The MoD has signed a 15-year contract with one consortium and will sign more contracts with two others, putting them in charge of the day-to-day running of Britain’s Trident nuclear submarine bases at Faslane and Coulport on the Clyde, reported the Guardian.
MoD officials have described the measure as “a natural extension of [the companies’] current role in supporting the nuclear warhead carried by our Trident missiles.”
Nevertheless, security experts have criticized the move, saying it is ill thought-out.
“History is littered with outsourcing deals that either or both parties eventually find constraining and/or, in practice, more expensive,” said a report by the Royal United Services Institute.
The security thinktank said after the London Olympics security fiasco, where the private security company G4S failed to provide enough security staff, “the privatisation of the railways is the most obvious example of this, but there are many others.”
The MoD said the contract of the Trident bases will come into force in January 2013.
ISH/PKH/HE
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