News

LABORATORY PROFILE

LGC steps out on its own In the smoggy streets of London, mid-19th century, shady deals took place at every turn, and an unscrupulous tradesman might make himself a nice living stretching his cache of tobacco a little bit further with tea leaves and other vegetable matter. By the 1840s, Her Majesty's Customs decided that it had had enough of poor-quality to­bacco and was under pressure from its paymasters who saw rapidly dwindling revenues from tobacco imports. The government passed the Pure Tobacco Act, which forbade additions to to­bacco. Excise Officer George Phillips offered to sniff out the bad tobacco. As the sole member of the staff he estab­lished a lab now known as the Labora­tory of the Government Chemist (LGC) and in October 1842 he began analyzing tobacco consignments for adulteration and hounded the miscre­ants involved

In 1989, almost 150 years later, LGC had become the U.K. government's fo­cal point for analytical chemistry, acting as the expert nose for numerous gov­ernment departments, such as the Min­istry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food; the Department of the Environment; and, of course, Customs and Excise. At this time, the governing Conservative Party decided that LGC should become an agency wholly answerable to the De­partment of Trade and Industry and that its future should depend on its ability to compete in the commercial market­place

"Granting agency status was part of a general trend in government to en­courage individual departments to pur­sue more commercial attitudes," ex­plains Richard Worswick, Government Chemist and LGC Chief Executive. LGC became more flexible, rather than

answering directly to government and functioning solely for the benefit of its departments. "Other departments, our customers, were under increasing pres­sure to seek and demonstrate value for money, and agency status allowed us to expand our customer base into areas at home and abroad," adds Worswick.

In 1994, a review by accountancy and management consultants led to the rec­ommendation that the government labora­tories should be privatized. This move, the report claimed, would offer the best opportunity for the laboratories to main­tain and develop the expertise and facili­ties for the changing needs of government and industry. By November 1994, the gov­ernment found its preferred bidder for the LGC buyout. Ownership would be split equally between LGC's own management, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the investment group 3i

Fiona Sloman, national officer of the trade union Institute of Professional Man­agers and Specialists, commented to the journal Chemistry & Industry that tht an­nouncement was something of a "double-edged sword, with this particular bid always likely to win."

Sloman's prediction proved to be accu­rate, and on April 1,1996, LGC became an independent company. Since then, many developments have been encouraging, according to Ray Ah-Sun, head of Busi­ness Development. LGC has broadened its expertise into geochemistry and se­

cured a major contract with petroleum giant BP, acquiring technical staff di­rectly from the company.

LGC's work is now divided into three core areas. Its food service spans the chain from nutritional, vitamin, and trace-metal analysis to testing for fun­gal contaminants and pesticides. Its forensics section covers illegal drugs and employee screening. Its environ­mental service looks at contaminated land and water.

Among its clients are the U.K.'s national and local governments, the legal profession, the armed forces, food retailers and manufacturers, jew­elry manufacturers, toy manufactur­ers, and even architects. For contrac­tual reasons, LGC is unable to dis­close exactly what it does for specific customers, but the range of analytical skills is used to study everything from the sex of tinned meat to the purity of extra virgin olive oil to build­ing materials and precious metals. Since dealing with 19th-century to­bacco touts LGC has grown to a 300-member staff occupying almost 100 000 square feet more than two-thirds of which is dedicated labora-

space in its west London premises

Meanwhile, the top brass is pleased that, free from government ties, the laboratory is progressing. "As an inde­pendent company, LGC is able to build

and strengthen its reputation as an im­partial center for ana­lytical science, and we are looking for­ward to more exciting developments in the future, such as DNA testing," says ^Vors-wick. LGC recently acquired University Diagnostics Ltd a pioneer in the com­mercial applications of DNA testing Wors­wick adds that this is "an important step in our strategy to be­come a European leader in the provi­sion oftop-qualirv analytical and diag­nostic services "

David Bradley The private LGC, getting very busy.

280 A Analytical Chemistry News & Features, May 1, 1997