also provides private security services to the international oil and gas industry, private energy utilities, private companies and diplomats around the world. Link:
www.g4s.uk.com/en-gb/What%20we%20do/Services/Care%20and%20justice%20services/COMPASS/
Government launches consultation to criminalise squatting and protect business On 13th July the government launched a consultation on the criminalisation of squatting in England and Wales, saying that legislation prohibiting a squatter from refusing to leave a residential property when required to do so by a displaced residential occupier (Section 7 of the Criminal Law Act 1977), should be extended to apply to non-residential properties. The main consequence would be greater protection of commercial property. The government said it is concerned that the current onus on owners to regain possession of their properties in the civil courts places 'undue emotional strain' on those who have left their properties empty. Housing charities, MPs, squatters, property consultants, activists, lawyers and artists are currently working on diverse campaigns to oppose the government plans, which they argue prioritise the effects of squatting on business over the effect of criminalisation on homelessness. If legislation is passed, one effect of the criminalisation of squatting, and the effective extension of the powers of landlords and owners over tenants and squatters, would be the corresponding erosion of tenants rights to due legal process, as landlords could present tenants as squatters in order to more easily evict them. SQUASH (Squatter's Action for Secure Homes) produced a parliamentary briefingwww.squashcampaign.org/docs/SQUASH-Criminalising_The_Vulnerable-May2011.pdf>briefing in May this year, which outlines their problems with the legislation, arguing it may be unworkable in law, unenforceable by the police, unaffordable to the public purse and harmful to vulnerable people.
Links:
www.squashcampaign.org
www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/consultations/options-dealing-with-squatting-ia.pdf
Dale Farm: Eviction notices delivered On Monday 4th July final notices of eviction were delivered to Dale Farm, the UK’s largest Traveller community. Some 90 families living on the site have until midnight on August 31st to abandon their homes or face their entire community being bulldozed. £18 million has been allocated for the eviction, which could take up to 3 weeks. It is the biggest clearance of its kind, involving the ploughing up of 54 separate plots. The community own the land they are living on and have been offered no viable alternative site. However resistance against the council’s plans is growing in response. Camp Constant, a mass gathering of national and international supporters of the Dale Farm community will begin Saturday, August 27th, to prepare for the eviction, which could happen from midnight on August 31st. The camp will open with a weekend of Traveller history & celebration and will offer practical eviction resistance training. Links:
http://dalefarm.wordpress.com/
www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=3976
www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=3993
Voluntary action “under threat” from government’s public service reforms Responding to the publication of the government’s White Paper on the future of public services earlier this week, the National Coalition for Independent Action (NCIA) has released a series of briefings presenting evidence about the dangers of commissioning, localism and ‘big society,’ which they say are all part of the government’s privatisation agenda:
“Privatisation is not about delivering new or needed services but about making profit out of existing services, where they cannot be abolished entirely. Some voluntary sector organisations have helped to further this agenda by entering into competitions to deliver services on their local authority’s terms. They fail to recognise that, although they themselves are not the private sector, they are still conspiring with a practice which turns community provision into a market place. Links:
www.independentaction.net/2011/06/16/voluntary-action-under-threat-what-privatisation-means-for-charities-and-community-groups/
- After prisons and escort services, G4S now bidding for asylum accommodation contracts
- Government launches consultation to criminalise squatting and protect business
- Voluntary action 'under threat' from government’s public service reforms BPP bids to manage 10 public university campuses A private, for-profit university has announced plans to jointly run at least 10 publicly funded universities. BPP, named after Alan Brierley, Richard Price and Charles Prior, the men who founded the company in 1976, currently offers undergraduate and postgraduate business and law degrees at 14 UK study centres and is looking to take responsibility for the commercial side of university operations, such as campus estates, IT support and buying goods and services, while the universities themselves would continue to control academic decisions. The company, which would not disclose the names of the institutions it is in talks with, claims that universities could save a quarter of their costs if they agreed to the model. Last July, BPP was granted degree-awarding powers, and with them the right to call itself a university college, making it the first new private university in the UK for more than 30 years and only the second in total with the University of Buckingham. Since 2009, BPP has been part of the Apollo Group, a leading for-profit US educational company that owns the University of Phoenix, now the largest university in America. Phoenix offers degrees by distance learning, which saves on costs, such as contact time with lecturers. The majority of the money saved on teaching is spent on marketing, which amounts to 25 per cent of Phoenix's expenditure. Rarely free of controversy, the university was fined $9.8 million in 2004 for unethical practices in the recruitment of students and in 2009 had to pay $67.5 million to settle out of court a lawsuit alleging that it had used an illegal recruitment strategy. If BPP follows this model and is able to offer lower fees than publicly funded universities, which, from next year will be able to charge up to £9,000 a year, it could soon be on the way to emulating its US cousin. This would sit neatly beside the government's intention to encourage the expansion of private institutions in higher education.
