Civil servants find lucrative roles in private sectorThe predicted explosion in the public services market will see a stream of top civil servants and managers being offered lucrative packages to join private outsourcing companies competing for government business.
Some of these will have been instrumental in drawing up government policy and providing advice to ministers. Many who have gone already have been accompanied by their ministerial bosses.
Ministers who have taken paid non-executive positions in the private health sector include Milburn, who became an adviser to Bridgepoint, a private equity firm specialising in healthcare investments. Patricia Hewitt, health secretary 2005-07, became an adviser to Cinven, a private hospitals group. And Lord Warner, a health minister 2003-2007, became chairman of the government sector advisory panel for Xansa, which provides business and accounting services to the NHS.
The former top civil servant Sir Bruce Liddington, once in charge of Labour's academy schools programme under Tony Blair left the Department for Education in January 2009 to become the £250,000-a-year director of E-Act, a social enterprise and registered charity which operates eight academy schools funded with £50m of public money. It has plans to develop five more academies. The one-time head teacher was accused earlier this year of enjoying a "culture of excess" after he claimed thousands of pounds for stays in luxury hotels and taxi hire to visit academies around the country. E-Act said Liddington repaid the money and denied he used limousines.
