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Two G4S call centre staff sacked over 999 answering scam

Two more quit before internal tribunals, one cleared of wrongdoing

Two G4S staff who were investigated over a scheme to fraudulently meet quotas for responding to emergency calls within a reasonable time have been fired.

Earlier this year five former Lincolnshire police employees were suspended from their jobs with G4S after allegedly calling 999 during quiet periods to improve their performance ratings.

The five had been hired by G4S when it won a £200m contract to run Lincolnshire Police's back-end services – essentially doing the same job as before, but now for the private sector's profit.

As part of the efficiencies that outsourcing companies bring to the public sector, the staff made more than 600 "test calls" to 999 for the purposes of improving their performance ratings, which The Guardian reported included "answering 92 per cent of calls within 10 seconds or less".

At the time, John Shaw, the managing director for G4S public services, told The Register: “There is no place for anyone in our organisation who behaves in this way and their actions undermine the commitment and the good work of their colleagues.”

An investigation into this mischief was prompted back in January after Lincolnshire Police's anti-corruption unit "received an internal allegation that staff within the control room were calling 999 at quiet times to ensure calls were picked up quickly to improve perceived performance," reported The Guardian.

That investigation has now concluded, and it has been reported that two of the five G4S employees have been fired from the firm as a result of it. Two other employees are understood to have resigned before their disciplinary hearings while the remaining member of the call centre staff returned to their job after being cleared of wrongdoing.

Lincolnshire Police told The Register that the staff members' actions were not being investigated as a criminal matter, but left entirely to G4S. G4S did not immediately respond to our enquiries. ®

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