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The company asked to review the future of Warren Spring, the government’s
leading environmental laboratory, had a conflict of interest, claims the
shadow environment secretary Chris Smith. In a letter to Michael Heseltine,
President of the Board of Trade, Smith says: ‘There are . . . serious
questions about the use of a private environmental consultant to carry out
the review into Warren Spring’s future.’

Earlier this month, the Department of Trade and Industry finally admitted
that after a review carried out by PA Consulting, it had decided to close
Warren Spring, moving some of its work to AEA Technology at Harwell,
Oxfordshire.

‘PA Consulting is in fact a competitor of Warren Spring and having been
given access to all its files, is well placed to approach Warren Spring’s
clients,’ says Smith. ‘What has happened to the government’s much-vaunted
concern for commercial confidentiality, which is generally used to justify
withholding information from the public?’

In reply, junior trade minister Patrick McLoughlin, describing the takeover
of Warren Spring by AEA Technology as a ‘very positive initiative’, says: ‘I
do not accept that there has been any conflict of interest. PA are an
internationally renowned and highly respected company who can be expected to
act with complete integrity.’

PA Consulting denies any conflict. Warren Spring had in the past
commissioned it to carry out a study, which it would not have done if
there had been any conflict of interest, says a spokeswoman for the
company.

Warren Spring was just one of the government’s research establishments going
through a review, with the aim of privatising them. Although the names of
the consultants conducting these reviews have yet to be announced, the form
of the privatisations is beginning to take shape. The consultants are likely
to concentrate on identifying the most marketable assets – anything from
land to valuable research.

Many of the existing research organisations will have their profitable
activities hived off – leaving a largely unprofitable rump. The DTI’s brief
for consultants carrying out the review suggests ‘possibilities should also
include privatisation of part of a laboratory’s business’.

At the Transport Research Laboratory, part of the Department of Transport,
estate agents are measuring up buildings at Crowthorne as part of the site
valuation. The Treasury, which owns the site, doubled the TRL’s rent in
April, raising the value of the site.

At a meeting with officials from the IPMS, the trade union which represents
scientists in the civil service, transport secretary John MacGregor
refused to rule out selling off parts of the laboratory piecemeal.

AEA Technology could also be broken up and has applied for planning
permission which would allow the site to be converted into a science and
business park.

The government’s research site at Teddington, home to the National Physical
Laboratory, the Laboratory of the Government Chemist and the National
Weights and Measures Laboratory, will be harder to sell because – as the
DTI’s brief for consultants recognises – part of the site is a royal park
and protected by act of Parliament. A further difficulty is that some of the
laboratory’s statutory obligations cannot be carried out in the private
sector.