- The Observer,
- Sunday March 30 2003
The Government is poised to privatise seven key military training schools in a move that critics fear will compromise the capability of Britain's armed forces.
Schools to be privatised include SLIP, the Security, Languages, Intelligence and Photography college - otherwise known as the school for British spies. Qinetiq, in which secretive US venture capital firm Carlyle Group has a 33 per cent stake, is one of eight firms that have registered interest in SLIP. Others include a consortium of BAE, Vospers and Carillion, and one featuring Babcock, Atkins and Mowlem.
The sensitive nature of the privatisation has forced the Ministry of Defence to bar European firms from enter ing the contest.
Other areas to be privatised include the Military and MoD Police and Guarding; Logistics; Aeronautical Engineering and Communication; and Information Systems. The contracts will be worth hundreds of millions of pounds. The MoD will decide in the next month whether to ask firms to tender for all seven colleges or break them up. Unions fear that a single consortium would exert undue power.
Senior MoD officials are this week due to meet with unions, which are vehemently opposed to the privatisation, fearing job losses, worse conditions and a decline in standards. 'Britain is acknowledged to have the best trained forces in the world. Why does the Govern ment want to interfere with this, especially when virtually all the companies have no experience in this field?' said an official from PCS, the civil service union. Unions point to new Apache helicopters, costing £27 million, which had to be mothballed because the privatised contract for training personnel to use them was a disaster.
