Tory donor linked to Post Office scandal IT firm now under fire for £400m broadband contracts

Exclusive: Simon Blagden, a former Fujitsu UK chair, was paid to lobby for a firm that landed lucrative contracts - from the government agency he now runs.

Transparency campaigners and politicians are calling for urgent answers about a prominent Tory donor and former Fujitsu UK chair’s involvement in the awarding of almost £400m worth of broadband contracts, following an investigation by this newsletter.

Simon Blagden was non-executive chair of Fujitsu Telecommunications between 2005 and 2019, and also served on the leadership team of Fujitsu UK, the IT firm embroiled in the Post Office Horizon scandal.

Blagden now has an £80,000-a-year job chairing a government agency - Building Digital UK - which has given a series of high-value contracts to a broadband firm that Blagden was previously paid to lobby for. 

Blagden has donated more than £400,000 to the Conservatives over the past two decades, including £189,449 since December 2019, when a High Court judge ruled that Fujitsu’s faulty Horizon software had led to thousands of sub-postmasters being wrongly accused of fraud. 

After he left Fujitsu, Blagden registered his lobbying firm, Avre Partnership Ltd, with the lobbying regulator. Avre Partnership registered a single client: alternative broadband provider CityFibre Ltd.  

Avre Partnership declared that it had stopped lobbying work in June 2022, less than three weeks before Tory culture minister Nadine Dorries appointed Blagden as chair of Building Digital UK (BDUK), a newly established agency to oversee the rollout of superfast broadband.

Since Blagden became chair of BDUK, CityFibre Ltd - Blagden’s only previous lobbying client - has been awarded more than £387m worth of public contracts by BDUK to deliver fibre broadband across the UK, as part of the government’s £5bn flagship Project Gigabit.

CityFibre has so far been award more than half of the value of all contracts awarded by BDUK.

Previously, CityFibre’s largest public contract was worth around £10 million, from Suffolk County Council in 2019. 

Despite continuing to own Avre Partnership - which has also made political donations totalling more than £218,000 - Blagden had made no declarations in BDUK’s register of interests. 

Blagden has also continued to donate to the Tories since becoming BDUK chair, giving more than £30,000 through Avre Partnership since Rishi Sunak became prime minister.

Transparency campaigners described my findings as “egregious and alarming”. 

“It should raise multiple red flags that Blagden's company is a lobbying company with only one client that then goes on to win lots of contracts with the new public body that he is chairing,” said Susan Hawley, executive director at Spotlight on Corruption.

“There must now be serious questions as to whether Blagden can remain in his current public role as Chair of Building Digital UK,” she added.

Labour MP Liam Byrne said “ministers now need to come clean and explain just how hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money was handed on a plate to CityFibre by a man who not only was the firm’s former lobbyist-in-chief but a major donor to the Tory party.”

Blagden has denied any involvement in the Post Office scandal and has pointed out that Post Office Horizon software was provided by Fujitsu Services, a separate organisation with a separate board from Fujitsu Telecommunications UK.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), which now oversees Building Digital UK, said “Simon Blagden was appointed through the usual robust processes that we have in place to ensure appointments are handled appropriately and guard against potential conflicts.”

When I pointed out Blagden’s failure to make any declarations in BDUK’s register of interests the department came back more than seven hours later, with a register that had been updated to include Blagden’s lobbying interests “to avoid any perception of conflicts”.

A spokesperson for CityFibre said: “As the largest independent provider of full fibre in the UK, CityFibre has more than a decade of experience in the delivery of digital infrastructure projects for the public sector. All of these projects, including those awarded under Project Gigabit, have followed lengthy, rigorous and competitive public procurement processes.”

CityFibre, the largest of more than 100 so-called alternative network providers, has been described as a challenger to BT’s OpenReach and is building networks in more than 75 towns and cities across the UK. 

The firm, which reported an operating loss of almost £210 million, is jointly owned by Goldman Sachs’ West Street Infrastructure Partners and private equity firm, Antin, which are both based in tax havens, Delaware and Luxembourg respectively.   

Blagden’s Avre Partnership first registered its lobbying activity for CityFibre in October 2020, with the relationship ending around March 2022 when Blagden became involved in the BDUK selection process. 

During Blagden’s time lobbying for CityFibre, the company had numerous meetings with government ministers, including more than a dozen with the Department for Culture Media and Sport - which was setting up Building Digital UK.

Since Blagden became BDUK chair CityFibre has been awarded a series of major contracts including £114m to supply gigabit infrastructure in Norfolk and £104m to provide similar services in Hampshire.

In June 2023, Blagden was photographed alongside CityFibre ceo Greg Mesch after a £100m contract was awarded for Suffolk.

As well as chairing Building Digital UK, Blagden was also appointed as a member of the UK Health Security Agency in April 2022. 

Since 2005, Blagden has given more than £400,000 to the Conservatives, mainly through two companies, Pietas Ltd and Avre Partnership Ltd.

Blagden also gave almost £30,000 to the Liberal Democrats in 2015. Senior Lib Dem figures, most notably party leader Ed Davey, have been criticised for their inaction over the Post Office scandal during the coalition government.

Questions have also been raised about billions of pounds worth of public contracts awarded to Fujitsu during Rishi Sunak’s time as chancellor and prime minister. 

Fujitsu executives have yet to comment on the on-going Post Office scandal, sparked by the terrific ITV drama. But they will be appearing before MPs next Tuesday to face questions about the disastrous Horizon IT system, and the devastating impact it has had on thousands of people and their families across the country.

Simon Blagden was approached for comment through Larkspur International, a consultancy where he is a director. He has yet to respond. 

This piece was updated on Fri Jan 12 to correct an error in the value of the contracts given to CityFibre Ltd and to add the percentage of BDUK contracts won by CityFibre.