I donated last weekend

Isn’t it the case that The Department of Health and NHS supply chain both procured the PPE?

Ministers don’t sign generally off individual procurements – civil servants have the delegated decision rights to do this.

So are we all saying that individual Civil Servants and executives in the NHS / agencies were all on the take? Where is that actual evidence?

I believe contracts were let by a ‘cell’ within the cabinet office; cummings domain – what a surprise

There were some more PPE contracts published yesterday with similar strange goings on. PPE Medro was incorporated in May and then awarded a £122M PPE contract for gowns. They are based in a modest residential house in Cambridge. Rob Knott (@procure4health on Twitter) is a good source for factual detail about this. All of these contracts avoided the normal procurement checks and balances.

The Good Law Project is continuing to seek a judicial review of Ayanda Capital’s contract for £160M of unusable face masks, that’s likely to have made the company £50M profit. This company is connected to Liz Truss Secretary of State for International Trade.
Rushanara Ali MP is also asking some probing questions.

This all stinks of corruption. More people need to be shouting about it.

This really sheds light on how biased our media is.

Lets be fair this is a massive scandal but also a juicy as **** story!

Why isn’t this getting the same coverage as the expenses scandal?

So are we all saying that individual Civil Servants and executives in the NHS / agencies were all on the take?

No, we’re saying that they didn’t make the decisions. You’re are right to identify who would normally be involved in the decision making, but the normal process was circumvented (with arguably good reason) by people who are absolutely untrustworthy and inclined to follow their own gut feeling and use their own connections. Experts… bah! Anyone who knows a reasonably senior civil servant knows they are in a “do as you are told or your career is over” position.

Another £122M PPE uncontested contract awarded to PPE Medpro a newly established company with no prior experience and close links to the Tories.
Keep questioning people. We’re being exploited.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18780543.government-awarded-urgent-ppe-contract-firm-run-ex-associate-tory-peer-michelle-mone/

House of Commons debate Wednesday:

On Wednesday, Labour will lead the Debate on the government's Covid Contracts – along with a vote calling on them to fix the broken model of outsourcing they're obsessed with.

What are the worst outsourcing failures you have seen? Please RT & comment below ahead of the debate.👇

— Rachel Reeves (@RachelReevesMP) October 9, 2020

Legal options still being pursued:

The Government is keeping us in the dark about billions of pounds worth of COVID-19 contracts. What have they got to hide? Support the fight for transparency here. @Debbie_abrahams @CarolineLucas @LaylaMoranhttps://t.co/aykUw3Fs7O

— The Good Law Project (@GoodLawProject) October 11, 2020

Email received from The Good Law Project this morning below. Like I said up there, if you feel strongly about this and can donate then please do so.

The Government is keeping billions of pounds worth of COVID-19 contracts hidden from view. We know that the Department of Health and Social Care has awarded more than £11billion worth of contracts to private companies. Yet they have failed to publish the details of contracts worth more than £3billion. What has that money been spent on? Who has it been spent with?

The law requires the Government to publish details of contracts within 30 days of the award. The Government’s persistent failure to abide by this law makes it impossible for these contracts to be properly scrutinized.

The contracts that we do know about are serious cause for concern. Take PestFix. The company, which had no previous experience providing PPE to the NHS, has been awarded eleven contracts. But so far the Government has only published the details of one. The fact that the pest control specialists had to recall face masks they had supplied to other commercial clients suggests the Government may have good reason for wanting to keep the public in the dark on these particular contracts.

But we cannot allow the Government to evade scrutiny. That’s why, along with a cross-party group of MPs of Debbie Abrahams, Caroline Lucas and Laya Moran, we are suing the Government for their persistent failure to publish the details of contracts.

The law can be a powerful tool for accountability. We intend to use it to keep those in power honest.

Thank you,

Jolyon Maugham QC
Director of Good Law Project

From the BMJ

“When good science is suppressed by the medical-political complex, people die”

https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4425

The Government is keeping billions of pounds worth of COVID-19 contracts hidden from view. We know that the Department of Health and Social Care has awarded more than £11billion worth of contracts to private companies. Yet they have failed to publish the details of contracts worth more than £3billion. What has that money been spent on? Who has it been spent with?

