We had complained there were no toiletries and Mears simply said, You have to get anything extra from charities and the churches. Then they turned round and said we could not allow people from the churches into the hotel. We also found that while staff pay at Mears may have compared well to that at other major home care companies, it was still barely above minimum wage. Media. MPS has been caring for residents' homes for over 25 years. Email. Terraquests main work is land referencing researching and identifying rights over property, including ownership rights but also things like planning permission. No report was sent to the landlord. Another contact alleged that None of us know how Mears is working. However, a potential worry for Mears is that its business model depends on winning new maintenance or care contracts every year. Mears Limited 821 000 0004 Northern Ireland Mears Limited 113 000 0005 North West Serco Limited 1 079 000 0006 Scotland Mears Limited 514 000 0007 South Clearsprings Ready Homes 662 000 0008 Wales Clearsprings Ready Homes 334 000 0009 Total value of contracts 4 553 000 000 Serco: 2 109 000 000 Mears: 1 448 000 000 Together they are worth 1.15 billion over ten years. Elizabeth Corrado is linked to the booming world of social finance, where investment banking meets philanthropy for a profit, of course. Mears shares are bought and sold on the London Stock Exchange. In the four South Yorkshire council areas there are around 2,000 asylum seekers in asylum housing, with Sheffield having around 900. Mears current Chief Operating Officer, John Taylor, was Chief Executive of Orchard & Shipman when they won the deal working with Serco. These items allow the website to remember choices you make (such as your user name, language, or the region you are in) and provide enhanced, more personal features. Taxicab Dispatch. Mears rules out controversial policy imposed by previous asylum housing provider Serco Libby Brooks Scotland correspondent Thu 25 Jun 2020 09.46 EDT First published on Thu 25 Jun 2020 09.45 EDT Lettings and management services included. They are responsible for your accommodation. Clearsprings, Mears and Serco are contracted by the Home Office to provide housing for people seeking asylum, as part of a 4bn ten-year contract. Find out about call charges. A massive 42% of staff left the company in 2017. It is not yet fully clear what this will mean for the partnership with Mears. Grandview, MO In Yorkshire and the North East, Mears is replacing G4S whose asylum housing has been notorious for squalor, infestations, and scandal when racist vigilantes attacked homes whose doors had been painted an identical red colour. I went to see Terry, an asylum seeker from the Middle East, at his hotel in West Yorkshire. Please consider supporting our research and analysis by making a donation. Mears have secured three of seven Home Office contracts that are collectively valued at 1.2 bn over the 10-year term. His replacement, Kieran Murphy, is an investment banker rather than a builder. Serco and Clearsprings had been providing asylum housing since privatisation in 2012. Chips and crisps from 1.30 in the afternoon to 8 oclock the next day., Poor health care for pregnant women, people not tracked, Terry told me, In the hotel where I spent two months there was a pregnant woman who was visited by the midwife. The group, formed of housing, community, human rights and legal organisations, wants the Home Office and contractor Mears to improve living conditions. Links. Contact Us Book Your Ride Today. To contact the LAASLO team, pleaseemail asylum@newcastle.gov.uk. Mears has been awarded contracts for Scotland, Northern Ireland and the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber. In Scotland, Mears has a major contract with North Lanarskhire Council, worth an estimated 445 million over ten years, to maintain the councils 36,500 council homes, as well as schools and public buildings. In an early announcement to the stock market, CEO David Miles said it had been a year of very good progress and that business had been in line with expectations. There are few specifics yet about how Mears will run the new contracts and so whether theres likely to be any change from the miserable record of G4S and Serco. All rights reserved. The energy industry makes modern life possible, but few realize how intertwined the electric power, pipeline, industrial and communications industries are in our daily lives. i So-called net debt, which financial analysts calculate by subtracting a companys cash and other easy-to-sell (liquid) assets from the total value of the debts it owes to banks, lenders, suppliers and other third parties. Steve Robbins, regional head of operations in Scotland for Mears, said the number of people seeking asylum support in Glasgow "grew exponentially overnight" when the lockdown began - and the firm . When you visit websites, they may store or retrieve data in your browser. Tel: 0191 230 4777www.newcastlelawcentre.co.uk. These items are required to enable basic website