I thought you might be interested in the well being of our old friend Mr.
Ingram.
As you know the architect of Collocation, FDSCi, 13,000 job cuts, mass
privatisation and pay cuts was the man who did not "give a shit" about Civil
Servants. Sadly he stepped down from Ministerial duties last year. He is much
missed by PCS members.
Fortunately, our loss has been others gain.
As well as being appointed Chair of the Prospect Parliamentary Group (lucky
Prospect members), the Guardian reports 3rd Sept "Congratulations to Adam Ingram,
who stepped down after six selfless years as defence minister, for he has
received the green light to become a consultant to EDS, one of the MoD's largest
and most controversial suppliers".
The article goes on to say that "The advisory committee on business
appointments, which regulates these things, said Ingram "should not become
personally involved in lobbying UK ministers or crown officials, including
special advisers, on behalf of his new employer for a year".
Incidentally - and completely coincidentally - I stumbled across the following
press cutting from 2006 whilst looking at this story:
The details of a financial settlem ent given to EDS by the Ministry of Defence
have been withheld from British taxpayers because corporate America likes to
keep its cards close to its chest.
EDS said in March it was seeking "adjustments" to compensate for the "financial
impact" of changes made by the Ministry of Defence to its requirements for its
£2.3bn Defence Information Infrastructure (DII) project.
Neither EDS nor the MOD would provide details after they reached an agreement
over the contract change in May. But EDS said its second quarter results,
released this month, would.
However, when the results were published on 1 August, they failed to mention how
much the MOD had paid EDS.
The matter has been raised in Parliament by Mike Hancock, Liberal Democrat MP
for Portsmouth South, last month. He wanted to know precisely how much more had
been paid to EDS.
The £2.3bn contract, according to analysts at Ovum, was expected to deliver the
MOD £170m of savings in its first three years, with £43m of this expected to be
gleaned in the first year.
MOD Minister of State for Armed Forces Adam Ingram refused to answer Hancock's
Parliamentary question, saying the details were "commercially sensitive".
Neither EDS nor the MOD would elaborate on why the payment was confidential.
A source close to the deal said EDS would be upset if it were to reveal the
payment details. EDS has already attracted flak over20compensation payments and
confidentiality arrangements with the British government.
In April, MPs on the Treasury Committee said a £71.25m payment EDS was ordered
to make in compensation for its delivery of a shoddy tax credits computer system
had the "appearance of impropriety".
Their problem was that £26.5m of EDS' payment was contingent on the firm winning
more government business. This detail had been hidden by a confidentiality
clause. The National Audit Office cited it as a reason why confidentiality
clauses should be banned from government contracts.
I am sure PCS members will be delighted to learn that Mr Ingram will no doubt be
back at MoD lobbying for EDS in 12 months time. I am also sure PCS members who
were privatised under DII and are now threatened with compulsory redundancy will
wish to welcome the new employee in an appropriate manner.
Credit crisis squeezes defence training
By Sylvia Pfeifer, Defence Industries Correspondent
Published: August 29 2008 03:00 | Last updated: August 29 2008 03:00
Fresh concerns have been raised over an £11bn training programme for the military - one of the government's largest private finance initiatives - after the fall-out from the credit crunch raised its cost by nearly 10 per cent in less than 20 months.
The Defence Training Review (DTR) will centralise all non-military technical training for army, navy and air force personnel in one academy, at St Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan.
The first part of DTR, a 30-year PFI programme to train military engineers, was awarded to a consortium called Metrix, led by Qinetiq, the defence research group, in January 2007.
But the economic downturn has contributed towards increasing the cost of the programme to £12bn. The Ministry of Defence said the increase "is due to the impact of inflation and borrowing costs and the current economic climate, not just directly associated with cost growth".
Separately, Charles Barrington, chairman of Metrix, told the Financial Times that the turmoil in the credit markets had forced the consortium to abandon its original plan to raise up to £1bn through a bond issue.
"The bond market is not conducive at the moment so we are looking at a bank solution," he said.
The project had, however, already secured the support of a group of banks in principle, he stressed.
A final decision on which funding route to go down would not be made until the programme was closer to completion.
Mr Barrington expected the MoD to give its final sign-off on a full investment decision early next year, later than originally expected.
Concerns about the affordability of the programme, given the MoD's severe budget crisis, persist. Last month Bob Ainsworth, armed forces minister, admitted to MPs that "this is taking longer than is ideal". He added that "financial appraisals have thrown up some difficult issues".
Mr Barrington said Metrix was working hard to give the MoD "a project that will meet its affordability gap under its constrained circumstances".
"The MoD is operating not only in an operational environment it has not seen for a generation, but also operating in a budgetary environment that it has not seen for a generation," he said.
There was no indication the programme would not happen. "This is a nationally important project. You only need to consider the value of trained personnel to the current operational army to realise how important technical training is."
The programme has proved highly political since its inception. The competition pitted Wales against the West Midlands to secure the main base for the contract. A bid from a rival consortium would have based its training at RAF Cosford and some of its personnel will now have to move to Wales.
The consortium received a pre-contract award of £9.5m from the MoD in the spring, which is being used to develop a transition plan and start work transforming the training courses.
At any one time, some 6,000 students are going through training and around 1,100 courses are taught every year. There are currently nine different training sites.
Public consultation for the planning process started a few weeks ago. Construction at the site is due to begin in 2009 and be completed in 2013.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
EDS keeps MOD schtum over
By Mark Ballard →
21st aug 2006Corporate
The details of a financial settlement given to EDS by the Ministry of Defence have been withheld from British taxpayers because corporate
EDS said in March it was seeking "adjustments" to compensate for the "financial impact" of changes made by the Ministry of Defence to its requirements for its £2.3bn Defence Information Infrastructure (DII) project.
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