Policy to Protect

Protecting the United Kingdom Through Strengthened Public Services: Why Due Diligence, Conflict of Interest, and Adequate Pay Are National Security Imperatives

A summary of the policy paper prepared for HM Government and Parliamentary Select Committees, May 2026

The Central Argument

If the political leaders of the United Kingdom feel so passionately about protecting this country, the first and foremost step they should take is to protect and provide resources to the public services which are responsible for doing so. This is the central argument of a policy paper submitted for consideration by HM Government and Parliamentary Select Committees in May 2026. The paper undertakes a forensic analysis of the structural weaknesses of the UK’s public services architecture and their direct consequences for national security, with particular attention to due diligence deficiencies, conflict of interest vulnerabilities, and the critical relationship between public service pay and the nation’s ability to defend itself against hostile foreign actors.

The paper examines five high-corruption jurisdictions the Russian Federation, the People’s Republic of China, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Republic of Türkiye, and the Republic of Azerbaijan to demonstrate that individuals who have served or contracted with these governments pose material conflict of interest risks that the UK’s current vetting and due diligence processes are not designed to address. British citizenship, the paper argues, does not and cannot immunise against the risk of institutional contamination posed by previous professional immersion in systemically corrupt state apparatus.

A Decade of Damage to Public Services

The paper documents, through evidence drawn from the Institute for Government, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Office for Budget Responsibility, and parliamentary records, a sustained pattern of fiscal attrition across UK public services. Between 2010 and the pandemic, day-to-day public spending increased by only two per cent in real terms, while capital spending suffered even sharper cuts. Local government, criminal courts, and prisons saw real-terms spending reductions of between a fifth and a quarter. The Institute for Government concluded that this had “severely damaged the long-term productivity of public services.”

The criminal justice system presents the most acute degradation. Prisons face a capacity crisis, with the prison population projected to increase by 12,000 against only 4,400 new places. The probation service had a 25 per cent vacancy rate by the fourth quarter of 2023. Policing is characterised by short-term and inconsistent funding, poor staff retention, and persistent skills gaps. The failed prosecution of two men accused of spying for China in September 2025 where the Crown Prosecution Service dropped charges after the government failed to provide sufficient evidence is cited as a direct operational consequence of this systemic underinvestment.

Why Higher Pay Is a National Security Investment

The paper advances a four-pillar argument for substantially increased public service remuneration, positioning it not as a labour market issue but as a direct investment in national security.

The recruitment and capability argument draws on Institute for Fiscal Studies data showing that between 2007 and 2023, real average public sector pay fell by one per cent while private sector pay rose by four per cent, with high-skill professions like doctors and teachers experiencing significantly larger falls. The consequence is that public services cannot attract or retain the analytical, investigative, and intelligence personnel required for complex due diligence and vetting work.

The anti-corruption resilience argument cites established criminological literature, particularly Rose-Ackerman and Palifka’s Corruption and Government (2016), demonstrating that poorly compensated public servants are disproportionately susceptible to corruption and external inducements from hostile state actors. Higher pay materially strengthens workforce integrity by increasing the opportunity cost of corrupt conduct.

The retention argument notes that when experienced investigators and analysts depart, they take institutional knowledge and professional networks with them. The cost of replacement invariably exceeds the cost of retention through competitive pay.

The attractiveness argument contends that the current pay structure, declining in real terms relative to the private sector for over a decade, signals that the state does not value the apparatus that protects it. A well-remunerated public service is one that people aspire to join and remain within, producing a deep pool of talented, motivated, and incorruptible candidates.

Due Diligence Failures: Mandelson and Greensill

The paper examines two domestic precedents that expose the structural vulnerabilities of UK vetting and conflict of interest management. In the Mandelson case (April 2026), UK Security Vetting recommended against granting developed vetting clearance, but Foreign Office officials overrode this recommendation without political consultation. The Prime Minister stated that had he known, he would not have proceeded with the appointment. The Greensill affair revealed a senior civil servant simultaneously employed by a private financial firm with Cabinet Office approval. Both cases demonstrate that the existing framework comprising the Ministerial Code, the Civil Service Code, and the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments – is not fit for purpose. If it cannot manage domestic private sector conflicts of interest, it is profoundly inadequate for the far more complex risks arising from affiliations with foreign governments of high-corruption jurisdictions.

