Chief cops to look into G4S ‘ability’

Last month, it was agreed that plans for G4S to take over a number of Bedfordshire Police ‘back office’ functions should proceed to the next stage, the development of a ‘business case’.

Bedfordshire Police Authority also said it wanted Beds Police to draw up a second, in-house option.

But following a meeting last week, the chief constables of Beds, Herts and Cambridgeshire met members of the police authorities for the three counties on Monday to update them on whether they still thought the company was suitable to provide services such as IT, HR and finance.

Yesterday a spokesman for the police authority said: “The chief constables expressed their concerns, following an initial period of detailed work on the framework contract, that it may not fully meet the specific needs of the strategic alliance for the effective and efficient delivery of organisational support services in future.

“It was agreed that these concerns must be addressed.”

More work will now be done to “explore the ability of the contract and contractor”, said the spokesman, and the chief constables will meet authority members again in August.

If G4S is dropped, the forces will look at outsourcing to another firm.

She added: “If, after this further work has been completed, the contract does not prove suitable, a recommendation would be brought to police authorities to progress a bespoke procurement of a commercial provider to deliver organisational support services.

“This would allow the incoming police and crime commissioners to consider two approaches after their elections in November.

A spokesman for the three police forces said on Monday that the meeting had “taken place against the backdrop of recent events relating to the Olympics, with concerns being raised regarding G4S’s ability to deliver”.

The outsourcing would mean the loss of 248 members of staff from Bedfordshire Police, which currently spends £18 million a year on support services.