At the British Constitution Group Conference on the 13th July, John Harris brought up screenshots of a company called DuPort. This organisation’s slogan is “Companies House Made Easy.”

I had a look on there, out of interest, and discovered that I could buy a report into a company called “The Police Services Northern Ireland”. It has, according to DuPort, a registration number of UC3582278, and a registered address of 65 Knock Road Belfast County Antrim BT5 6LD.

Now, I’m from Belfast, and I know that that is indeed the headquarters of PSNI.

Looking at a lot of the other research into public bodies that are also corporations, the prefix UC seems to be common in the company numbers. I was interested to find out what UC stood for, so I sent a Freedom Of Information request off to Companies House. They listed their company number prefixes for me:

Company registration numbers are allocated on formation of a limited company. They are assigned numerically and in the order of which the application is accepted.

Under the provisions of the Companies Act 1985, section 714, the Registrar of Companies is required to keep an index of the names of specified bodies. Code letters, which appear before the registered numbers, are used to identify such bodies:

Companies registered in England and Wales:

AC      Assurance companies
FC      Overseas companies which appear to have a place of Business in England or Wales
BR      Branch Registration
LP      Limited Partnerships
OC      Limited Liability Partnerships
ZC      Companies Incorporated under other than Companies Acts. (Very old, specific companies)
IP      Industrial and Provident Societies, registered with the Registrar of Friendly Societies
OC      Limited Liability Partnerships
RC      Incorporated by Royal Charter or Letters Patent
GE      European Economics Interest Groupings

I was surprised (or maybe not) to find UC not on the list, so I wrote back. I got the following reply:

Unfortunately, Companies House are unable to advise with regards to a definition for UC, as it is not an abbreviation we use.
Sorry I cannot be of more help.

So I decided to take another tack. I sent the following questions to PSNI:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to request information under the Freedom of Information Act.

I was interested to discover that I can purchase a report from DuPort (http://www.duport.co.uk/) on a company called “The Police Services Northern Ireland”. It has a registration number: UC3582278, and a registered address of 65 Knock Road Belfast County Antrim BT5 6LD.

Could you please forward me full details of the trading activities of this company and its last three years audited accounts.

I was also interested to discover that every PSNI police station seems to exist as a company with a UC company number. While I understand that it would  probably take you outside of your obligations under the Act to send me similar information for each of these companies, can you please tell me, in general,
why Northern Ireland police stations are trading as companies.

For “The Police Services Northern Ireland” and for the other PSNI companies, can you please tell me which legislation these companies are incorporated
under.

For “The Police Services Northern Ireland” and for the other PSNI companies, can you please tell me what reporting obligations you are bound by. I.e. do
you have to supply accounts and an annual report to Companies House? Or to Government?

I am waiting for their response.

In the meantime, we are calling on you, dear readers, to find yourself a UC company on DuPort, and send it an FOI request along the lines of the above. We’d like to get responses from a range of public bodies carrying a UC company registration number. As always, feel free to bombard your MP with questions along the same lines. Its time to let these people know we are on to them.

Let us know how it goes.

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