G4S staff have been making fake 999 calls so the corporation could make more money.

999 response times can mean the difference between life and death. So G4S, which runs the emergency control room for Lincolnshire police, has a target of answering 92% of emergency calls within 10 seconds. If it doesn’t meet that target, it gets fined.

But the security giant was falling behind, so staff members made hundreds of bogus calls during quiet times to boost its figures -- manipulating crucial safety data for financial gain.

G4S can’t be trusted with our public services. Just a few years ago, the scandal-hit company was barred from bidding for new government contracts -- but that ban was quickly lifted. Let’s tell the government to reintroduce the ban.

Let’s tell Theresa May to ban G4S from all government contracts.

The staff involved in the 999 scandal have been suspended and are now under investigation -- but that’s not enough. G4S needs to be held to account. Time and again, the corporation has shown us that it routinely puts private profits over public safety and the public interest. It’s has been caught overcharging taxpayers by millions while dodging its own taxes. It failed to provide enough security for the London Olympics, meaning the army had to step in. Its staff were found to have ‘unlawfully killed’ a man who was being deported to Angola. And, just recently, the government has had to step in and take control of a young offenders’ unit, after G4S staff were accused of assaulting children.

All of this should be a wake-up call to the government to stop outsourcing essential public services to private contractors like G4S. But instead, our government outsources more than any other government in the world, handing £120 billion of taxpayers’ cash to private outsourcing companies since 2010 -- to run everything from our prisons to our 999 call centres.

It has to stop. Over 130,000 SumOfUs members have told the government to cancel all NHS contracts with private corporations. Now let’s get the government to stop outsourcing our public services to private contractors.

Sign our petition telling Theresa May to ban G4s from getting any government contracts.