COMMUNICATIONS

Let us begin with the first question posed to the Home Office: “Given the independently audited, extreme cost disparity between hotels and dispersal accommodation, could the Department explain what specific, evidence-based analysis led it to conclude that persisting with the hotel model represented a better value for the taxpayer than investing a fraction of that sum in scaling up the cheaper alternative?”

The Department’s possible answers range from evasive to admission. They might argue that the use of hotels was an unavoidable emergency response to fluctuating arrival numbers and a lack of available dispersal accommodation, framing it as a necessary, albeit expensive, crisis management tool. A more defensive posture would involve citing commercial confidentiality regarding their contracts. The most likely answer, however, is a combination of these, admitting the high cost but blaming external factors and a lack of local authority cooperation in sourcing housing.

Our most viable solution is to dismantle this narrative piece by piece. We will counter the “emergency” argument by using their own data to show the backlog and accommodation pressures were a predictable consequence of their own processing failures, not a sudden crisis. We will argue that the failure to invest in scaling up dispersal accommodation was not due to a lack of availability, but a conscious policy choice to favour a high-cost, low-accountability model with their preferred large contractors. The most viable path is not to get bogged down in a debate over their excuses, but to state clearly that regardless of the reason, the outcome was an irrational use of public funds, a breach of their duty to the taxpayer, for which they are liable. This position is unassailable because it rests on the audited financial outcomes, not on their internal justifications.

The second question to the Home Office concerned the harm caused to unlawfully detained children: “Following the High Court’s finding that housing children in hotels was unlawful, what specific steps did the Department take to assess the harm caused to each child, and what provisions has it made for their redress?”

Their probable answer will be procedural. They will state that upon the court’s ruling, they ceased the practice and transferred the remaining children to local authority care, thereby fulfilling their obligation. They will likely argue that any assessment of harm or provision of redress is now the responsibility of the individual local authorities. This is an attempt to deflect liability.

Our most viable solution is to reject this deflection entirely. The High Court found the Home Office itself acted unlawfully. The duty of care was owed by the central department that created the illegal system. Our position will be that the Home Office cannot lawfully delegate its liability for harm caused by its own unlawful actions. The most viable path forward is to initiate a collective claim directly against the Home Office on behalf of all children who were placed in the hotel system. We will argue that the department is singularly liable and must fund a comprehensive redress scheme, which would include psychological assessments and financial compensation for every child affected. This approach consolidates liability and prevents a fragmented process of chasing individual local authorities.

Our final question to the Home Office was about their openness to a new, independently-monitored framework. Their likely answer will be cautiously positive but non-committal, stating they are “always open to improving value for money” and are “reviewing commercial arrangements.” They will not agree to our specific proposal immediately, but they will signal a willingness to engage to mitigate political pressure.

The most viable solution is to take this as a green light to formalise our mediation proposal. We will immediately follow up with our detailed Unsolicited Proposal for a structured dialogue, positioning it as the “review of commercial arrangements” they just mentioned. Our path is to transform their vague public statement into a concrete process which we control, making it politically difficult for them to refuse to participate in a dialogue they have publicly welcomed in principle.

Turning to the private contractors, our first question was for them to provide performance data to justify their revenues against the minimal penalties they received. Their inevitable answer will be to hide behind commercial confidentiality and their contractual obligations to their client, the Home Office. They will state that all performance data was supplied to the client as required and that the imposition of penalties is a matter for the client.

Our solution is to make this refusal the centrepiece of our public campaign. We will argue that it is unacceptable for companies receiving billions in taxpayer funds to operate in secret. Our most viable path is to launch a legal challenge for disclosure, arguing that the public interest in understanding how this money was spent overrides commercial confidentiality. This puts the contractors in a dilemma: either they release the data, which will likely prove their poor performance, or they fight to conceal it, which reinforces the narrative that they have something to hide.

Our second question to the contractors was about their awareness of the market distortion caused by their large contracts. They will most likely respond that they simply bid for contracts as published by the government in a lawful procurement process and that the market structure is a matter of government policy, not their responsibility.

Our most viable solution is to use this denial to strengthen our competition law argument. Their claim to be a passive participant is not credible. As dominant market players, they have a special responsibility not to abuse that position. We will argue that by continuing to bid for and operate within a flawed model without proposing more competitive alternatives, they have actively contributed to the maintenance of an anti-competitive market structure. The best path is to use this line of questioning to build a case not just against the government for creating the flawed market, but against the contractors for knowingly perpetuating it for their own commercial gain.

