Friday 26 September 2008

Ex-Labour Ministers get their snouts in the PFI trough

Organised Rage carries a long list of former Ministers in the Labour government, (and the senior civil servants who serviced them) who have benefitted from the privatisation of sections of the NHS and State education.

Like pigs at the trough.

Alan Milburn, Health Secretary from 1998 to 2003
Alan Milburn is listed in his declaration of members' interests at the
House of Commons as a director of Covidien, which describes itself as
"a $10bn global healthcare products leader". He is also a member of
Lloydspharmacy's Healthcare Advisory Panel. Milburn is an advisor to
the European advisory panel of leading private equity firm
Bridgepoint, which specialises in healthcare investments. Milburn
declares his income from these senior appointments as over £30,000 a
year from Bridgepoint; over £25,000 from Lloydspharmacy; nothing
listed for Covidien; and a further over £20,000 as an advisor to
Pepsico.

Charles Clarke Education Secretary from 2002 to 2004 Home Secretary
from 2004 to 2006
Charles Clarke a non-executive director of the LJ Group, which
supplies teaching materials and equipment to schools and training
services, including through the Government Building Schools for the
Future programme, which Clarke initiated as education and skills
secretary in February 2004. Clarke is a consultant to KPMG on public
sector reform, for whom he wrote a booklet promoting the use of
co-payments – service user contributions – to the NHS and other public
services.
He also advises Charles Street Securities investment bankers/private
equity fund managers. In addition, Clarke is a consultant to
Beachcroft LLP, a legal firm that specialises in advising PFI/PPP
deals.

Patricia Hewitt Health Secretary from 2005 to 2007

Patricia Hewitt is now senior adviser to Cinven, a private
equity-backed private hospitals and healthcare group (payment, over
£55,000 pa). She is also special consultant (payment over £45,000 pa)
to AllianceBoots, which is owned by private equity firm KKR. In
addition, Hewitt is a director of BT Group, which is providing business
outsourcing, IT and telecoms services to a range of public bodies.
Hewitt established the telecoms and media regulator Ofcom in an
earlier job as secretary of state for trade and industry and was in
charge of the National Programme for IT – in which BT won one of the
largest contracts – while secretary of state for health. According to
BT's submission of details to the US Securities and Exchange
Commission, Hewitt will be paid an initial £60,000, but with an
expected increase as she takes on more responsibilities, in return for
working at least 22 days a year.

David Blunkett Home Secretary from 2001 to 2004 Education Secretary
from 1997 to 2001 and Work and Pensions secretary in 2005

David Blunkett is now an advisor on business development to A4e Ltd,
for which he is entitled to be paid at least £25,000 a year, but which
(according tohis Parliamentary declaration of interests) he has not
yet been paid. A4e describes itself as a "market leader in global
public service reform".

Lord Warner Health Minister from 2003 to 2007

Lord Warner had specific responsibility for reform of the NHS –
overseeing the introduction of more private sector involvement. Since
he stepped down from that role he has taken on a directorship with UK
HealthGateway and is chairman of the Government Sector Advisory Panel
for Xansa plc – a leading provider of business outsource services to
public bodies and holder of the £1bn NHS's shared business service
centre contract, providing accounting and finance services to the NHS.
Lord Warner is also an advisor to Byotrol (a provider of micro
biological health treatments), Apax Partners Worldwide (a private
equity firm, with strong connections to the Government and which has
invested heavily in health providers seeking contracts with the NHS),
Deloitte (an accountancy and consultancy firm, with large incomes from
government agencies) and DLA Piper (a legal firm, which, like
Deloitte, specialises in advising on private contracting to the public
sector). Lord Warner remains influential within the NHS as chair of
the NHS London Provider Agency.

Hilary Armstrong secretary of state for local government from 1997 to
2001 for the Cabinet Office from 2006 to 2007
Hilary Armstrong has recently taken a position as chair of
wastecompany SITA's advisory committee.

Nick Raynsford a Local Government and Housing minister from 1997 to 2005
Nick Raynsford is now non-executive chairman of local authority
recruitment agency Rockpools PLC and of Hometrack, a lettings service.

Ian McCartney Trade Minister from 1997 to 1999 and again from 2006 to 2007
Ian McCartney is a senior adviser to the US Fluor Corporation, an
energy contractor that is believed to have ambitions to win nuclear
clean-up contracts in the UK. McCartney is paid at least £110,000 a
year for his advice. The former Department of Trade and Industry had
responsibility for energy policy.

Stephen Byers Trade and industry secretary from 1998 to 2001
Stephen Byers is now non-executive chairman of water treatment company
ACWA and Ritz Climate Offset Company.

Richard Caborn Trade minister from 1999 to 2001
Richard Caborn is now a consultant to AMEC assisting them with their
work in the nuclear industry. His payment for this is at least £70,000
a year. He is also a former sports minister and now a consultant to
the Fitness Industry Association, for which he is paid at least
£10,000 a year.

Brian Wilson Energy minister from 2001 to 2003
Brian Wilson is now a non-executive director of AMEC Nuclear and is UK
chairman of the renewables company, Airtricity.