functionality. Until the 1980s, social housing was very largely the responsibility of elected Local Authorities. At half past midnight on Christmas eve, Ruth, an asylum seeking mother with a 3-year-old child, rang me. Merrimack, NH According to the Milton Keynes Citizen, the council asked its auditors to investigate allegations that Mears had overcharged for repairs by up to 80,000 a month, and that 15 million of council money is currently unaccounted for by Mears. Most of Mears contracts are with cash-strapped local authorities. Unite the Union accused Mears of penny pinching stupidity, saying it should just pay for better dust masks that can cover beards. You have accepted additional cookies. The HMOs in the contract must be licensed by local councils. Mears paid out 12 million in 2017, up from 11 million the year before. Telephone: 0808 801 0503 Hotels have become asylum housing. For information on organisations that can help please visitNewcastle Support Directory Family Reunion. An electrical engineer by trade, he worked at Mitie back in the 1990s but joined Mears in 1996 when it went public. Both Serco and G4S complained of losing large sums of money on the previous deals. Right now a window has burst open in the middle of night and we cant close it as it was held shut for 8 years by 1 nail only. I have sued them as repairs are not carried out and rent is nearly 1000/month for council-owned properties that Mears have leased out. United Kingdom, Email: contact[at]corporatewatch.org Mears will release its results for 2018 in March. Prompt rental payments, whether your property is occupied or not. National government determines immigration status and whether or not an asylum seeker is accepted. It also manages the National Planning Portal, which processes most of the UKs planning applications, and last year it bought rival outsourcer Mities social housing division. The storage may be used for marketing, analytics, and personalization of the site, such as storing your preferences. In January Cllr Paul Wood chair of Sheffield City Housing told SYMAAG 'I intend to instruct officers tomorrow (16 January) that the policy of Sheffield City Council is that we want this asylum housing contract to revert to the Council. This is a slippery accounting concept that appears when one company buys another for more than the value of its assets at the time of purchase (see a fuller explanation here). While in the IAC, asylum seekers, whether single or families, receive no money at all, simply a room and food. There is a Mears guy up in Newcastle who has told us he is responsible for 500 properties and has no record of the landlords. Another landlord with eight asylum houses on the G4S contract told me of longstanding tenants contacting him, frightened because Mears repair staff had been in a property and disconnected the fire alarms and smoke detectors and told tenants that someone would return to repair them. Call Children's Panel if you're a child in . In Scotland, Mears takes over from the previous manager, Serco, after a strong local campaign against that companys attempts to evict 300 refugees from their homes in Glasgow. In other Mears contract areas, similar examples were emerging. And in July, the council made a number of U-turns to bring community engagement, neighbourhood employment, and repairs management teams back in-house to council control. We have been renting a considerable number of properties to Asylum seekers ever since the home office contracts began. I tried to contact them but there was no reply for hours. The AIRE contract has been a disaster. In an investor briefing last year, Mears management said they had decided to turn their focus to bigger deals, particularly from central government: Evolution of business means we are gaining access to opportunities previously out of our reach.. Scottsdale, AZ Muslim women with the headscarf were really terrified and very afraid for their children.. All rights reserved. You do not have any money at all to buy anything extra to what you are given. NE1 4AX It also has other business lines including employer security checks. We have a local group in E16 representing Mears tenants who feel conned and let down by this company. The joint venture is now called Mears Scotland, with Mears holding 67% of the stock and the council 33%. Mears did not respond and three days later her ceiling collapsed. 