Finally, we asked the contractors if a mediated settlement would be in their long-term interest. The most likely answer will be a guarded “no comment” through their lawyers.

Our solution is to engage them through our Commercial Diplomacy track. We will approach their major institutional investors, providing them with our risk analysis that details the legal, financial, and reputational exposure the company faces. The most viable path is to create pressure from their owners—the shareholders—who will be far more receptive to the argument that a quiet, mediated settlement is preferable to years of negative headlines and the risk of a massive adverse judgment in court. We will make it clear that continuing litigation is a threat to their long-term shareholder value

Of course. I have processed the content on the “Competition Dispute Mediation and Intermediation” page. This framework provides a highly specialised set of tools that allows us to address a critical, and thus far underdeveloped, aspect of our ASYLUM UK case: the competition law dimension. It helps solidify our position by enabling us to act as the central facilitator in resolving the market distortion that underpins the entire system’s failure.

The page outlines a service where we act as a neutral intermediary to resolve complex competition disputes between dominant players, smaller competitors, and public bodies. Applying this directly to our case, it allows us to formally propose a specific Competition Mediation Process focused on the “market for asylum accommodation and support services.” This moves one of our core arguments—that the Home Office’s procurement process has created an anti-competitive oligopoly—from a simple legal claim into a constructive, solution-oriented project. Our position is strengthened because we are no longer just critics of a broken market; we are now the architects of a process to fix it.

This service helps us by giving us a formal mandate to bring all the relevant commercial parties to the negotiating table. We can approach the dominant private contractors like Serco and Mears Group, as well as the multitude of smaller housing providers and local support companies who have been effectively excluded from the market. The mediation process we will facilitate, as outlined on the page, will not focus on the individual tort claims of asylum seekers, but on the commercial and structural problems of the market itself. For the smaller competitors, our role as intermediary is to help them articulate their collective grievance and quantify the market access they have lost. For the dominant contractors, our role is to mediate a resolution that mitigates their exposure to a potentially vast competition damages claim and reputational harm.

Most importantly, this framework provides a new and powerful way to engage the Home Office. We can present this Competition Mediation Process as a direct solution to their procurement failures. By facilitating a dialogue between the existing large contractors and the excluded smaller competitors, we can help the government design a future market that is more resilient, innovative, and competitive. This directly serves the public interest by creating the conditions for better value for money in the long term. This strategy strengthens our overall position immensely. It complements our other actions by tackling the root economic cause of the problem. While our other legal tracks seek redress for past harms, this competition intermediation service positions us to proactively build a new, functional market for the future, establishing COCOO as the indispensable expert at the very centre of the solution.

The page details a range of services we offer, such as policy co-design, regulatory framework analysis, and the structuring of public-private partnerships. This is immensely helpful because it gives us a formal menu of solutions to present to the Home Office, moving our engagement beyond just litigation or a standalone proposal. Instead of only criticising the failed asylum accommodation contracts, we can now use this framework to propose our formal engagement as a specialist consultant to help the government design the next generation of contracts. Our Unsolicited Proposal for an independent auditing service can be presented as a core feature of a new, more robust Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Structuring service, as described on the page. We would be offering to help the Home Office design a contract model that includes the very oversight mechanisms it currently lacks, ensuring value for money and human rights compliance from the outset.

Furthermore, the emphasis on Regulatory and Policy Co-Design is critical. The systemic failures we have identified in the asylum system—the processing delays, the poor safeguarding—are a direct result of failed policies. We can now approach the Home Office and other relevant departments not just with criticism, but with a formal offer to assist in co-designing a new, more efficient and humane regulatory framework for asylum processing and support. Our deep, evidence-based knowledge of the current system’s failings, gained through our investigations, becomes the unique expertise we bring to the table. This service allows us to position ourselves as a ‘critical friend’ who can help the government solve the root causes of the problem, rather than just litigating the symptoms.

The “Central Government” page also helps us refine our approach to mediation. It positions COCOO as an expert in facilitating complex, multi-stakeholder dialogues to resolve public service challenges. This adds significant weight to our proposal to mediate between the Home Office, the private contractors, and the victim classes. We are not simply an activist group suggesting a discussion; we are a professional entity offering a structured Stakeholder Management and Dispute Resolution Service. This professional framing makes it more likely that a government department will see engagement with us as a credible and defensible step towards resolving a contentious and costly issue. By adopting the language and service offerings from this page, we transform our entire posture. We are no longer just a source of pressure; we are a source of expert, actionable solutions, offering the government a formal, professional pathway to fix the very failures we have exposed.