Stephen Ladyman transport minister from 2005 to 2007

Stephen Ladyman is now an adviser to It is Holdings, a company selling
traffic information, for which he is paid at least £10,000 a year.

Frank Field welfare reform minister from 1997 to 1998
Frank Field is now a director of Medicash, which operates a healthcare
cash plan.

Sir Michael Barber former head of the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit
Michael Barber oversaw public sector reforms in health, education,
transport, policing, the criminal justice system and
asylum/immigration. He is now the expert partner in consulting firm
McKinsey's Global Public Sector Practice.

Baroness Sally Morgan
Sally Morgan was a close aide to Tony Blair when he was Prime Minister
and she was director of government relations in Downing Street and
subsequently was made a minister and a member of the House of Lords.
She is now a director of the largest care home operator in the UK,
Southern Cross, which has expanded substantially as a result of
government reforms to the structure and funding of social care. She is
a member of the advisory panel of Lloyds Pharmacy, which is expected
to bid for contracts under the Department of Health's £1.25bn
Alternative Provider Medical Services programme. Morgan is also a
director of Carphone Warehouse.

Sir Gerry Loughran was head of the Northern Ireland civil service from
2000 to 2002.

After retiring he took on a number of private sector
directorships. These included Phoenix Natural Gas, which is owned by
the Terra Firma private equity firm, and he soon became chairman upon joining the board. While a senior civil servant,
Loughran chaired the Strategy 2010 project,57 to sell and leaseback
the civil service property portfolio. After leaving the civil service,
Loughran became a director and chairman of Partenaire, where he led
the company's (unsuccessful) bid to win the £2bn Workplace 2010
contract that resulted from Strategy 2010.

Lord Wilson of Dinton
Lord Wilson of Dinton was, as Sir Richard Wilson, head of the Home
Civil Service and secretary to the Cabinet – as such he had the
overall responsibility for seeing that the Prime Minister's policies
on public sector reform were carried out. He was afterwards appointed
a director of Xansa (now part of the Steria group), one of the main
providers of business process outsourcing services to the public
sector.

Lord Turnbull
Lord Wilson's successor as head of the Home Civil Service was Sir
Andrew Turnbull, now Lord Turnbull. Lord Turnbull's current
directorships include British Land (active in the PFI/PPP market),
Prudential (also active in the market) and Frontier Economics (which
advises private sector clients on public sector reform). Turnbull is
also chairman of Brevan Howard Global, an investment management
company.

Sir Peter Gershon
Sir Peter Gershon was brought in by The Treasury in 1998 to reduce
government expenditure and improve efficiency – he conducted a series
of reviews in the period to 2004. He became a civil servant in 2000 as
founding chief executive of the Office of Government Commerce. Sir
Peter is now executive chairman of Vertex, one of the largest
suppliers of business outsourcing services to the UK public sector. He
is also non-executive chairman of the General Healthcare Group, the
largest private healthcare group in the UK – owned by the private
equity group Apax Partners and the South African healthcare company
Netcare, which has ISTC and other supply contracts with the NHS. In
August 2008 Sir Peter completed a review of ICT procurement policy for
the Australian government.58

Chris Woodhead
Following his period as chief inspector of schools, Chris Woodhead
set-up the Cognita group of independent schools, using funds supplied
by a private equity firm, Englefield Capital.

Sir Steve Robson
Sir Steve Robson was one of the most controversial senior civil
servants of recent years, who oversaw the privatisation of British
Rail on behalf of Sir John Major. Robson went on to become second
permanent secretary at HM Treasury until he retired in 2001. During
his earlier career, he was seconded to 3i while remaining a civil
servant. He oversaw the Government's policy on PPPs while serving the
current Government at the Treasury. Since retiring, Sir Steve has been
a director at Partnerships UK, JP Morgan Cazenove (a global bank), Xstrata (a mining group) and the Royal Bank of Scotland (one of the leading investors in PPPs) and is a member of the Chairman's
Advisory Committee at the accountancy and consultancy firm KPMG (a
leading adviser to PPP and PFI schemes).

Simon Stevens
Simon Stevens was Tony Blair's health advisor within 10 Downing Street
and, with Alan Milburn, was the key architect of the NHS reform
programme. He is now chairman of UnitedHealth UK, which has won
contracts with the NHS to manage and advise primary care trusts. The company's executive director, previously chief
executive, was, until late 2007, Dr Richard Smith, a former editor of
the British Medical Journal. He is now working for United Health in the
US.

Tom Granatir
Another US-based healthcare group with serious aspirations in the UK
is Humana Europe. Its director of policy and research in the UK is Tom
Granatir, who was seconded for six months to the NHS in its Health
Inequalities Unit and was then seconded on a separate assignment with
the influential health think-tank, the King's Fund.

Darren Murphy
Darren Murphy was a special advisor to Prime Minister Tony Blair from
May 1997 to September 2005. After a period as head of government
relations and external affairs for AstraZeneca UK Murphy became
managing director at the London office of lobbying firm APCO whose
clients include most of the private healthcare firms bidding to run
Independent Sector Treatment Centres.
--

No comments: