Britain's lucrative war industry - the revolving door

[David Guyatt]

In addition to private contractors being seconded to the MOD, I know for a fact that it used to be the case that MI6 officers were semi-permanently seconded to British banks export departments.

War is a very lucrative business where state and business mutually benefit.

Dozens of arms firm employees on MoD secondments

Information acquired by the Guardian sparks fresh concerns about the cosy relationships between the public and private sector

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[/URL] Green party leader Natalie Bennett said it was alarming to see such large numbers of staff seconded from arms companies to government departments. Photograph: Chris Lobina/Sky/PABen Quinn
Monday 16 February 201507.00 GMT

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.
Nine BAE executives were seconded to senior positions in the MoD's Defence Equipment and Support branch, which has a £14bn annual budget to buy and support equipment used by the Navy, Army and RAF.
Another department, UKTI Defence and Security Organisation, the government's arms sales unit, said that it had four secondments from BAE, two from MDBA and two from Detica, the BAE-owned cyber security specialist which was last year renamed BAE Systems Applied Intelligence.
Going in the opposite direction, 13 civil servants have been seconded from the MOD to other organisations, including the BBC, the cyber security firm Templar Executives, Lloyds Banking group, the arms firm QinetiQ and the Institute for Security and Resilience Studies (ISRS), the defence think tank set up by John Reid, the former home and defence secretary.
Natalie Bennett, the leader of the Green party, said it was alarming to see such large numbers of staff seconded from arms companies to government departments.
She said: "All too often we've seen the government's actions aligned with the interests of big business, which is particularly concerning when the businesses involved produce weapons."
"For many years, the British government has had an uncomfortably close relationship with arms manufacturers and a shady record of arming dictatorships to match."
"Secondments like these cast a shadow of doubt over the integrity over the actions of both the MoD and UKTI when it comes to their dealings with arms manufacturers. Our policies should serve the common good and must be free from the influence of vested interests like arms companies."
The secondments were described by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) as characteristic of the close and politically intimate relationship between arms companies and the government.
Andrew Smith of CAAT said: "Arms companies already enjoy a significant and totally disproportionate level of government support, and these kinds of secondments only make it more so.
"It is totally inappropriate for arms companies that will be lobbying for extra military spending to be working for departments that buy their wares."
While most government departments provided details of secondments in response to a series of freedom of information (FoI) requests by the Guardian, the Cabinet Office was among those which declined or provided only a partial response.
It said that there had been 20 secondments of private sector employees to the Cabinet Office, which includes work in No 10 Downing Street and the deputy prime minister's office.
However, it refused to divulge the name of the external organisations which were the source of the secondments, saying FoI clauses allowed "personal information" to be exempt from disclosure if that information related to someone other the person making the FoI request.
The Treasury had nine secondments (as of January 2015) from consultants Aecom, law firm Ashurst, financial and media company Bloomberg, Carillion Construction, civil engineering firm Costain, accountancy firm Deloitte Touche, the Financial Conduct Authority and Price WaterhouseCoopers. The Department of Health said it had eight individuals seconded to it.
The issue of secondments has long been a controversial one. The Guardian revealed in 2011 that at least 50 employees of companies including EDF energy, npower and Centrica were placed within government to work on energy issues in the past four years.
An MoD spokesperson said: "Secondments are used very occasionally to utilise skills and expertise from a whole range of organisations in a way which delivers value for taxpayers, and there are strict rules relating to conflicts of interest and confidentiality."
A UKTI spokesperson said: "UKTI currently employs over 2,500 people around the world, of which only 14 are secondees. UKTI is determined to offer the best support to help British businesses win contracts overseas and attract investment into the UK, and occasionally secondments from the private sector are the best way to source the skills required."
In general, secondments, in or out of the civil service, are defended by government departments on the basis that they are a way to exchange knowledge and skills with other sectors and boost commercial acumen.