Fujitsup-ing UK ‘s Post Office IT system, – and now its Nuclear Lab?
The UK government’s National Nuclear Laboratory has given Fujitsu a £155k contract for ‘software support’ IT – for nuclear science and experimental programmes in nuclear power and weapons.
Fujitsu? The Japanese software company that supplied, and apparently is still supplying, the British Post office with software – its bodgy Horizon IT programme being at the root of one of the most widespread miscarriages of justice in UK history.. Yes, that one!
It doesn’t fill you with confidence about the safety of the UK’s nuclear lab activities, does it?
The Post Office’s contract with Fujitsu was, (is) extremely complex, with the Post Office lacking the expertise to understand how the IT system works. Does the nuclear lab have the same problem?
These types of contracts deliberately lock the buyer in, with the supplier having control of all upgrades, fixing of any technical problems. The Post Office contract also limited the amount of information they could get from the system.
This created a dependance by the Post Office on the company Fujitsu. Is the British military and nuclear system also locked into dependance on Fujitsu? A source told the i newspaper that the Japanese firm has been managing a secretive computer system facilitating the “strategic command and control of UK Armed Forces” for decades.
The contract for the National Nuclear Laboratory is the first government contract with Fujitsu in 2024, – to the anger and frustration of many, as the inquiry into the Post Office software scandal is still underway, with more litigation likely to come.
TODAY. The nuclear lobby’s new “prime wheeze” – Community Interest Companies
The UK, famous for comedy, had a great character, Bertie Wooster, who kept thinking up wonderful (useless and silly) new ideas, that he called “Prime Wheezes”. In true Bertie Wooster tradition, the nuclear lobby does the same.
They usually go for “registered charities” – and there’s any number of these, that the industry creates, really nuclear front groups, that pose as genuinely working for the public good.
So why is the nuclear lobby now going for the non-profit Community Interest Companies (CICs)?
Some of the reasons:
- The nuclear industry can get approval and respectability, “piggy-back” on a lot of genuinely positive and popular businesses in an existing CIC.
- The CIC business model can incorporate a wider range of social aims than are allowed for charities. This is because the definition of community interest within the test applied to a CIC is broader than the Public Benefit Test for charities.
- easier to set up than is a charity..
- murkiness of funding – relatively easy from private donors, grants or community development finance
- can more easily buy and sell commercially.
- It is a lightweight structure, it is unencumbered by bureaucracy. It can be set up in a couple of days
- it is like a standard profit-making company then, but with social objectives supposedly built in.
- it avoids the accountability mechanisms that charities have, e.g a CIC can have just one director. It does have a (poorly funded) government regulator, Office of the Regulator of Community Interest Companies, but there appears to be no pro-active monitoring of whether CICs are operating for community benefit.
- Directors and functioning can change overtime, not encumbered by rules that ensure its social aims. The directors of a CIC can pay themselves whatever they can argue could reasonably be seen as necessary.
- any money in the organisation can very easily be siphoned out to profit-making enterprises.
- No legal requirement to have a democratic structure
In Somerset UK, where there is community anxiety about the development of Hinkley Point C nuclear station, and its effect on the environment – what better prime wheeze for the nuclear lobby, than to join an existing reputable Community Interest Company?
Hinkley Point C, has teamed up with the CIC Passion for Somerset. as a principal partner.
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