Following the publication of the National Audit Office report on the sale of QinetiQ, the Ministry of Defence’s defence technology arm, Conservative MP Richard Bacon, a member of the Commons public accounts committee, said today:

“It is not the job of government to allow senior civil servants to become multimillionaires by selling off assets at knock-down prices which taxpayers have paid for”.  

“I simply do not understand how the Treasury let this happen.  I am all for rewarding success, but for the Treasury to force through the sale while civil servants made a 20,000 per cent return on their investment is disgusting”. 

Mr Bacon was speaking as the National Audit Office published its report into the privatisation of QinetiQ.  The report finds that senior civil servants at QinetiQ made excessive returns after the MoD did not seek to influence the structure of a share incentive scheme linked to the deal.

As a result, the top ten managers at QinetiQ received shares worth £107 million at the time of QinetiQ’s flotation on the Stock Exchange from an initial investment of just over £500,000 and achieved for themselves a return on investment of 19,900 per cent. 

23 November 2007

See also:
NAO REPORT: The privatisation of QinetiQ