VISITS BY THE FEDERAL AGENCY urgently recommended that Weilheim Federal Police Station make an additional, separate toilet available. The Federal Ministry of the Interior reported that an organisational audit of the Federal Police was currently being carried out, in the context of which staffing levels and, where applicable, room capacity in the police stations concerned were being examined. Account will also be taken of the need for a separate toilet to be installed. However, the audit will not be completed until late 2015, the Ministry reported. Due to the urgency of the problem, to which the Federal Agency again made reference, the staff toilet in Weilheim Federal Police Station will now also be made available to detainees. states. Agreement has been reached with Frontex that the national preventive mechanism of the state organising a particular measure may accompany the relevant flights. Frontex carries the costs of accompanying these flights. However, a measure planned for late October 2014 fell through on account of the fact that Federal Police Headquarters was not able to guarantee that seats would be available on the flight for the Federal Agency’s staff. When it was still unclear the day before the measure was to be carried out whether the Federal Agency would be able to accompany the flight, the Agency decided to call off the escort. The Federal Agency and the Federal Ministry of the Interior will be holding meetings on this matter too. 1.1.2 – Accompanying return flights 1.2 – CUSTOMS OFFICES In the period under review the Federal Agency was unable to accompany any forced returns. However, it was present when one person was brought in for an unaccompanied specific measure taking them from Berlin-Tegel Airport to Lagos. No fault was found with this procedure. However, it was noted that the toilet door in the custody area at Berlin-Tegel Airport Federal Police District Office has a peephole. The Federal Agency made the aforementioned recommendation. How accompanied forced returns are to be organised is still a matter for discussion between the Federal Agency and the Federal Ministry of the Interior. As previously agreed, the Federal Agency is informed of upcoming collective returns by Federal Police Headquarters. It is notified of individual measures, upon request, for a specific period for a specific airport in Germany. In the period under review the Federal Agency was notified of 39 measures carried out on charter flights. Seven of these were Frontex measures organised by the German authorities and 10 were national measures carried out on charter flights. The remaining flights were Frontex measures which were organised by other states and in which the German authorities were involved. Opinions differ as regards the financing of accompanied national forced returns. The Federal Ministry of the Interior believes that the accompanying of forced returns by the Federal Agency does not necessarily fall within its range of tasks under the OPCAT. It enables the Federal Agency to accompany national measures on condition that the Federal Agency itself covers any costs arising. The Federal Agency, by contrast, is of the opinion that it should be provided with the funding it needs to carry out its tasks. Further meetings regarding this matter will be held in 2015. The European Border Agency (Frontex) coordinates forced return measures involving various European The Federal Agency visited three offices of the customs authorities: Stuttgart Customs Investigation Office, plus its Joint Narcotics Investigation Group, and the Pomellen Office of Berlin-Brandenburg Customs Investigation Office. The customs authorities detain considerably fewer people in custody than the Federal Police do. In 2012 and 2013 a total of 52 people were detained in custody by Stuttgart Customs Investigation Office; three had been detained in Pomellen in 2013, and one person had been detained in custody up to 18 September 2014. As was the case in many Federal Police stations, the doors to the custody cells in the customs investigation offices also had peepholes. The Federal Agency regarded this as particularly questionable when it came to the rooms of the Joint Narcotics Investigation Group, because the toilet was in the room and was thus in full view of anyone looking through the peephole. It made the same recommendations as described in the above in respect of the Federal Police. The Federal Ministry of Finance accepted these recommendations and agreed to take the necessary steps to remedy the situation. In addition, the doors to custody cells are to have windows rather than peepholes fitted when structural measures are carried out in future. In previous years the Federal Agency has already recommended that custody record books be introduced in custody suites operated by the Customs Service. These books were found in all the customs investigation offices visited in the period under review. Nonetheless, the entries made in the record books were not always complete, for instance checking times or the name of the officer carrying out the check were sometimes missing. The Federal Agency therefore made the relevant recommendations. The Federal Ministry of Finance stated that officers would 22