First, we will commission a Comprehensive Market Analysis and Competitor Mapping report focused on what we have defined as the “UK Market for Asylum Accommodation and Support Services.” This service, as described on the page, is essential for our case. It will allow us to formally document the structure of this flawed market, proving our assertion that it functions as a non-competitive oligopoly. The report will identify all active players, from the dominant primary contractors like Serco and Mears Group down to the smaller, excluded housing providers. By mapping their market shares and operational areas, we will create a powerful evidence base to support our competition law claims and to demonstrate the harm caused to the smaller competitors who form one of our key claimant classes.

Next, we will conduct a Corporate Due Diligence and Supply Chain Analysis on the primary private contractors. This investigation will be critical in piercing the corporate veil of these complex multinational companies. The due diligence reports will trace their ownership structures, identify their parent companies and major investors, and scrutinise their financial reports to uncover their true profit margins from these government contracts. The supply chain analysis will map their network of subcontractors, including the hotel chains, security firms, and transport providers. This helps our position in several ways. It provides a detailed list of potential co-defendants, strengthens our argument about where the taxpayer money is actually going, and identifies international stakeholders we can engage through our geopolitical diplomacy strategy.

We will also leverage the Regulatory and Policy Due Diligence service to strengthen our public law arguments against the Home Office. This report will benchmark the Home Office’s procurement and contract management practices against the government’s own established standards, such as the PPP frameworks and direct award procedure rules we have previously discussed. By formally documenting the deviation between required procedure and actual practice, this report will serve as primary evidence for our judicial review claim, substantiating our arguments of illegality, irrationality, and a failure to consider mandatory relevant factors.

Finally, all of this investigative work will be synthesised into a Strategic Advisory and Risk Mitigation Report. For our internal purposes, this report will consolidate all the evidence and identify the strongest legal arguments and the weakest points in the defendants’ positions. More importantly, we can adapt this report for external use. A public version can fuel our media campaign with authoritative, evidence-based findings. A confidential version, presented to the Home Office and the main contractors during our diplomatic engagement or mediation, becomes our most powerful negotiating tool. It will demonstrate the overwhelming strength of our evidence and the high probability of our success in court, thereby creating a powerful incentive for them to negotiate a meaningful settlement that includes both financial redress and systemic reform.

Of course. I have processed the diplomatic framework detailed on the page you provided. Applying this three-tiered model of Commercial, Public Service, and Geopolitical Diplomacy provides a sophisticated new strategy for our case, moving beyond pure litigation and campaigning to active, high-level negotiation and influence. It allows us to engage each party on their own terms to achieve our objectives.

First, we will deploy Commercial Diplomacy in our interactions with the private sector. This applies directly to the main contractors like Serco and Mears Group, as well as their subcontractors and competitors. The principle here is to engage them on the basis of market logic, risk, and commercial interest. For the main contractors, our diplomatic approach will be to open a confidential channel to their senior leadership or legal counsel. We will present our case not as a public threat, but as a material risk to their business, including reputational damage, investor uncertainty, and the high probability of costly, protracted litigation. The goal is to persuade them that a mediated settlement, which includes a financial contribution to a compensation fund and a commitment to higher operational standards, is a more commercially prudent outcome than a public court battle. Simultaneously, we will use commercial diplomacy with the excluded competitors—the smaller housing providers. We will frame our Contract Project not just as a public interest initiative, but as a viable commercial opportunity for them to gain market access, positioning COCOO as a facilitator of a new, more competitive marketplace.

Next, we will use Public Service Diplomacy in our engagement with the UK Home Office. This approach recognises that, unlike a private company, a government department is motivated by public duty, policy objectives, and political pressure. Our diplomatic engagement here will be to act not as an adversary, but as a critical partner offering a solution to a severe operational and political problem. We will propose a high-level meeting where we present our Unsolicited Proposal for an independent auditing and oversight function. Our argument will be framed in the language of public service improvement. We will demonstrate how our proposal helps the Home Office achieve its own objectives: it will deliver better value for money, reduce the risk of future legal challenges, satisfy the demands of parliamentary scrutiny from bodies like the Public Accounts Committee, and ultimately create a more stable and defensible asylum system. This is not a request for a contract; it is a diplomatic offer to help them solve a problem that is causing them immense political damage.

