"Big Brother has a name

The government Blair decided, some weeks ago, TO PRIVATIZE THE CONSERVATION OF THE STATE DOCUMENTS, including those classified secret top. The new one not step did waves for alone of rare official communiqués some spoke, such the one of the newspaper Hansard (column 29WS).

Thus, TNT Expresses Services, property of Rupert Murdoch (that possesses also other newspapers Times and Sun), henceforth in charge of preserving ALL the official documents of ALL the British ministers is a warehouse under construction in the Midlands. The contract for TNT is valid for a minimum of 25 years and is renewable.

Concretely, that means that ALL confidential informaytion (non - military) news concerning ALL the British citizens will be at the hands private intérest

You said Big Brother?

G. Orwell, in his "1984", did not have nightmares also far: not only the democracy becomes everywhere a démocrature to the service of a handful of "mastres of the world" but the politicians do not take meme more pains it to conceal than these maitres of the world are some does the owners and the leaders supremes of the multinational corporations.

Today the Great Britain and tomorrow?

Sources: reviewed "Intelligence", no 420 of April 7 2003.

Elie Kopter

"Big Brother has a name: TOP SECRET is no longer what it once was.

The Blair government decided, a few weeks ago, on PRIVATISING the CONSERVATION OF the DOCUMENTS OF STATE, including those classified Top Secret. The news did not make even a vague buzz, only rare official statements mention it, such as that of the Parliamentary publication, Hansard (column 29WS).

Thus, TNT Express Train Services, property of Rupert Murdoch (who owns inter alia the Times and Sun newspapers), will be from now on charged with the preservation of ALL official documents of ALL the British ministries, in a warehouse under construction in the Midlands.

TNT's contract is valid for 25 years and is renewable. Concretely, that means that ALL confidential information concerning ALL British citizens will be within the private hands of parties with a commercially conflicting interest.

You mentioned Big Brother? Not even Orwell's "1984" imagined a nightmare like this: not only that democracy everywhere becomes a caricature of democracy, in the service of these "masters of the world", but also that politicians similarly no longer take the trouble to even disguise the fact that these masters of the world are in fact the owners and the supreme leaders of the multinationals.

Today Great Britain, and tomorrow...?

Sources: review "Intelligence", No 420, April 7, 2003."

PS from spanner: societelibre, your French is way better than mine, please correct me here, thanks.

Could it be referring to this... Seems pretty wide ranging storage yep...

 http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd/cm030314/wmstext/30314m01.htm
Hayes PPP Project

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr. Lewis Moonie): The Ministry of Defence has decided to appoint TNT Express Services with ProLogis Ltd. as the preferred bidder for the Hayes PPP Project. Subject to negotiations, TNT will be responsible for the provision of records management and archiving services to the Ministry of Defence and a number of other Government organisations for a 25-year period. ProLogis will become the owners of the Ministry site at Bourne Avenue, Hayes, Middlesex and will be responsible for its redevelopment. Within two years, TNT intends to relocate the records service to new facilities in the midlands.

This project is a pan-government collaboration between the MOD, as project sponsor, and its 13 partners who are as follows:

Court Service, Public Record Office, Lord Chancellor's Department, Department for International Development, Department of Trade and Industry, Public Guardianship Office,
Parliamentary Commissioner, Crown Prosecution Service, Home Office, Metropolitan Police Service, Food Standards Agency, Veterinary Medicines Directorate, Energywatch

When the contract takes effect, possibly in the summer of 2003, TNT will become the new employer for all transferring civil servants (perhaps more than 60).

14 Mar 2003 : Column 30WS

All transfers to TNT will be covered by the Transfer of Undertaking (Protection of Employment) Regulations (TUPE) 1981.

The Hayes PPP contract will initially provide secure storage for possibly 200Kms of official paper records. The service will include a high degree of accountability for this material and will offer a range of delivery standards to suit each government organisation's needs via a UK-wide logistics network.

Reported in the Guardian as this:-
Storage of army secrets to be privatised
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,916373,00.html
David Hencke
Tuesday March 18, 2003
The Guardian

The government is to hand over the storage of top secret military records - including those of Sir Winston Churchill and Lord Mountbatten - from Whitehall to Rupert Murdoch's TNT Group as part of a new privatisation deal to release valuable land for the expansion of Heathrow airport.

