IE Liveried Vehicles

Immigration Enforcement to Reduce Use of Liveried Vehicles

Proposed reduction in the use of liveried vehicles by Immigration Enforcement, following a recent incident in Glasgow.

Background

In 2019 PCS detailed our ongoing concerns with the use of Liveried vehicles in IE. At that time (January 2019) Health and Safety leads had raised their concerns at the impact the usage of Liveried Vehicles may have on staff and their ability to undertake their jobs safely. Sadly, at the time our concerns were ignored, as were those of Health and Safety leads. Nevertheless PCS’ concerns remained around the appropriateness of their use from both a business and health & safety perspective.

PCS Concerns with the Use of Liveried Vehicles

From the outset of the introduction of liveried vehicles PCS made our concerns known to Senior managers in IE. We had concerns at the impact the introduction of Liveried Vehicles was having on the Health, Safety and Wellbeing of Home Office staff. Comments from members, staff in general, and also managers continued to question the practicality of an arrangement that increased the risk to their Health & Safety at work, compromised effective business delivery, attracted unwelcome attention from disruption groups, provided a specific focus for that attention, and increased the potential for damage to Home Office vehicles.

PCS can state factually that this issue has featured on the agenda of nearly every IE meeting with PCS since the inception of liveried vehicles, in our continued attempts to persuade the business to rethink the ‘common sense’ position on their use. It is also important to recognise that liveried vehicles have never been used in Northern Ireland due to the acknowledged political sensitivities there. However in most other locations liveried vehicles have been routinely deployed; perhaps without sufficient consideration of the variety of vulnerabilities they represent in relation to Health & Safety, Equality aspects, community sensitivities etc.

Kenmuir Street, Glasgow Incident

Following the highly publicised stand-off between Immigration Enforcement and protesters in Glasgow on 13 May 2021 PCS again raised our concerns at the impact that the use of highly visible Liveried Enforcement vehicles was having on the ability of IE to carry out its work effectively. On 1 July we were informed that, perhaps as a result of the highly publicised event in Glasgow, the decision had been taken to have a 50/50 split between Liveried and non-Liveried vehicles. Plans would be put in place to relivery 59 vehicles nationwide, and to ensure that none of the livery is visible after the re-painting. Any new non-liveried vehicles would be provided in a variety of colours, (e.g. silver, black, blue etc). These measures still needed Grade 7 sign off, and it was proposed that there would be control measures to ensure that the usage profile of each vehicles was examined, so the most suitable vehicles would be de-liveried, and that a defensible reason could be given for having each vehicle de-liveried.

Conclusion

The proposed reduction in the use of liveried vehicles in IE to 50% of the vehicle fleet is a victory for common sense, reflects the challenges and foreseeable problems that liveried vehicles pose for staff in IE and recognises the compromises to business effectiveness that their use creates. However, this only represents a 50% reduction in the use of liveried vehicles. PCS has taken the same line in opposition to the use of liveried vehicles throughout, and following their reduction to 50% of the vehicle fleet, we will continue to argue that all IE vehicles should be without livery, to protect the health and wellbeing of our members, the integrity of the work that they carry out and the effective delivery of their business responsibilities.

PCS advice

Members are advised to contact PCS local branch reps or the authors of this briefing to raise their concerns in relation to the use of liveried vehicles as detailed above, and to report back to us around any related incidents which raise concerns for the Health & Safety of our members.

Stephen Taylor (Assistant Group Secretary), Martin Andrews (Assistant Group Secretary), Patricia Corrigan (Assistant Group Secretary)