Finally, we will apply Geopolitical Diplomacy to address the international dimensions of the case. This involves engaging with entities where national interests and international relations are at play. Our engagement with the government of Rwanda, for example, would fall under this category. While a direct legal claim is complex, we can open a diplomatic channel to their UK embassy. Our purpose would be to discuss the reputational and legal entanglement their country now has with a failed and unlawful UK policy. We can position COCOOs mediation services as a potential vehicle to resolve any outstanding issues and delink their national reputation from the UK’s mismanagement. Similarly, if we identify that a major contractor is a subsidiary of a foreign multinational based in a country with strong human rights or corporate governance laws, we would engage with that country’s embassy or regulatory bodies in London. We would diplomatically present our evidence of the subsidiary’s role in the UK’s systemic failures, raising the issue as a matter of concern for their national reputation regarding corporate conduct abroad. This multi-layered diplomatic strategy allows us to apply targeted pressure and propose solutions on every front, increasing the probability of achieving a comprehensive resolution far beyond what litigation alone can accomplish.

The primary potential defendants in our case, alongside the Home Office, are the private sector contractors who hold the multi-billion pound Asylum Accommodation and Support Services Contracts (AASC). Extensive reporting and parliamentary scrutiny have identified the main companies currently operating these contracts. These are Serco Group plc, a major British multinational outsourcing company, which can typically be contacted through the forms on its corporate website. Another key provider is Mears Group PLC, which specialises in housing management and maintenance services. Their general contact email is often publicly listed as info@mearsgroup.co.uk. The third major operator is the private company Clearsprings Ready Homes, which also holds significant government contracts for asylum accommodation. Their contact details are available through their official website. These three companies are the central private sector perpetrators whose actions and contracts are the subject of our legal challenges.

The sphere of potential defendants also includes their vertical collaborators, primarily the large hotel chains that provide the high-cost accommodation. Publicly identified participants in this area include major international brands such as IHG Hotels & Resorts (operator of Holiday Inn) and Accor S.A.. While they are subcontractors, their participation in the system makes them necessary parties in our investigation.

On the claimant side, we have identified a key group of commercial victims: the horizontal and vertical competitors who have been harmed by the flawed procurement process. This class includes the thousands of private landlords and smaller property management companies across the UK who could have provided cheaper dispersal accommodation. To reach this diffuse group, our strategy should be to contact their representative bodies. The most significant of these is the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA), which is the leading voice for private landlords in the UK. Their public contact email is usually available on their website for policy and press inquiries. Another key organisation is the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH), which represents social housing providers who have also been largely excluded from the current model.

For our campaign to find individual claimants among the asylum seeker population, we must collaborate with established non-governmental organisations that provide direct support. Key organisations to approach for mediation and collaboration include the Refugee Council, Asylum Aid, and ECPAT UK (Every Child Protected Against Trafficking), which has already successfully litigated against the government on behalf of child asylum seekers. These organisations are not class members themselves, but they are essential collaborators who can connect us with the individuals we seek to represent and provide invaluable expertise and testimony for our case. By engaging with these specific companies and organisations, we can begin to build the broad coalition needed to challenge the systemic failures we have uncovered.

From the document titled ‘ADR SETTLE CLP HOW2.pdf’¹, I have extracted the critical insight that settlement in collective proceedings is not just possible but is a complex process requiring careful management, especially concerning the fair distribution of any award and the approval of the settlement terms by a court. The key takeaway for us is that any mediated settlement in our case must be structured in a way that is “just and reasonable” to satisfy judicial scrutiny. This informs our mediation strategy by showing us the end goal: a robust settlement agreement that a court will approve. I extracted this because it gives COCOO, as mediator, the specific criteria it must guide the parties towards, focusing on fairness, transparency, and the demonstrable benefit to the claimant classes.

From the ‘MEDIATION.adr.pdf’ document², I have extracted the core principles of the mediation process itself: its confidential and non-binding nature, the role of the mediator as a neutral facilitator rather than a judge, and the focus on finding common ground and mutually beneficial solutions. The reason this is so valuable is that it provides the procedural framework for our new role. It guides us on how to structure our interactions with the parties—the Home Office, the private contractors, and the representatives for the taxpayer and asylum seeker classes. It emphasizes that our role is not to impose a decision, but to facilitate a conversation that allows the parties themselves to design a solution, which we will then help formalise into a binding settlement agreement.