Links:
www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n11/howard-hotson/short-cuts
www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jun/21/bpp-private-bid-run-public-universities
After prisons and escort services, G4S now bidding for asylum accommodation contracts "G4S is delighted to announce that it has been invited by the UK Border Agency to bid to deliver services for COMPASS in all of the six regions...” G4S, the Danish-British security company accused of causing the death of Jimmy Mubenga during a violent attempt to forcibly deport him to Angola in October last year, has been invited to bid to offer “asylum accommodation contracts” by the UK Border Agency's Commercial and Operational Managers Procuring Asylum Support Services (COMPASS) project.
G4S styles itself as "the world's leading international security solutions group", specialising in the outsourcing of state operations such as prison and detention centre management, and the escort and transportation of prisoners and immigration detainees, and patrolling international borders. The company also provides private security services to the international oil and gas industry, private energy utilities, private companies and diplomats around the world. Link:
www.g4s.uk.com/en-gb/What%20we%20do/Services/Care%20and%20justice%20services/COMPASS/
Government launches consultation to criminalise squatting and protect business On 13th July the government launched a consultation on the criminalisation of squatting in England and Wales, saying that legislation prohibiting a squatter from refusing to leave a residential property when required to do so by a displaced residential occupier (Section 7 of the Criminal Law Act 1977), should be extended to apply to non-residential properties. The main consequence would be greater protection of commercial property. The government said it is concerned that the current onus on owners to regain possession of their properties in the civil courts places 'undue emotional strain' on those who have left their properties empty. Housing charities, MPs, squatters, property consultants, activists, lawyers and artists are currently working on diverse campaigns to oppose the government plans, which they argue prioritise the effects of squatting on business over the effect of criminalisation on homelessness. If legislation is passed, one effect of the criminalisation of squatting, and the effective extension of the powers of landlords and owners over tenants and squatters, would be the corresponding erosion of tenants rights to due legal process, as landlords could present tenants as squatters in order to more easily evict them. SQUASH (Squatter's Action for Secure Homes) produced a parliamentary briefing
www.squashcampaign.org
www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/consultations/options-dealing-with-squatting-ia.pdf
Dale Farm: Eviction notices delivered On Monday 4th July final notices of eviction were delivered to Dale Farm, the UK’s largest Traveller community. Some 90 families living on the site have until midnight on August 31st to abandon their homes or face their entire community being bulldozed. £18 million has been allocated for the eviction, which could take up to 3 weeks. It is the biggest clearance of its kind, involving the ploughing up of 54 separate plots. The community own the land they are living on and have been offered no viable alternative site. However resistance against the council’s plans is growing in response. Camp Constant, a mass gathering of national and international supporters of the Dale Farm community will begin Saturday, August 27th, to prepare for the eviction, which could happen from midnight on August 31st. The camp will open with a weekend of Traveller history & celebration and will offer practical eviction resistance training. Links:
http://dalefarm.wordpress.com/
www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=3976
www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=3993
Voluntary action “under threat” from government’s public service reforms Responding to the publication of the government’s White Paper on the future of public services earlier this week, the National Coalition for Independent Action (NCIA) has released a series of briefings presenting evidence about the dangers of commissioning, localism and ‘big society,’ which they say are all part of the government’s privatisation agenda:
“Privatisation is not about delivering new or needed services but about making profit out of existing services, where they cannot be abolished entirely. Some voluntary sector organisations have helped to further this agenda by entering into competitions to deliver services on their local authority’s terms. They fail to recognise that, although they themselves are not the private sector, they are still conspiring with a practice which turns community provision into a market place. Links:
www.independentaction.net/2011/06/16/voluntary-action-under-threat-what-privatisation-means-for-charities-and-community-groups/