The government's Export Credit Guarantee Department was set up to help British exporters win lucrative foreign contracts and protect manufacturing jobs.
Now it's under fire -- accused of being a slush fund for the arms trade while failing to produce any tangible economic benefits.
As ministers prepare to unveil a major reform of this secretive department, our business reporter Faisal Islam investigates one of government's darkest corners.
Tucked away in London's Docklands: a secretive corner of government.
The Export Credit Guarantee Department, often controversial, and now under scrutiny as never before.
In the Yorkshire town of Batley, the old textile and coal industries are long gone.
But Angloco is one of the few remaining local manufacturing success stories. It exports individually tailored fire engines across the globe.
Chairman Bill Brown says that much of his business depends on credit facilities and insurance provided by the Export Credit Guarantee Department or ECGD.
In last two years they have sold to Barbados -- ECGD has been vital in securing those contracts.
The scheme means that prospective customers, such as these Kuwaitis, have the option of paying on credit over a period of years. So Bill gets his money up front.
The catch? Taxpayers will be liable if the deal collapses. We put in, pay taxes, create jobs because of this aid.
The public face of the ECGD is about helping a small family run manufacturers in North Yorkshire to export abroad. But its not just about life saving equipment.
Quite the opposite in fact, -- it's fighter jets and arms that get the lion's share of support.
The ECGD has helped Britain to become the world's second biggest arms' exporter -- but is the taxpayer getting a good deal?
In reality the arms industry makes up just 2% of total British exports -- but it gets a disproportionate amount of government support -- sometimes as much as 50% of all ECGD finance.
Independent analysts say that's an effective subsidy of around £250 million every year.
Indeed in a statement to Channel 4 News, the ECGD has admitted a subsidy for the first time.
Although elements of its support have operated as a subsidy in the past, its now working internationally to eliminate them.
"Elements of our support have operated as a subsidy in the past but ECGD ... is working internationally to eliminate unfair subsidies."
In fact taxpayers are already footing the bill for past exports to despotic regimes.
Saddam's Iraq, for instance, racked up debts of more than £6 hundred million. With interest, it’s about a billion.
The tax-payer is also owed nearly £2 billion from Nigeria's succession of military dictatorships.
More than £700 million from Indonesia. And £71 million from Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe.
So far it's thought £9 billion of historic debts are unlikely ever to be recovered, and should really be added to Britain's national debt.
But what about current risks? Take troubled Saudi Arabia, the recipient of one of the largest chunks of ECGD backing with the £20 billion Al-Yamamah arms deal.
Britain's defence industry has long argued that the need to protect manufacturing jobs justifies this taxpayer support.
But new research into the economics of the ECGD shows otherwise.
It’s a bad use of public money. More jobs would be created if it was spent on health and education.
It's all a headache for the DTI the department responsible for these policies. For the first time, officials have been forced to justify the notion that the ECGD benefits the economy, the LibDems want the whole thing scrapped.
The Tories are also calling for a radical overhaul amid industry fears that planned reforms would put British firms at a competitive disadvantage. You have to have a level playing field to help exporters.
Defence companies fear the Treasury thumbscrews are behind a plan to hive off the ECGD - so that future debts don't have to appear on the public books.
But to do so would require an injection of as much as £2 billion of public money right now - inviting even greater scrutiny.
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