Here is the redrafted Unsolicited Proposal and the steps for our new mediation project.

Our new Unsolicited Proposal will be submitted to all parties: the Home Office, the main private contractors, and the legal representatives for the taxpayer and asylum seeker claimant groups. It will no longer be a proposal for a contract but an invitation to participate in a structured, multi-party mediation facilitated by COCOO. The proposal will frame the “problem” neutrally: a complex public service delivery system is failing to meet the needs of all its stakeholders, resulting in enormous financial costs, significant human harm, and immense legal and reputational risk for both the government and its commercial partners. The system is now locked in a cycle of costly and adversarial litigation that is unlikely to produce a sustainable, long-term solution on its own.

The proposal will then present our unique solution. COCOO, as a neutral mediator with unparalleled, deep knowledge of the systemic failures, offers to facilitate a comprehensive mediation process. Our unique selling proposition is that we are the only entity that understands the perspectives of all parties in sufficient depth to guide them towards a workable resolution. The mediation process will have three stages. The first stage will be Confidential Caucusing, where we meet with each party separately to understand their core interests, risks, and potential areas for compromise. The second stage will be a Joint Scoping Session, where we bring the parties together to agree on a common set of facts, primarily using the undisputed findings of the National Audit Office and the High Court, and to identify the key issues to be resolved.

The final and most crucial stage will be the Solution-Focused Negotiation. Here, our role as mediator will be to guide the parties towards a global settlement agreement. For the taxpayer class, this will involve a financial settlement from the government and its contractors that acknowledges the wasted funds. For the asylum seeker class, it will involve the creation of a compensation fund for those harmed by unlawful conditions and delays. And for the government and its contractors, it will involve agreeing on a new, reformed contractual and operational model for the future that is efficient, humane, and delivers value for money, thereby ending the cycle of costly litigation. Our proposal will conclude by stating that the ultimate goal is a court-approved settlement that provides redress for past harms and creates a lawful and functional asylum system for the future.

From the documents, I have extracted the two primary forms of undue influence: Actual Undue Influence, which requires proof of specific acts of coercion or pressure, and Presumed Undue Influence. It is this second category that provides us with a formidable new weapon. The core principle I have extracted is that presumed undue influence arises in two situations: first, in relationships that by their very nature are based on trust and confidence, such as between a doctor and patient or a solicitor and client; and second, where a relationship of trust and confidence can be proven on the facts of the case, even if not one of the traditional categories. In these situations, if there is a transaction that “calls for explanation”—meaning it cannot be easily explained by the nature of the relationship—the law will presume it was the result of undue influence, and the burden of proof shifts to the dominant party to show the transaction was entered into freely.

This directly helps our position in challenging the asylum accommodation contracts. We can now construct an argument that the relationship between the Home Office and its handful of major private contractors was, in fact, a relationship of immense trust and confidence. The Home Office effectively delegated a core state function to these companies, trusting them with billions in public funds and the welfare of thousands of vulnerable people. The transaction that calls for explanation is the agreement to pay vastly inflated prices for accommodation, and the continued renewal of these arrangements despite persistent failure. This is not a normal commercial relationship. We can argue that the government was so reliant on these few providers, and so captured by the crisis of its own making, that it was subject to their influence when agreeing to these irrational terms. This shifts the legal burden onto the contractors to prove that the multi-billion pound contracts were not the result of them exploiting this position of dominance over a desperate and dependent public authority.

Furthermore, the principle of undue influence is even more powerful when applied to the relationship between the private contractors and the asylum seekers themselves. This relationship falls squarely into a category where a presumption of influence is exceptionally strong. The contractors have near-total control over the daily lives of the asylum seekers, who are a vulnerable class of people, often with no resources, limited understanding of their rights, and entirely dependent on the contractor for their basic needs like food and shelter. Any “agreement” or consent given by an asylum seeker in this context—for example, to the specific conditions of their accommodation—is inherently suspect. This strengthens our tort claims on their behalf. We can argue that the contractors, as the dominant party, have a heightened duty of care, and their failure to provide adequate services is an abuse of their powerful position. For our campaign, the language of “undue influence” and “abuse of a relationship of trust” is incredibly powerful. It reframes the dynamic from one of simple contractual provision to one of potential exploitation, which will resonate strongly with the public and the media.