I suppose the other side of this will be the company’s themselves, anyone reporting a bumper Q2/Q3 2020 even vaguely connected to the medical supply or logistics world might well be a recipient of a dodgy contract from Gove or Handjob…

Anything new made it into the public sphere this week? Dom’s departure may well be just another dead cat to distract from some obvious bungs to chums…

Not exactly corruption but still eye opening…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54974373

£21 million? A bargain.

£21million was the commission paid to an intermediary for a £200m contract. Under normal government procurement rules with an open book on some of the contracts I worked on, they’d positively wet themselves if you tried to charge that amount in profit – that’s the commission, never mind the gross margin on the product itself. I think a lot of these contacts were handled by the Cabinet Office, not DH&SC.

I was being sarcastic.

£21 million? A bargain.

To get the best you have to pay for the best.

dovebiker, your post underscores the need for transparency.
Starmer touched on iffy contract awards during last week’s PMQs; how long before he returns to it?
I believe the gov are committed to fully integrating the OJEU procurement regs into UK law when transition ends so the requirement to disclose and publish contract award details will remain unchanged.
It’s generally accepted that public sector procurement performance lags some way behind private sector but surely someone asked for a full cost breakdown – ex works price for each product type, shipping, taxes/duties, margin, other fees/charges.
It would appear not.
Amateur hour – again.

National Audit Office report:

https://www.nao.org.uk/report/government-procurement-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/

Moving 1,000 containers of PPE in a week from Felixstowe to an old airfield and fields; making space for new deliveries?
https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/ppe-moved-to-suffolk-airfields-1-6931841

First sentence in recent Guardian article…

‘Retailers are warning a logjam at the country’s biggest container port could result in product shortages this Christmas, as it emerged 11,000 containers of government-procured PPE is clogging up Felixstowe

Full article https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/14/shops-warn-of-christmas-stock-shortages-as-ppe-shipments-clog-key-uk-port

Based on recent (high) PPE usage, the current stockpile is >5years worth of cover; this stuff has max shelf life of 5 years from date of manufacture so…write-offs coming – at NHS cost.

‘We can’t support people financially who have just started their own business, HMRC make the rules not us’ Alok Sharma on GMB this morning discussing furlough scheme

3 week old companies being given £21m handling fee

this stuff has max shelf life of 5 years from date of manufacture so…write-offs coming – at NHS cost.

Just been told that the inbound stockpile is so large, and time-restricted, that it’s being offered to the care sector gratis. Which is having an immediate impact on every existing ppe supplier in the country… Being put out of business by your own government is a pretty special way to go.

Rich_s, if you’re right then the recent focus on developing domestic PPE suppliers will have been largely a waste of time and effort.

This story was depressingly low down the BBC news priority earlier this evening

Do you think enough ppe would have made it through without emergency procurement measures?

If not, how much is an acceptable risk?

There are plenty of companies who had no previous ppe or ventilator experience who managed to deliver, so no experience isn’t a definitive test. There are also new companies that successfully delivered, so that’s not a definitive test either.

https://www.themanufacturer.com/articles/every-uk-manufacturers-helping-to-produce-ppe-and-equipment-for-nhs-workers/

It’s obviously not good that money has been spent badly, but if the government followed the restrictions posters here think we should have, we wouldn’t have got enough ppe, so pick your preferred outcome…

There’s emergency procurement measures and then there’s blatantly handing out money to your connections.

Oh well, here’s another scandal that’s been dead catted this morning on the TV networks with news of some money for the MOD.

The bit that’s annoyed me the most is listening to people with no idea whatsoever of logistics, talk about logistics.

Right from the beginning the key failure was the Govt failure to plan for a pandemic (because they ignored the findings of their own contingency exercise).

A ‘simple’ answer to the stock piling of limited-age goods is to use a consignment stock approach. Basically pay manufacturers/wholesalers etc to carry stock over & above their own needs, but for them to use it in their business. This way the stockpile stays in date AND there’s no waste as it’s been used & replenished constantly.

It’s a method used since time began quite frankly and it is a damn sight cheaper than probably every other approach – plus the costs stay in the UK, along with the expenditure.

And yes, I use to work in healthcare logistics 🙂

There’s emergency procurement measures and then there’s blatantly handing out money to your connections.

I’m tempted to agree with reformedfatty, that at times like these the rules need to be reconsidered (within reason!) to deal with a situation. At the risk of being spitfires over Dover, I’m not aware of there being a huge risk assessment exercise before the small ships of Dunkirk set off…….

