British Secret Service may be calling on their experienced Cold War spies

05-Mar-2009 • Bond News

The Secret Intelligence Service, known as MI6 and home of the fictional James Bond, last year implemented the new civil service retirement age of 65.

However a cross-party committee of MPs said yesterday (thurs) that senior spies among its 3,382 staff should be exempt to allow the UK to benefit from their expertise stretching back to the Cold War - reports The Telegraph.

In the Intelligence and Security Committee committee's annual report, the exact age that senior spies can work to was redacted for security reasons by MI6.

However the report showed that Sir John Scarlett, the chief of SIS, had told the MPs: "Our experience tells that we need to retain staff beyond [redacted]. We need their experience.

"Having retirement age as your major mechanism for moving people in and out of senior levels is not a good idea."
Last night the Government said that it noted the committee's concerns and would make a decision on the retirement age of senior officials in the next few months.

A spokesman said: "Detailed work on pensions and reward is under way in SIS and this will allow a decision on the future retirement age to be made within the first half of 2009."

The committee's report, which covered the year to the end of March 2008, raised questions about Gordon Brown's national security strategy suggesting it might only be a "paper exercise".

They said: "The [strategy] does not create new areas of responsibility for the Agencies or the wider intelligence community."
The MPs also revealed the security services had to write off tens of millions of pounds because an IT project intended to protect secret communications did not work.

The committee said: "We sincerely hope that lessons have been learned from this failure and that they will be used when plans for the future are being drawn up."

The report also revealed that legislation to allow intercept evidence in criminal trials was likely to be introduced this year or in 2010.
The MPs also raised concerns that other threats to the UK were "continuing to suffer" because of the focus on fighting terrorism.

This was denied by the Government however. The spokesman said: "Given the scale of the terrorism threat, work on some other intelligence and security requirements has been reduced.

"However, they have not been overlooked. Careful reprioritisation has taken place to focus on those areas where the agencies' distinctive capabilities can contribute most."