The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) contract for security at its Jobcentres across England, Scotland and Wales – long in the hands of G4S – has gone to Mitie. The facilities management (FM) firm says that’s creating the largest security workforce within the UK Government‘s estate. The guarding contract, starting in October, is valued at £136m per year and the Control Centre is valued at a further £3m per year. The contracts will initially run for seven years and five years respectively with the option to extend both for ten years.
Mitie says that its more than 24,000 security officers already protect some of Britain’s biggest organisations (its private sector customers include Sky, and Lloyds Bank), landmarks and national infrastructure.
The contract will employ around 3,000 security officers; they will be connected to a newly designed and bespoke Security Control Centre (SCC) at Mitie’s Intelligence Security Operations Centre (ISOC) in Northampton. The dedicated 24/7 Security Control Centre to provide monitoring services across the DWP’s estate will be integrated with a specialist Access Control Centre in Gloucester, operated by GBE Converge, a fire and security alarms and systems installer and acquired by Mitie in 2023. This will enable response to intruders, panic, fire, and other critical alarms, Mitie adds.
Trading update
The contract win was announced in the firm’s trading update on April 16. CEO Phil Bentley spoke of ‘a record pipeline of opportunities’. He said: “FY25 [the financial year 2024-25] was the foundation year of our new Three-Year Plan, improving the strength of the Mitie platform and investing in our capabilities to accelerate Facilities Transformation for our customers.”
Background
Central government is among the sectors that Mitie has been targeting – customers include the Foreign Office and HM Revenue & Customs – besides prisons and immigration services to government, defence, healthcare, offices (customers include estate management firm Landsec) data centres and other critical national infrastructure, retail; and transport (customers include Network Rail) and airports.
Social value
Alongside the contracts, under ‘social value’, the firm says it will deliver community engagement, employment support, and workforce inclusion. Commitments include working with local schools to identify apprentices, attending career fairs for military leavers, and work with the Mitie Foundation and its Ready2Work scheme to get long-term unemployed individuals into work.
Jason Towse, Managing Director, Business Services (which security comes under) at Mitie, said: “With a presence in nearly every town and city across the UK, the DWP delivers services that impact almost everyone at some point in their lives. Mitie’s security teams will play a vital role in supporting the DWP’s core mission of helping individuals access the employment support they need, while ensuring communities are safe and welcoming. Working with the DWP, we will bring a step change by deploying trained security professionals, supported by robust, intelligence-led services designed to deter and detect potential threats. We’re proud to enable such a forward-facing approach.”
Photo by Mark Rowe: Swindon town centre JobCentre.
