Latent Hazard

by Piers Venmore-Rowland

  ‘In summary, it will significantly increase disposable incomes of key workers, provide them with a good home in the right location that is theirs and remove all worries of falling into negative equity.’

  The Chancellor quickly glanced at his watch, hoping that no one noticed that he was stalling for time. ‘I am conscious that initially there will be more demand than supply for these indexhold properties, as they will be far, far more affordable than freehold properties. This demand will act as a catalyst for the redevelopment of substandard city centre office buildings and of surplus property. In order to assist in the process of releasing property for indexholds, the Government, in consultation with municipal and local authorities, will create residential enterprise zones, in which the planning process for indexhold properties will be simplified and where compulsory purchase powers will be available to buy properties or land which is being underutilised. I will be forming a cross-party task force to work on and push forward these proposals.’

  Rafi was impressed – very impressed. This was a very timely and socially astute initiative. He glanced across to the clock. It had been several minutes since the commander had jumped ship. From the dots on the screen he could see that Golden Sundancer was making an excellent turn of speed away from the dinghy and the two life rafts.

  Suddenly over the radio came the voice of a fighter pilot in heavily accented English. ‘Golden Sundancer . . . Golden Sundancer . . . I have you on my radar – bring your boat to a stop. I say again, bring your boat to a stop.’

  In the Ops Room the Air Chief Marshal spoke to the command centre. ‘We have to keep the two Moroccan fighters interested in Golden Sundancer and looking in the wrong place for about twenty minutes. Get the Harrier pilot to engage the two fighters in conversation and to tell them that there are British nationals amongst the hostages on board Golden Sundancer – and that they should shadow the motor vessel. I repeat, we’ve got to keep them looking in the wrong place. The dinghy and life rafts won’t show up on their radar, so they will be safe until the rain clears and the planes fly directly overhead.’

  The seconds passed by. The Moroccan pilot would by now have Golden Sundancer on visual. What would he do? He had been warned that there were hostages on board. At 48–50 knots Golden Sundancer could outrun anything that the Moroccan Navy possessed. A further command was heard.

  ‘Stop or I will open fire.’

  ‘Northrop Tiger, come in Northrop Tiger,’ said the Harrier pilot. ‘Be advised that there are British Nationals on board . . . Do not engage!’

  In the rainswept dinghy, the commander leant across to Jim. ‘If you hear any cannon fire, please push your little red button. The pilot will think it’s all his doing.’

  There was silence and a further command to ‘Heave to’ was heard. Golden Sundancer carried on regardless. In the distance there was the distinctive sound of a short burst of gunfire. No doubt the fighter pilot had aimed across the bow.

  Jim pressed the little red button. Seconds later the deep boom and shockwave of the explosion reached the dinghy. He squinted through the rain, but could see nothing.

  The radio fell silent.

  Back at the command centre there had been initial consternation when the pilot had opened fire and seconds later Golden Sundancer had literally disappeared from the Nimrod’s screens.

  ‘Sweet Jesus!’ the intelligence officer standing beside the team leader was heard to say. He’d just arrived back on duty and had missed out on the recent shenanigans.

  Over the speaker came the voice of the Northrop Tiger’s pilot. He was calling up helicopter support.

  The stern voice of the Harrier pilot meanwhile was demanding to know what the hell the Northrop Tiger pilot thought he was up to.

  The Eurocopter on board the frigate Mohammed V had taken off to investigate. The sky was going to get busy and the nuclear submarine still had to make its pickup.

  ‘Right,’ said the chief in the command centre to the Nimrod, ‘where exactly is our Harrier relative to the helicopter?’

  ‘She’ll be there in fifteen minutes and the Eurocopter will be there two minutes later.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  Meanwhile the Harrier’s pilot was demanding that the two Moroccan fighters keep looking for survivors until the helicopter arrived.

