Thread by @WindrushLives

Yesterday, we got hold of this Deportation and Charter Flights Factsheet, dated Thursday. It concerns the planned removals of the #Jamaica50 scheduled for next Wednesday, 2 Dec. It’s not on the @ukhomeoffice website. [1/30] scribd.com/document/48608…

We contacted them to establish if it was legitimate. They said the doc “did come from the Home Office”, but “hasn’t been uploaded to gov.uk yet”, and was “provided to a number of stakeholders” following requests for information on the planned deportations. [2/30]

It struck us as odd that a doc of clear public interest, setting out the HO’s position on a wildly controversial matter, and providing a few mildly exonerating tidbits at that, wouldn’t be made publicly available. (There are now 2 working days left to the deadline.) [3/30]

We then heard that this company was responsible for distributing this document to those “stakeholders”. [4/30] mmc-uk.co.uk

We tweeted them, and didn’t hear back. So we went looking elsewhere, specifically to the Public Contracts Regulations 2015/102. [5/30]

https://twitter.com/WindrushLives/status/1332424868810420228?s=20

By Schedule 1, par 1 of those regulations, @ukhomeoffice is a Central Government Authority. That means that by the govt’s own guidance, it has to publish certain details of contracts above £10k in value, such as the name of the supplier. [6/30]

There are some exceptions, as seen is the second image above. They can’t possibly apply here. (We’re low on energy rn, but if anyone wants to contend with this later, we’re here, and basically - no.) [7/30]

Post-Feb 2015 contracts are published on Contracts Finder. We searched for every contract on that database with “home office” in it. There were 2,400 results. Handily, these can be downloaded as CSVs and reformatted into Excel spreadsheets. [8/30]

We started off by searching for @MulticulturalMC, using the phrase “MMC”. There were no results. So, on the assumption that perhaps the company wasn’t involved, we expanded the parameters a little, and ended up searching all these terms. [9/30]

There were no relevant hits for any of those search phrases, which were deliberately broad to capture not just the name of that company, but any mention of management, consulting or advisory work, of any kind. [10/30]

1 of 4 things is possible: (A) a scope of work including distributing targeted factsheets to stakeholders was described in some way excluding those terms; (B) it wasn’t outsourced at all; (C) the contract is for less than £10k; or (D) the contract hasn’t been published. [11/30]

We’re ruling out (A) for basic sanity purposes - the CSV table includes a substantive description of each tender, and we haven’t a clue how work that comprises distributing a factsheet - at a minimum - could fail to use any of the searched word stubs. [12/30]

As to (B), whether this was outsourced or not (and that *is* important), the point is it isn’t publicly available, and so it can’t be thoroughly scrutinised. Coming from an organisation that, well: [13/30]

https://twitter.com/WindrushLives/status/1331723176771022856?s=20

We’ve since been told that the doc was created by the Windrush Cross-Government Working Group to prevent the spread of misinformation, by a member of that group. So theory (B) - that this isn’t a piece of outsourced work - is certainly possible. [14/30]

We were surprised to be told this. Here are the stated purposes of the Windrush Cross-Government Working Group (CGWG).

You will note the singular absence of a line item on carrying out @ukhomeoffice’s media enquiries work on deportations. [15/30]

Aside from the fact that the CGWG exists to *support Windrush victims*, and not to do the Home Office’s work on explaining itself (which obligation is anyway to the entire general public, not just Windrush victims), the TORs for the CGWG say this: [16/30]

That, plus the assertion that the CGWG did this to prevent the spread of misinformation stuck in our collective craw. There are multiple accounts of detainees being denied meaningful access to their solicitors, contrary to what this document says. [17/30]

https://twitter.com/followMFJ/status/1332307778011009024?s=20

That is one amongst many. And don’t just take it from us proles; @HollyLynch5 MP has written to the Minister for Immigration this morning, specifically citing a report that at least one detainee is a Windrush descendant. [18/30]

https://twitter.com/HollyLynch5/status/1332649495901974528?s=20

The “factsheet” is pretty adamant that there is no Windrush overlap. Wouldn’t it save our parliamentarians a lot of bother if this information was out in public for everyone to peruse, and not being selectively distributed by the CGWG to Windrushers? [19/30]

This is targeted propaganda. The CGWG - funded and appointed to protect the best interests of Windrush victims, because successive govts hung them out to dry, is instead sending them very much disputed “facts” on deportations. We invite comment from @ukhomeoffice. [20/30]

Back to the 4 propositions set out in part 11 above. Keeping all assumptions open - b/c none of them imply good things - if (C) this *was* outsourced, contrary to the proclamation of the CGWG member, and the contract was worth less than £10k, it needn't be published. [21/30]

We have no idea how much this type of service goes for, so we simply have to leave that open, i.e. it is possible that production and/or distribution of this document was outsourced, under a non-disclosable contract, which would be above board, if morally repugnant. [22/30]

Doesn’t change the fact that it's been selectively distributed rather than openly published for all, including our MPs, to scrutinise.

This - by far the *least* damaging version of this debacle - implies the HO is withholding a factsheet on deportations in 4 days. [23/30]

Which leaves (D): some or all of this *has* been outsourced (contrary to the claim of the CGWG member), under a contract worth more than £10k… and it hasn’t been published, as required by law. [24/30]

We should note that the CGWG member says they do not know anything about a “distribution contract”. (We didn’t ask them anything about a distribution contract - in fact, we didn’t ask them anything at all. But we have tweeted about it, so.) [25/30]

Not much is known at present about how the £500k assigned for Windrush “community engagement” has been disbursed. Options A, B and D do not bode well - this is @ukhomeoffice learning from mistakes, “righting the wrongs”, doing its best to serve a demographic it has abused. [26/30

But, it could be the best-case scenario, we guess. That’s the one where the government is withholding from the general public a factsheet on deportations and charter flights 4 days before those deportations will take place… for no apparent reason. [27/30]

We’ve said our piece on why these deportations cannot proceed without much more scrutiny, at the absolute minimum. Having reached the end of this thread, can you blame us for wanting @ukhomeoffice to show every scrap of its workings? [28/30]

We’ve asked @ukhomeoffice to confirm if there are more of these… factsheets. And to see copies if so. No word yet, but to be fair, it is a Saturday. [29/30]

NB: Please follow @BARACUK @sdetsup @followMFJ @DetentionAction and @BIDdetention for more on the unravelling #Jamaica50 deportation crisis. And listen to this account from a woman whose partner is supposed to be on that flight. [30/30]

https://twitter.com/BARACUK/status/1332693918132166660?s=20

Primary Source [1]: Public Contracts Regulations 2015 legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/102/…

Primary Source [2]: Government guidance on data transparency assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…

Primary Source [3]: Contracts Finder, which btw, is an amusing diversion if you, like the author, have absolute ****-all more interesting going on in your life contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Search

Primary Source [4]: This is company to which some part of this work has allegedly been outsourced - Multicultural Marketing Consultancy Ltd …te.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/079871…