Private Eye on Metrix subsidy

Soon after one half of private consortium Metrix dropped out of the beleaguered PFI Deal to privatise military training because of escalating costs (before the contract is even signed), defence secretary John Hutton has quietly sanctioned a further £40 million in “risk reduction activity”.

This is shorthand for a subsidy to Metrix, led by the privatised defence technology firm Qinetiq which has admitted it will be in deep doo-doo without the contract. The company has already been given £9m but now needs more to “mature the deal and maintain the mobilisation of Metrix resources.”

The MoD had been hoping to keep the sweetener quiet, paying lip service to parliamentary niceties through an “unnumbered command paper” with out any announcement. But Tory MP Mark Pritchard, arch-opponent of the deal, spotted it and has filed an objection. So much for slipping the deal through on the quiet.

Reminder of Qinetiq history

The privatisation of the UK's QinetiQ was undermined by "profiteering" on the part of its management, the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts has concluded.http://www.janes.com/news/defence/business/jdi/jdi080610_1_n.shtml

Sir John Chisholm, chairman of QinetiQ - and also chairman of the Medical Research Council - and Graham Love, the chief executive, turned investments of £129,000 and £108,000 into assets worth £22m and £18m respectively when the firm was floated in 2006.

At the same time Carlyle, the private equity group, which bought a stake in QinetiQ for £42m in 2003, was able to sell at a £300m profit three years later.

Who is WAG welcoming to wales?
Since his resignation as DOD’s Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Cambone has been vice president for strategy of a company known as QinetiQ (pronounced “kinetic”) North America, a major British-owned defense and intelligence contractor based in McLean, Virginia.