  In the wet dinghy, the commander was still dazed. The swell that had hardly inconvenienced Golden Sundancer was making life uncomfortable for those in the little open-topped inflatable, which was barely making four knots. Slowly, the commander calculated that they would get back to the life rafts in twelve minutes and the submarine would surface just minutes later.

  The Nimrod continued to pick up the radio traffic between the Moroccan fighter pilots and their control centre. There was consternation. The pilot was describing the size of the explosion.

  Jim had placed his explosive charges next to the cool box, which housed the four thermobaric Kornet missiles, which in turn weren’t far from the main fuel tanks full of diesel vapour. The overall effect was impressive. One moment Golden Sundancer had been there, the next she’d literally disintegrated into a fireball and smoke. Her debris had vaporised. When the smoke and flames cleared there was no sign of her.

  A minute later the second Moroccan jet fighter arrived to find nothing but clear ocean. The presence of the RAF Harrier fighter thirteen minutes away, bearing down on their two planes, was causing the Moroccan control centre concern.

  Rafi listened to the colonel who was talking to the RAF command centre. ‘We have the makings of a major diplomatic incident if they piece together what’s really going on under their noses. Tell the Harrier to keep talking and to get them to stay where they are . . .’

  The contents of the Chancellor’s third coloured folder grabbed Rafi’s attention. It was as though he’d been through the Treasury’s ‘good ideas box’ and was bringing them out, one at a time.

  The Chancellor started to outline a new corporate structure. ‘The not-for-profit corporation will primarily be for public sector bodies.’ His voice was clear and authoritative.

  ‘The structure of a not–for-profit corporation will be similar to that of a public limited company,’ he continued in a businesslike manner. ‘Just like a PLC, it will have a Memorandum and Articles of Association. The difference will be that it will have custodianholders instead of shareholders. The custodianholders will have limited liability, as is the case in companies limited by guarantee. The custodianholders will have the same role as shareholders, in that they will be responsible for holding the management to account. Custodianholders will be drawn from the managers of the business, its employees, its funders, local organisations, locally elected politicians and those who receive the services. The last group, the service users, will have the largest number of votes, but no group will have a clear voting majority.’

  The Chancellor seemed to be enjoying himself as he went on. ‘The custodianholdings can be for different amounts and their limited liability will range from, say, £1 to perhaps a few hundred pounds. The voting rights will be proportional to the level of limited liability carried. But unlike shareholdings, custodianholdings will be for finite periods of time.’

  The Chancellor glanced at his watch. He took a deep breath and continued. ‘Instead of having just one board of directors, the not–for-profit corporation will have two: a strategy board and a management board. The strategy board will set out the business framework and will liaise with the Treasury concerning the public money they receive and the delivery of value for money. The management board will deal with the day to day running of the corporation and it will report to the strategy board. However, where the strategy board exercises its powers over the management board, in specified areas, the approval of the custodianholders will be required.’

  Rafi was hanging on his every word.

  ‘The custodianholders will hold the strategy board to account, just as shareholders do in companies. However, the custodianholders, for their part, will b
e expected to bring with them a level of expertise and everyday reality. This reality will include an understanding of how businesses are run. Custodianholders will not necessarily be experts, but will be expected to be more knowledgeable than the so-called person on the “Clapham omnibus”.’

  ‘The Prime Minister has already announced that universities will have a key role to play in the advancement of our economy.’ The Chancellor paused. ‘I will also be giving them additional funding. This will enable them to create units with the specialist expertise that the custodianholders will require. These units will provide the support, training, research and conferences necessary to enable custodianholders to play a valuable role and appreciate the process of efficient change management. These specialist university units will be charged with working with one another so that they will be able to draw on expertise from each other. They will not be there to tell people what to do, but rather to provide them with the understanding necessary to comprehend the problems and a set of tools to help them find efficient and workable solutions. Public services have become overcentralised. This initiative which will turn public service providers into not-for-profit corporations will make them more aware of their role, which is to benefit society and to provide value for money.’

