[A-List] UK corporate state: KPMG

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

MPs query Labour's links with consultants
By Barrie Clement, Labour Editor
The Independent
16 May 2003

Senior MPs expressed deep concern yesterday that a commercial company
involved in billions of pounds of government contracts is also supplying
expert staff to the Labour Party free of charge.

The consultancy firm KPMG is seconding employees to work at Labour's
headquarters. Stephen Uttley, a KPMG consultant specialising in the
operations of the Financial Services Authority, is working as the party's
finance director. His predecessor, Rees Aronson, also came from the company.
The secondments are understood to have followed initial approaches from
Labour.

The former defence minister Peter Kilfoyle has tabled parliamentary
questions on the issue. Mr Kilfoyle told Tribune magazine: "This will
profoundly concern those people who are alarmed by frequent conflicts of
interest with companies awarded lucrative contracts by the Government."

David Hinchliffe, Labour chairman of the Commons Health Committee, was
equally concerned. He said: "Anybody looking at this from the outside might
indeed think here is a conflict of interest."

Research conducted by the GMB general union shows that KPMG is involved in
more than 90 government contracts worth in excess of £12bn.

A KPMG spokeswoman said the firm had seconded staff to the Liberal Democrats
and was working on a placement with Conservative Central Office. Government
contracts were awarded under strict British and European law, she added.