The deal, which has been bitterly opposed by the local Labour MP, John McDonnell, will mean the closure of a government secure warehouse in Hayes, Middlesex, and the transfer of millions of sensitive documents to private warehouses in the Midlands.

The government's decision was slipped out at the weekend in a written statement from Lewis Moonie, the junior defence minister responsible for war veterans.

The move will allow the Treasury and a private group to make a financial killing out of the sale of the site, which is expected to be used for new hotels and a conference centre.

 http://www.publications.parliament.uk/cgi-bin/ukparl_hl?DB=ukparl&STEMMER=en&WORDS=hayes+ppp+project+&COLOUR=Red&STYLE=s&URL=/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd/cm030414/text/30414w40.htm#30414w40.html_wqn2

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT
Census Records

Mr. John Taylor: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department whether TNT Express Services with Prologis Ltd. will be responsible for record management and archiving services for census records after the contract for the Hayes PPP Project has been signed. [108533]

Ms Rosie Winterton: Any census record that has been accessioned (selected for permanent preservation) and is in the custody of The National Archives will not be part of the Hayes PPP project. The National Archives will only use the Hayes PPP project to store non-accessioned records (those not selected for permanent preservation).

 http://www.publications.parliament.uk/cgi-bin/ukparl_hl?DB=ukparl&STEMMER=en&WORDS=hayes+ppp+project+&COLOUR=Red&STYLE=s&URL=/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd/cm030305/text/30305w07.htm#30305w07.html_spnew2

Dr. Moonie: The Ministry of Defence has 13 main archive facilities. By far, the largest is the central Records Repository that is located at Hayes in West London. The repository houses the bulk of the MOD's archived material but there are other, smaller, MOD record stores in locations around Great Britain. The following table shows these locations with staff numbers for the years 1997 to 2003 with explanatory notes. Only staff who work 'hands on' in a file store are included. The figures reflect established numbers ie they do not take into account temporary staff vacancies at any time, and they are based on permanent full-time equivalent staff. All posts are civil service unless stated in the notes. The total number of staff that were/are employed in departmental file stores in each year are shown in the last row of the table. To date 42 civil service members ofstaff have transferred to the private sector over the period.

Site 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003(to date)
Central Repository, Hayes1 60 62 62 70 65 66 69
MOD, London 3 3 3 3 3 3 3
RN personnel records, Portsmouth 4 3 3 3 3 3 4
RN personnel records, Gosport 2 8 9 7 4.5 4 5 6
RM personnel records, Gosport 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Army personnel records, London 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Army personnel records, Glasgow 3 36.574 66 67 64 35 33
RAF personnel records, Innsworth, near Gloucester 13.5 13.5 17 16 14 13.5 13
Home Guard records, Droitwich Spa 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
RAF historical records, Bentley Priory 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
MOD civilian personnel records, Llangenech 9 9 9 9 7 7 7
War Pensions records, Preston 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Armed Forces medical records, Shoeburyness 10 10 10 10 10 10 10
Total 148 187. 5 181 186. 5 174 146. 5 149


1 None of the posts have transferred to the private sector yet but the MOD repository at Hayes has been considered for contractorisation in recent years as part of the public private partnership (PPP) initiative. This PPP project is a collaborative pan-government venture, led by the MOD and involving 13 other government organisations. The project has recently been granted approval to appoint a preferred bidder with a view to a contract possibly being in place during the summer of 2003. Some of the civil servants currently employed at the site may transfer to the incoming provider when the contract takes effect. Their terms and conditions will be protected in line with the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) (TUPE) regulations.

2 On 1 January 1998 Electronic Data Systems (EDS) took over responsibility and eight members of staff transferred across from the civil service.

3 On 1 October 2001 EDS took over responsibility and 34 members of staff transferred across from the civil service. Prior to EDS taking over responsibility, the file store also included mail operations for a large part of the MOD Glasgow organisation. It is not possible to accurately separate mail operations staff from file store staff. However, it is reasonable to assume that file store staff would have numbered around 35 in the years 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001.

4 MOD war pension records are held by the War Pensions Agency at Preston, however, these are stored in a Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) facility that is staffed entirely by DWP civil servants. Therefore it is not included in this MOD answer.