  The Chamber of the House was captivated by the Chancellor’s proposals – he was surrounded by the silence of thoughtful listeners.

  ‘I repeat, the not-for-profit corporation structure will primarily be for public sector bodies. However, it will be extended to include building societies, mutual insurance companies, friendly societies, charities, cooperatives and monopoly service providers, such that they will be able to convert if they believe this structure will assist their business plan.’

  The Chancellor drew a deep breath. ‘I shall now turn to another area fraught with problems – outsourcing. Private companies providing outsourcing services to the public sector have two Achilles heels: the requirement for ever increasing profits and the fact that the link between the public body and the end users has been broken. Where it is shown to the minister responsible that these outsourced businesses are operating outside the public good, statutory powers will be put in place to enable the activity to be brought back in-house. For too long the focus has been on financial yardsticks and league tables. The minutiae have been ignored. It is often the little things that make the difference. Public sector organisations have become more interested in glossy brochures, policy statements and the big picture. Strategy has a role to play, but it is at the coalface where battles to help people and society are won and lost. This new structure will provide a framework for accountability. End users – the taxpayers – will henceforth be in a position to influence how they can get the best out of their public services.’

  The Chancellor paused, looked at his watch, raised his eyes to the heavens and continued. ‘Furthermore, I shall be introducing one further significant change: the accounting regimes for not-for-profit corporations will change to those used by UK public limited companies. This, at a stroke, will make the allocation of public sector resources far more efficient.’ The Chancellor hesitated, made a mental calculation on how much longer he might have to speak for and opened up another folder.

  ‘Take, for example, a brand new £10 million facility in an NHS hospital. As things stand, once it has been opened, the money spent becomes invisible. All that subsequently shows up are its running costs, of which wage costs will be a very large proportion. Let us say that the facility needs ten nurses to run it.’ He paused and then went on, ‘I put before you a not uncommon scenario. Cash becomes tight and this large investment is mothballed. The money no longer paid out on wages shows up as a saving. This is plain crazy – the capital investment has now been wasted. This wouldn’t happen in the private sector. A change to private sector accounting regimes would show the £10 million capital expenditure as a fixed asset, which would be depreciated in the accounts over its economic life. If it had, say, a five-year life, this could be represented by a depreciation cost of £2 million per annum. This is equivalent to over £1,500 per hour or the cost of more than seventy-five nurses. In this example, either the £10 million facility should have never been created or it should not have been mothballed.’

  Rafi detected another small smile as the Chancellor took a brief look at his watch. He moved back to the papers in the previous file. ‘I would now like to turn to market forces and the public sector. Takeovers, mergers and demergers are an everyday occurrence for companies listed on the stock exchange. They provide a mechanism for new management to come in and replace poor management. The not-for-profit corporation structure will have such a mechanism, whereby if the business is not meeting its objectives, it will be possible for one or more of the groups of custodianholders to be replaced by those with a proven track record. Such a mechanism will underpin success.’

  The Chancellor cast a glance at the leader of the opposition. ‘Public sector bodies and organisations receiving significant amounts of public monies will be converted in phases over the next two fiscal years into not-for-profit corporations. This House will debate the optimum size of these businesses and at what point economies of scale are outweighed by bureaucratic inertia. No doubt, some will argue that these new proposals will bring a significant amount of debt on to the Government’s balance sheet. Yes, they will. But, to speak frankly, it is already there; it is just that it is being ignored in the statistics. These proposals will improve financial transparency, efficiency and the delivery of our public services. In this hour of need we have to have our public services operating at their best to facilitate our country’s recovery.’

  The Chancellor leant forward and reached for another folder – an orange one this time. He hoped that some news on the terrorists would be passed to him shortly – and he was waiting for news from the Governor of the Bank of England.

  Behind his back he briefly crossed the fingers of his left hand. He pulled out the contents of the folder. He had the Chamber guessing as to what he would do next. He still had to deal with what many saw as a Herculean task: how to pay for the massive costs associated with Stratford.

