Ms Raccoon was distracted this morning by a fascinating portal called ‘Bluelight.eu-supply.com‘. Doesn’t sound that riveting? For a Raccoon who loves scavenging through official documents it was manna from heaven! A Raccoon could, and did, get lost for hours in there.

Here is all the minutiae of the deals to supply police stations with doughnuts – who is responsible for training the copper who hands out the doughnuts; what criminal record checks the man who delivers the doughnuts needs to undertake; who is responsible for ensuring that if the man who owns the doughnut factory drops dead during the course of the contract, that no copper goes without his daily doughnut. An average 100 pages of contract for each deal done between a police station and those who supply their daily needs.

I was after bigger fish than the doughnuts though. The site also lists contracts going begging that the enterprising could bid for, and the one I was looking for was from the Metropolitan Police and was worth a cool one and a half billion of the taxpayer’s pounds…

I found it eventually.

So: the one and a half billion quid on offer is not for actually supplying anything tangible; like new boots or multi-sensory interactive safe space areas for complainants.

The one and a half billion quid on offer is the carrot that will be shared with those responding to this appeal for advice as to how to get your sticky hands on it.

Advice as to how the Met Police ‘brand’ (yes, well, they do have a ‘brand’ you know) could be ‘merchandised’…

The MPS are particularly keen to explore the potential benefits and commercial models associated with the creation of a joint venture company as perhaps the most radical of the options considered.

‘Met Police – R – Us’?

In addition the MPS would like market feedback on the most advantageous route to market, remuneration and the methodology of how benefits could be delivered.

This project is developed under a wider commercial concept known as ‘Met Enterprises’ which focuses on the opportunities associated with MPS brand as a means to ensure future financial sustainability and leverage the cost of transformation.

Yes, almost 200 years after Sir Robert Peel established the Metropolitan Police force, they feel that they have so perfected the art of filling Spanish villas with ex-Met police officers on early retirement pensions now engaged in a variety of nefarious enterprises, that they can confidently stride forth into the world and earn some money out of training other police forces…

‘Met Enterprise’ allows us to commercialise our brand.

Back in 1997, ‘ACPO’, which started life as a loose association of chief police officers to exchange ideas and best practice, turned itself into a private company limited by guarantee. By 2009, it had £15.8million in assets, including £9.2million ‘cash at bank and in hand’. It had several handy sidelines – like a monopoly on supplying criminal records checks for those applying for visas to work or live in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Even Shami Chakrabarti, of Liberty, questioned whether ACPO’s role as a company with increasing national powers was legal. She said: ‘It is legally questionable for senior police officers to be running this sort of business.’

Despite ACPO declaring that it would ‘continue to develop our business activities to ensure that the ACPO brand name is recognised globally as a mark of excellence in policing’, the lucrative private company was eventually closed down – to be replaced by The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC). This would appear to have fingers in some remarkably similar lucrative pies.

Now the Metropolitan Police are to go it alone.

‘Met Enterprise’ – you too can learn how to withhold key evidence in cases and up your conviction rate…

‘Met Enterprise’ – you too can learn how to set up mass trawling exercises to gain easy convictions over your geriatric citizens.

‘Met Enterprise’ – you too can learn how to flog information to your national broadcaster or local newspaper.

‘Met Enterprise’ – you too can learn how to turn the descendants of Sir Robert Peel’s finest into a national joke and still keep your pension.

It’s just as well it’s not April 1st – I wouldn’t have believed this otherwise.