Tuesday 17 February 2015

Revolving door revolving smoothly.

Admittedly, the story has only been picked up Russia Today and The Guardian, but even if you discount their inherent bias/hypocrisy, this is bloody typical and might explain a lot of the 'budget overruns' at the MoD:

Dozens of employees of arms firms are currently seconded to positions at the heart of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and other parts of government, under an arrangement that has sparked concerns about the cosy relationships between the public and private sector.

More than 10 executives from BAE alone have been seconded into the MoD and the arms sales unit at UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) in the last year, according to records obtained by the Guardian.

Others include employees of MBDA (makers of missiles including those used by drones) and Babcock (the defence contractor involved in refitting Trident) as well as gunnery systems maker MSI, who have been occupying upper level roles inside the MoD.

The salaries of secondees were paid by their companies, not the government departments they joined.

4 comments:

Lola said...

Exactly the same is true in financial services. Lots of secondment to the FCA and the Treasury by all the banks and big consultancies.

Dinero said...

>Mark

"
The salaries of secondees were paid by their companies, not the government departments they joined."


are you guessing that its the MOD that pays the companies of the employees on secondment.

Bayard said...

"More than 10 executives from BAE alone have been seconded into the MoD and the arms sales unit at UK Trade & Investment (UKTI)"

Well that's all right and good, since UKTI is basically an private sector arms trade body. What is wrong is that there are any government-funded employees working for it.

Mark Wadsworth said...

L, yes, you work in FS so you notice the revolving door between banks and regulators; I work in tax so I notice it between Big Four and HMRC, if we had more soldiers or junior MoD people on this blog, they'd keep pointing out the RD between MoD and MIB.

Din, yup.

B, UKTI is a separate issue, that could be privately funded just like any other self-respecting lobby group. It's these nominally private sector people marking their own homework at taxpayers' expense which rankles.