  Rafi’s attention was pulled back to the action going on off the Moroccan coast. The distant Nimrod reconnaissance plane reported that the dinghy had rejoined the two life rafts. All three specks on the rainswept ocean were ready and waiting for their rendezvous. The squall was clearing and they would soon be clearly visible to a plane flying overhead. Eight miles away the radio traffic between the Harrier and the two Moroccan jet fighters had been concluded. The Moroccans pilots viewed it as job done and had turned back to their bases minutes before the Harrier arrived.

  The seconds ticked by.

  The Harrier waited, over the spot where Golden Sundancer had exploded, for the Moroccan helicopter to get there, so that a final search could be carried out.

  The helicopter, in theory, posed a grave threat to the submarine, but with the Harrier in position that threat could be neutralised.

  The command centre spoke to the special service personnel on board the life rafts. ‘Activate the homing device. You have less than seven minutes to get on board the submarine.’

  Jim felt under his shirt and switched on his personal homing device for ten seconds – not 200 metres away, the submarine picked up the signal.

  The order went out: ‘Make surface and prepare to take on board visitors.’

  The sight of the Vanguard class submarine breaking surface at speed surprised those in the dinghy. They knew she was big, but relative to the life rafts she was huge.

  ‘Captain, you have less than six minutes before the helicopter has you on visual,’ came the message from the Nimrod. ‘The helicopter has you on its radar and has changed course to investigate – the Harrier is shadowing.’

  Rafi sensed the tension in the room. It was going to be a close-run thing.

  In a flurry of activity, a squad of naval ratings descended on the two life rafts and the dinghy. The ratings and the th
ree special service men hauled the eight uncooperative captives out of the life rafts and manhandled them across the deck to the door at the bottom of the conning tower. They were followed by those from the inflatable dinghy. Meanwhile, Jim had slashed the buoyancy tanks of the dinghy and the life rafts and lashed them together, so they would sink under the weight of the outboard engine.

  The Nimrod was tracking the hostile helicopter and speaking to the submarine’s commanding officer. ‘You have ninety seconds before you’re in firing range. The Harrier has taken up a position above and behind the helicopter and continues to shadow her.’

  As Jim hurried through the conning tower door, the command, ‘Secure hatches’ rang out.

  With seconds to spare the submarine commenced her dive into obscurity and vanished from the radar screens.

  Meanwhile, the Harrier and the helicopter pilots were in conversation.

  ‘The possible vessel has disappeared,’ advised the Harrier pilot. ‘I suggest we call it a day.’

  ‘We give it, say, ten minutes and we return to base? Yes?’

  ‘Affirmative,’ came the Harrier pilot’s reply.

  Over the speaker Rafi heard, ‘All eight terrorists and all eight service personnel safely picked up. Diving and going into silent mode. Will speak later; ETA Devonport in forty-eight hours.’

  ‘Bravo Zulu, out.’

  A cheer went up. A sense of relief filled the air.

  The submarine was heading back to Plymouth with its cargo safely on board.

  The Chancellor was still going strong. He had been going through the contents of the orange folder open in front of him and was explaining how the Government proposed to improve the transparency of corporate ownership. Rafi didn’t catch precisely what he was explaining, but from the attentive nature of the faces around him he was still having the impact of a magician pulling rabbits out of a hat. His audience was enthralled.

  ‘Guidelines will be brought in to improve the transparency in our business activities and to stop undesirables running them. All companies, partnerships and business entities operating in the UK will, from 1 June, be required to disclose the true identity of their owners, namely the investors in their equity and their debt. This information will be made available in their annual return to Companies House. Before any dividend or interest can be paid or shares transferred, the identity of the ultimate owner or owners must be known to the company. A new division of the Financial Services Authority, working with HM Revenue & Customs, will be formed to assist in these investigations. Where the ultimate ownership of a shareholding or loan is clandestine, these investments together with the dividends and interest paid will be transferred to a special Treasury-controlled escrow account . . .’