And then I remember – Chris Grayling’s ferry company. The money being sent (and barely concealed) to Cummings’ mates for analytics and advice. Dido Harding, the MP’s wife in her next failed venture. And if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…..

[and even then I’m prepared to be charitable. Yes – we have received more PPE as a result of this ’emergency procurement exercise’ but at what cost in money and trust. I’m sure it’ll come out in the lessons learned review that will surely follow, given there’s nothing to hide]

And then I remember – Chris Grayling’s ferry company. The money being sent (and barely concealed) to Cummings’ mates for analytics and advice. Dido Harding, the MP’s wife in her next failed venture. And if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…..

Yes – I’m prepared to cut some slack for the emergency angle, but it wasn’t just Delboy type chancers lining their pockets, this is contacts of MPs and ministers.

the key failure was the Govt failure to plan for a pandemic (because they ignored the findings of their own contingency exercise).

Absolutely this. They chose to run down our pandemic preparations, despite their own risk tests showing the danger, over a 10 year period. The fundamental duty of a government is to protect the population, and this is the overarching thing that successive Tory government’s failed to do, leaving us with a bunch of incompetent idiots starting on the backfoot.

Exclusive: A cannabis research firm with only £6,000 in assets has been handed two PPE contracts worth £33m https://t.co/DGUXUOQmSC

— PoliticsHome (@politicshome) November 18, 2020

^ in itself I don’t have a problem with that if they can deliver to time, cost and quality. And if the owner makes a bit out of it, that’s the way the world works.

But when the owner is a minister’s mate, and the kit sits in a warehouse because it isn’t what was ordered and isn’t safe to use, then questions get asked. Or not, apparently

*not saying this firm above is one of them, there are some honest traders as well. Otherwise, how would they hide the grifters…..

I see a few posts now on this thread saying that it was an emergency and we just had to get on and do it. I can see this argument too but it’s only when you look into things further that you start to see the massive incompetence (at best) or corruption (at worst).

– Avoiding existing UK PPE manufacturers and suppliers
– Significant contracts awarded to newly created companies without any PPE experience and links to the Conservative party
– Shady ‘Fast track’ procurement process for VIPs (friends of MPs)
– Government Procurement specialists side-lined in favour of Cabinet Office cronies
– Lack of transparency of awarded contracts
– Vastly overpaying, even above what the heightened market was paying at the time
– PPE purchased that is unusable
– Huge stock piles of excess inventory

I’m not one to knock the government at any opportunity, but this stinks.

Apologies for the paywall link:

SCOOP: A Tory councillor who landed £275m in PPE contracts has traded his home in Stroud for a £1.5m, 17th century Cotswolds mansion

Steve Dechan also paid himself £400k, his wife £150k

He said he's using the rest of the profit to create jobs and growthhttps://t.co/Jxt2Y8AaJT

— Gabriel Pogrund (@Gabriel_Pogrund) November 22, 2020

My Company makes modern body armour for military and police units all over the world. Probably 250k Vests fielded. We turned some production over to masks and gowns. Up to 10 million quantity. I registered with the NHS and never heard a thing. Putting 1p on N95 masks and gowns for profit. Do the math on 10 million masks at 31p. 3 mil deal only. I guess the cheapest bidder loses.

Are you, or are you related to, a Conservative politician or back room adviser?

Nah too busy overseas laying the smack on evil.

So an experienced Merseyside PPE firm is ignored by government and forced to lay off staff while some guy gets £21 million for acting as a middle man for a jewellery maker in the US

More evidence of the way this government does business from @cjmckeon https://t.co/ga7Hon5G9g

— Liam Thorp (@LiamThorpECHO) November 21, 2020

kelvin, your example ^^^stinks and appears to be typical of the gov’s attitude; inept, inadequate, incompetent and corrupt.

There was a recent post suggesting that consignment stock was the answer; constock only works if the min & max stocks are defined and the supply chain is reliable.
Neither were applicable in an ’emergency procurement’ situation.
In an emergency or urgent supply situation any procurement or logistics professional would immediately turn to their existing, proven and trusted suppliers.
That didn’t happen.
I’ve banged on about how this in multiple previous posts.

inept, inadequate, incompetent and corrupt.

Needs some work but very nearly our next 3 part slogan 👍