Five High-Corruption Jurisdictions: The Conflict of Interest Case Studies

The paper presents detailed case studies of five jurisdictions whose systemic corruption profiles create material conflict of interest risks for individuals seeking UK government employment.

Russia scored 22 out of 100 on the 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index, an all-time low, ranking 157th globally. The Russian state’s intelligence apparatus FSB, SVR, GRU actively recruits and co-opts individuals with access to Western government institutions. MI5 reported a 35 per cent increase in state threat investigations in a single year.

China presents a uniquely complex threat. GCHQ now devotes more resource to the China threat than any other mission. MI5 warned parliamentarians in November 2025 that Chinese agents were using LinkedIn to conduct intelligence recruitment at scale. Over 20,000 individuals in high-technology industries were targeted via LinkedIn for industrial espionage.

Iran’s threat profile centres on the IRGC’s transnational financial networks. In May 2026, the British government sanctioned four members of the Zaringhalam family – at least three based in London, one a British citizen with a PhD from King’s College London for IRGC-linked money laundering. A UK registered digital asset exchange connected to the network processed over $94 billion in transactions. UK due diligence mechanisms failed to detect these connections before US enforcement action.

Türkiye scored 31 on the 2025 CPI, its lowest ever, ranking 124th globally. The Reza Zarrab case saw sworn testimony that President Erdoğan personally approved transactions in a sanctions-evasion scheme described by prosecutors as “a fraud of global proportions,” involving approximately $70 million in ministerial bribes and the use of state-run Halkbank to launder Iranian oil revenues.

Azerbaijan’s ruling elite operated a $2.9 billion “Laundromat” slush fund between 2012 and 2014, channelled through four shell companies registered in the United Kingdom. The laundered funds were used to bribe delegates of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. A German court delivered a historic conviction in July 2025.

Policy Recommendations

The paper advances fifteen numbered recommendations across three domains. On resourcing and remuneration, it proposes sustained above-inflation funding increases, a comprehensive independent pay review benchmarked against private sector comparators, a “National Security Workforce Premium” for counter-espionage and financial investigation personnel, and ring-fenced funding for the National Crime Agency, the Serious Fraud Office, and UK Security Vetting.

On due diligence reform, it recommends mandatory enhanced due diligence for applicants with prior affiliations to governments scoring below 40 on the Corruption Perceptions Index, the removal of departmental powers to override UKSV recommendations without Secretary of State referral, and mandatory ongoing monitoring for personnel with declared foreign government affiliations.

On conflict of interest, it proposes a statutory presumption of conflict of interest for applicants who have served high-corruption governments, a Cabinet Office Foreign Affiliations Review Panel drawing on intelligence agency expertise, and legislation ensuring that British citizenship does not exempt any individual from enhanced scrutiny where high-corruption affiliations are identified.

The Bottom Line

The question for policymakers is not whether these recommendations are affordable, but whether the nation can afford the consequences of continued inaction. The cost of properly compensating the investigative, intelligence, and vetting workforce is negligible compared to the cost of the threats that an under-resourced system fails to detect. Every unidentified conflict of interest that compromises a procurement decision, every undetected foreign intelligence operation that infiltrates a government department, every money laundering syndicate that exploits UK banking infrastructure because the investigating agencies lack staff these are the true costs of failing to invest in the people who protect this country.

The paper identifies a virtuous cycle that higher remuneration would create: better pay attracts more applicants, enabling more selective hiring; more selective hiring produces a more capable and rigorously vetted workforce; a more capable workforce delivers more effective investigation and enforcement; more effective enforcement deters future threats and reduces the burden on the system. Conversely, the existing model – where real pay compression drives attrition, attrition drives loss of capability, loss of capability leads to processing shortcuts, and processing shortcuts generate the very vulnerabilities that hostile actors exploit is a vicious cycle that will continue to erode the country’s security posture until decisive corrective action is taken.

The paper concludes that protecting the UK is a forensic operational requirement, not a political slogan. It depends entirely on the capacity of the institutions that do the protecting and those institutions are the UK’s public services. Until they are properly resourced and their people properly paid, the nation’s defences will remain structurally compromised.

The full policy paper, with complete references and forensic analysis, is available for download. It was prepared for consideration by HM Government and Parliamentary Select Committees, May 2026.