15.1 | Civilian
personnel
421.
Mr Etherington
singled out staffing as the best illustration of the difficulties
faced
by the
PRT:
“… the
commercial company Enterplan fielded the bulk of consultants
for
DFID; which
in turn seconded them into the PRT. Perhaps understandably,
the
consultants …
tended to look to either or both of their original employers
for
guidance
and recourse; and this divided loyalty persisted because UK
departments,
upon whom
the PRT concept had largely been forced, were lukewarm about
the
idea and
seconded none of their civil servants into the team, preferring to
retain
separate
departmental structures … While this undoubtedly exposed companies
like
Enterplan
to risk – after all, it was they who were contractually bound to
individuals
– it also
allowed them undue influence in theatre and allowed the
possibility
that
conflicts of interest might arise. In the only instance of the
period in which
misconduct
proceedings were initiated these difficulties became
obvious.
“The PRT
consisted, at peak, of staff on seven different kinds of contract …
and the
cumulative
effect of managing … [different] leave schemes, together with a
range
of other
frictions, was to make the maintenance of momentum almost
comically
difficult.
“The sheer
throughput of staff exacerbated this difficulty. This tended to be
because
parent
agencies and departments tended to move ‘their’ people in and out
of theatre
without
reference to PRT management …
“PRT staff
varied widely in calibre and disposition …
“The
Post‑Conflict Reconstruction Unit (PCRU) contribution of core staff
such as
a communications
and IT expert and office manager proved invaluable.”
422.
PCRU support
for the Basra PRT is addressed in Section 10.3.
423.
At the end of
May 2006, the FCO SOSA reviewed security in Baghdad and
Basra
with a DFID
security official.289
424.
Mr Andrew
Noble, FCO Director of Security, reported the outcome to
Mr Nigel Casey,
Head of the
IPU:
“The
starting point for the review remains that the security risks to
which our staff
are exposed
in Iraq are extreme by normal diplomatic standards. All
plausible
security
measures are being put in place to provide as great a degree of
assurance
from attack
as possible. But we are operating at the limits of what can be
achieved,
consistent
with running a diplomatic mission. In such an extreme
environment,
the likely
consequences of an accident or a piece of bad luck could make
the
difference
between life and death. SMD’s [Security Management Directorate’s]
clear
289
Minute SOSA
to Patey, 13 June 2006, ‘Visit to Baghdad and Basra’.
317