Confidential documents seen by The Daily Telegraph revealed that G4S had its fee for managing civilian security staff increased from £7.3m to £60m – a rise of 757 per cent.
At the same time, G4S recruits have come forward to express their concern over the firm’s security preparations. Yesterday, it was announced that 3500 staff from the Armed Forces would be drafted in to help with security as G4S had failed to provide enough people to secure all Olympic sites.
The British public has been holding its breath waiting for an Olympics shambles, with most bets going on travel chaos at Heathrow.
But the latest developments suggest a far more serious hole in Olympics preparations – that of inadequate security.
Today, the Guardian quoted a series of G4S recruits who described the firm’s recruitment and training process as “an utter farce”.
With just two weeks until the Games start, G4S guards told the Guardian that they hadn’t received any schedules or training on X-ray machines.
Yet more whistleblowers came forward to reveal to the broadsheet that as the company struggled to find staff, there were candidates “who couldn’t spell their own name” and “didn’t know what references were”, and that G4S was trying to process hundreds of people amidst “totally chaotic” scenes.
G4S won a £284m contract to provide 13,700 guards but only has 4000 ready to go. The firm reportedly claims that it has another 9000 in the “final stages”.
Perhaps most galling about the Telegraph’s revelations is that G4S reportedly used £34m of its fee increase for “management”, while just £2.8m has gone towards recruitment.
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