9 September 2026. Root completed this bounded acquisition after the instruction forest. No outreach. This packet is not yet integrated into case-r20. Original captures and failures are recorded in captures.json. Public-page statements, contract terms, expenditure and performed outcomes are distinct evidence states.
The present analysis supplier
Companies House identifies THE GLOBAL STRATEGY NETWORK LTD, company 10433562, incorporated 18 October 2016 and currently active. Its public PSC register records Giles Henry Donne Barrett and Matthew Thomas King each with more than 25% and not more than 50% of shares and voting rights, notified respectively 24 June 2021 and 28 October 2020. Richard Barrett's PSC status ceased 24 June 2021. These bands do not establish an exact half-share each, a family relationship, or Richard's current control. Personal addresses and birth information were not extracted into the case.
Sources: http[local research file] and http[local research file] (direct primary reader).
The current NSOIT privacy notice names Global Strategy Network as its appointed public-social-media analysis contractor following an open tender. Its page's initial publication date does not date the appointment paragraph. The retained privacy capture belongs to the preceding instruction packet. This does not prove Crisp's exact exit date or that the two suppliers never worked in parallel.
The 27 January 2026 ministerial answer to question 106529 separates two functions: GSN provides analysis of online misinformation/disinformation narratives relevant to UK public safety and national security; Faculty Science develops the Counter-Disinformation Data Platform (CDDP). The question itself misspells the supplier names; the answer is the attribution anchor. This is an official role account, not a technical or effectiveness audit.
Source: http[local research file]
DSIT's September 2025 spending CSV records a payment of GBP 118,000 on 12 September 2025 to The Global Strategy Network Ltd, transaction 719926. Expense: Consultancy Expenditure; area: Security and Online Harms; description: SOH Info Threats and Security Programme. The original CSV has blank contract/project/expenditure-type fields, rendered as Not set in the HTML preview. This is one payment, not a contract ceiling, annual budget or demonstrated invoice scope. VAT basis and service period are not provided. The supplier is named, without a company number in the row; association to the registered company is a name match supported by official supplier naming, not a registry identifier in this payment.
Original: http[local research file] ; 67,256 bytes; SHA256 2a1765cbb3b334406fd8f8def9897474684520222b909ab9f58d9fe61c39edcc. Captured 9 September 2026. Preview updated 30 July 2026: http[local research file] . Retained HTML SHA256 c04fb5c8ef1af21ed50ffb1d3803ed251fe5a1770d916e16b5d512933a35931f.
A separate government-directed technical platform
A government procurement page for CDDP development, hosting and maintenance dates stage-one publication to 11 September 2023 and closing to 25 September 2023. Its stated team locates prioritisation in DSIT: a product manager owns sprint priorities/user research, a programme manager leads strategy, and analysts test as expert users. Proposed working arrangements put sprint goals with DSIT, alongside a prioritised backlog and quarterly strategic workshops. The technical supplier would support the government team using, evaluating and directing the platform, manage AWS hosting, and develop/maintain prototypes. Users are expressly within HMG. These are tender requirements, not proof that every practice occurred.
The page identifies Faculty as incumbent in extended Alpha, describes a March 2024 contract end and procurement for transition. It also gives an October 2023 latest start, residual BEIS branding and test placeholders: preserve those inconsistencies and do not silently normalize the page into an executed contract. Publication records 19 applications; the separate assessment section proposes evaluating five suppliers. Neither is an award result. Stage-two suppliers would sign an NDA before receiving the complete ITT. The listed indicative budget is 500,000–920,000, with a one-year length, six-month extension and six-month break clause; do not aggregate it with contract variations or treat it as expenditure. The dated January 2026 answer still names Faculty, so an actual supplier replacement is not established.
Source: http[local research file] . Read context, working arrangements, technical scope, assessment and timeline. Procurement-source wording is not a direct CDDP product inspection.
Original contracts released under FOI
The official FOI response inventories withheld Discovery Report and Product Operating Model alongside partly disclosed business-case and contract records, including an expert-evaluation procurement, Oliver Wyman evaluation contract, Faculty variations and NewsWhip contract. Its inventory is not equivalent to reading all of those documents.
Release: http[local research file]
Retained original: http[local research file] ; 262 PDF pages, 11,778,384 bytes; SHA256 71bd6a522a765d53f9aa79b239134226be64891ea3c67711abc9d788fb87748f. The release path says 2024 while the original filename says 2023; retain both. A full text derivative exists, but only the following pages/passages were substantively inspected in this run. Page numbers below are one-based PDF pages, not always printed pagination.
