The director of major FCDO procurement adviser and former longtime statutory company Crown Agents sent round a missive this week. It explained that the company is going into liquidation immediately, to close by the 31st at the latest. A complete winding down after only layoffs were announced earlier in the year…
That’s another UK supplier to go kaput thanks to taking on a not-for-profit model under New Labour and allowing itself to be run by a former charity boss – Fergus Drake, former Executive Director of Global Programmes at Save the Children UK. The way is well and truly paved for international companies and US ‘beltway bandits’ to take over the large majority of supply contracts to the FCDO…
The same thing has already happened to the MoD. International competitive bidding is usually a good idea, but it doesn’t make sense to rely only on foreign organisations for strategic support to foreign and defence policy…
Last time Labour bailed out Crown Agents it was a major scandal – no such luck now. Guido hears investors balked at the company’s huge pension liabilities (staff awarded themselves too high pensions) while pleas to Labour landed on deaf ears. No mercy, not even for a member of Labour’s favourite Save the Children mafia…
