Greed or sleaze?

For some reason, the Financial Times saw fit to serve up to me this afternoon the rather old story at reference 1. It might be old, but it is nevertheless extraordinary that the civil servant in charge of government procurement, no doubt in receipt of a fancy pension and sitting on the considerable profits of previous employment with Accenture, saw fit to take employment of any kind, never mind with an dodgy operation touting for government business, after leaving government service. The same operation, as it happened, which managed to suck in Cameron and the once respectable Heyworth.

Both Bing and Google are rather coy about this chap, one Bill Crothers, but they do turn up reference 2, from which we learn that from a senior position in a company (reference 3) which made a great deal of money out of selling services to the public sector, he moved to that same public sector to ensure that there was fair play in the matter of public procurement from the private sector. A chartered accountant by trade. It seems that the same Sue Gray, who is now O-I-C Boozing Party Investigations, was on this case too.

I associate to my days in a bit of the Home Office, where the chap in charge of procurement had been parachuted in from the private sector, bringing some of his colleagues along with him to share in the spoils, as it were. And where the chap in charge of the bit in question - another paratrooper - went on to do something even more important in the Cabinet Office, and from there to do something even more important still with the now proscribed Huawei. This last along with another important person, one Sir Mike Rake, another chartered accountant, who climbed to the top of the greasy pole at KPMG before taking on BT. Presently chairman of Great Ormond Street Hospital. You can follow the thread at reference 4. In his retirement, as it were, he is also mixing it with the people at reference 5.

Its a small and cosy world at the top of the heap. But I suppose you do have to graft to get there.

References

Reference 1: Ex-senior civil servant took Greensill job without telling watchdog: Bill Crothers started role 8 months after leaving Whitehall but failed to get advice from Acoba - Cynthia O’Murchu, Jim Pickard and Robert Smith, Financial Times - 2021.

Reference 2: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmpubadm/59/5907.htm.

Reference 3: https://www.accenture.com/gb-en. The arty snap above of an Accenture lady with a discrete tattoo is slightly animated on my laptop. Some miracle of Microsoft technology. Just a still here.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/04/huawei.html.

Reference 5: https://www.majidalfuttaim.com/en. 'In our quest to create great moments for everyone, everyday, Majid Al Futtaim has enabled happiness in the lives of people from around the world'. An outfit which appears to be into fancy shops, hotels and resorts.