112-114 Pilgrim Street. Would love your thoughts, please comment. Almost 100 million of the goodwill is for the home care businesses Mears has bought (see the section on home care above for details). One notable point: from September 2012 until 2016, Sercos Scottish asylum housing was largely sub-contracted to another scandal-hit company, Orchard & Shipman. In particular, Mears worked on two big government tenders in 2018. Call Childrens Panel if youre a child in the UK on your own and applying for asylum. Mears has been awarded contracts for Scotland, Northern Ireland and the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber. Last week Cllr Paul Wood, Sheffield City Council cabinet member for neighbourhoods and community safety, talked to me about the widespread problems with the management of the asylum housing contracts by new contractor the Mears Group. On 20 October Alex Cunningham, MP for Stockton North, raised issues around the failing Mears contract in the North East in the House of Commons, accusing the government of failing to ensure their new contract works for the people its there to serve. Like G4S, Serco, Capita and other well-known outsourcing corporations, Mears Group has grown from the ongoing privatisation of public services. They said they would do something. Next door I was welcomed by two asylum seeking men on their way out, who encouraged me to look around and take pictures. If something goes wrong and you are not happy with our service, please contact us to let us know. We have a formal complaints process which aims to make sure all formal complaints are recorded, investigated and responded to fairly and in a timely manner. Copyright Mears Group PLC. Tel: 0191 245 7301www.refugee.org.uk, West End Refugee Service (WERS) [1] Still, his 443,000 was more than 20 times the average Mears employees salary of 21,684. Experience of managing around 17,000 homes in collaboration with landlords across the UK. You should receive 28 days notice of the date that you must leave. In 2017, Stroud Council, in Mears own county of Gloucestershire, cancelled its 4 million maintenance contract with Mears after just one year. If you have no other means of support you will be provided with accommodation on a no choice basis by one of UKVIs contracted accommodation providers; in Newcastle the housing provider is Mears. However, staff turnover remains, in Mears words, unsustainable. Terry, a design manager speaking fluent English, told me of his concerns about everyday life in the hotels. . In circumstances such as these, their food is provided and they lose their 5.30 daily, which means they often cannot top up their phones to contact lawyers and family, or buy fresh . Terrorist police came and were hidden in the gardens and parts of the hotel. It explained what this means in a June 2018 investor presentation. Albermarle, North Carolina. A separate investigation by Audit Scotland also concluded that the councils accounting of money payments in the Mears contract was not illegal. one of the UKs biggest maintenance and repairs contractors, Asylum seekers (were) left in houses with no heating. Tel: 0191 273 7482www.wers.org.uk, British Red Cross Annual salary: up to 37,000.00. The Home Office operate a number of regional contracts to facilitate this. These items help the website operator understand how its website performs, how visitors interact with the site, and whether there may be technical issues. In a statement, Mears Group said due to a significant rise in the numbers of people seeking asylum, hotels are being used to accommodate people until more homes can be prioritised. Mears/Terraquests biggest coup is running a big piece of the whole UK planning system: 90% of all planning applications in England and Wales (according to a Mears presentation) go through one internet system called the National Planning Portal. More acquisitions followed most notably Care UKs home care division in 2015 and by 2015 Mears had become the second biggest home care provider in the UK. Mears offers car & limo service, airport & cruise transfers in Orlando & worldwide, bus charters in Orlando & select cities, taxi & shuttle services in Orlando. "The use of hotels to house asylum seekers is unacceptable - there are currently more than 45,500 asylum seekers in hotels costing the UK taxpayer 5.6m a day. We relet properties with them on the promise from Chris that everything would . Founded in 1996, Mears is . Protests at Urban House asylum hostel in Wakefield. VIEW AVAILABLE POSITIONS. Please contact the Asylum Teamat asylum@newcastle.gov.uk. Corporate-critical news and research since 1996, Mears Group: scandal-hit council housing profiteer turns asylum landlord. Email:feedback.mearsliving@mearsgroup.co.uk. Call Freephone: 0800 170 7008 or email: housingadvicecentre@newcastle.gov.uk. According to Mears 2017 accounts, the value of its long term assets add up to 237 million. This experience, combined with our expertise in housing repairs and maintenance, means we are a strong partner for the government to deliver asylum accommodation and support that is safe, habitable and fit for purpose. Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm In the five years between 2013-2017, Mears paid out 52 million in dividends, with the amount rising each year. Continuing delays, disrepair and insanitary conditions have caused one local authority to decide it will tell the Home Office to end its contract with the Mears Group, and will take asylum housing back in-house. Last week I was sent mobile phone pictures from residents of the hostel, showing dirty toilets,crowded shared rooms and infestation by bed bugs.
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