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It is probably not a surprise that our campaign has always struggled to extract information about Hassockfield/Derwentside from the Home Office, despite numerous questions put to the Home Secretary by MPs on our behalf.
For example, we have known for months that the current government management agreement with contractor Mitie was due to end in June. We had also found out that a new management contract was being drawn up and that there was a proposal for this to run for nine years minimum. Something that is as horrifying as it is arrogant.
Local MP Sir Alan Campbell has been putting questions about the contract to the Home Secretary since before Christmas. With the deadline approaching you would think an MP of his standing might be told by the minister concerned at least the name and nature of the new contractor. But the bland reply to his latest letter said nothing.
Now we know – the contract, which is indeed nine years long, will pass from one contractor, Mitie, with a dark record of running detention centres, to another, Serco, with an even darker one.
And how did we find out? Via Twitter!
Not that the news was on the Home Office Twitter feed. The article below from Free Movement gives a hard hitting account of how the Home Office uses social media not so much to inform as to influence the public.
How the Home Office uses Social Media
What willl happen we wonder to Mitie’s Welcome signs…?
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