Pages 1–2: October 2021 Shared Outcomes Fund business case, DCMS Security and Online Harms, SRO Sarah Connolly; the opening description envisages cross-government data sharing and a common picture of online information threats, with Discovery and Delivery phases. It explicitly includes misinformation, disinformation and manipulative behaviour. Redacted/unreadable participating-department and value fields are not reconstructed. Page 17 begins critical-success criteria; the following detailed evaluation section is reserved for the next run.
Pages 101–102: Faculty variation 102548 No.2, dated 16 August 2023, effective 17 March 2023, extends to 31 March 2024 with capped fee GBP 510,000 excluding VAT and stated revised total GBP 2,373,873. It coordinates IP terms across the G-Cloud and this call-off, retrospectively and prospectively. Independent visual review confirms this disclosed copy has visibly uncompleted signature, name, title and date fields; execution is not established from this copy.
Pages 110–112, Appendix C: the parties vary the arrangements so new IP and specially written software shall be supplier-owned and licensed to the buyer under a perpetual licence, not assigned. This does not imply that the earlier ownership allocation was already identical. Permitted third parties can use, adapt and modify the retained IP to supply maintenance, hosting and development to the buyer. They cannot exploit it commercially for other purposes or build a competing commercial product from it. They need no direct agreement with the supplier. The buyer must investigate evidenced misuse and, in sustained breach, terminate the applicable sublicense, subject to procurement rules. Source code and relevant documentation must be accessible and usable to the buyer and its contractors. This splits intellectual-property ownership from technical direction and replacement rights. It does not establish that an accessible repository was actually delivered, that independent maintenance succeeded, or that Faculty dictated the government's policy.
Page 114 identifies Faculty Science Limited, registration 08873131, in order 102548. Page 133 contains the 16 February 2022 variation and GBP 250,000 excluding VAT, with a design document and proof-of-concept report among deliverables. Some surrounding deliverable detail is not readable. Page 135, variation 102887 No.1 dated 13 December 2022, says milestone-two MVP completed 30 September 2022 and revises the cap from GBP 1,264,650 to GBP 1,514,650. Page 137, No.2 dated 1 March 2023/effective 16 January, adds GBP 400,000 excluding VAT payable against delivery/buyer acceptance and prints total GBP 1,944,650. That is GBP 30,000 above a simple addition to the previous stated total; intervening terms/reconciliation remain uninspected. No combined-spend total, fraud inference or silent correction is appropriate.
Page 143 identifies NewsWhip Media Limited, Irish registration 485016, contract 103186 for real-time social/predictive media news monitoring intelligence, 28 October 2022–27 October 2023 with an optional one-year buyer extension. No charge read. Pages 193–194 contain programme-success and milestone tables with almost no recoverable substantive cells; visual examination is needed before attributing absent text to redaction rather than extraction failure. Pages 109 and 112 mostly blank; page 113 is the next framework cover. The expert-evaluation material was located by text search on pages 34–35, 62–63, 89, 92 and 95 but is not yet substantively read.
Gaps retained as specific leads
The actual partly disclosed Crisp report for the week beginning 24 June 2024 was not located through targeted public searches using the ICO decision, release date and period. This is not proof that no public copy exists. The ICO independently confirms its existence and partial disclosure; no matched referral/removal result was found.
The exact GSN SOW, performance criteria and invoice behind transaction 719926 remain missing. Current appointment, January 2026 official role description and September 2025 payment do not fix the Crisp/GSN handover date. An official 18 November 2025 answer 88698 contains four contract links in the daily parliamentary PDF; the public reader exposed the labels, not underlying URLs. The ordinary PDF download returned 403 and the route is closed. The individual question page may be a later legitimate route if located; do not invent its date.
A later Faculty call-off attachment was indexed, but reader/download failed. Its indexed registration field reads 438780, unlike the acquired earlier contract's 08873131. Do not promote that indexed cover into an executed award. The precise failed attachment and attempts are in captures.json; no retries.
Companies House search also surfaced Extrac AI Limited 14532778 with historical GSN corporate control and later personal PSCs. This is an unpromoted lead, not a demonstrated NSOIT supplier, deployed system or inference that all operations belonged to one company. Relevance should be tested before expanding biographies.
The next revealing evidence is ordinary project governance: evaluation commission and resulting assessment, measurable acceptance criteria, and whether the licenced code/replacement rights were actually exercised. The retained bundle makes that a bounded next run rather than speculative searching.