The Times reports that former Conservative councillor, Steve Dechan, received a £120 million government contract for face shields whose quality is so doubtful that fewer than 1 in 400 have … Read more
Coronavirus
The Guardian has seen internal emails that suggest the government gave “VIP treatment” to a firm offering Covid testing facilities which had entered the system “informally” because Matt Hancock was “a good … Read more
Serco has been awarded a new contract worth up to £322 million to continue running Covid-19 testing sites for another year. The company now runs 20% of centres in England and … Read more
A report from the National Audit Office has found that almost 600m lateral flow tests given to the public in England may not yet have been used and that the … Read more
Two contracts for contact tracers with Serco and Sitel have been extended by six months by the Department of Health and Social Care for an additional cost of £168m. Serco … Read more
A report by a local council in the North East of England has found that failures in England’s Test and Trace system are partly responsible for a surge in the … Read more
A court has heard that ministers “lobbied” officials to chase the progress of contracts for the supply of personal protective equipment that were being processed through a government “VIP lane” … Read more
The High Court has heard how the NatWest suspended Matt Hancock’s team from making payments to PPE suppliers at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic over fears they were being … Read more
The Independent has learnt that at a “critical juncture” in the pandemic, thousands of clinical staff working on contact tracing for the government’s test and trace service will be axed. The … Read more
The government has been urged to publish details of up to £2bn in Covid-19 contracts to provide extra capacity during the pandemic awarded to private healthcare companies, including some that have … Read more
Sir David King, a former government chief scientist, in an interview in The Guardian has accused Boris Johnson’s government of corruption, privatising the NHS by stealth, operating a “chumocracy” and … Read more
Byline Times and The Citizens overview of contract awards reveals that one year after the first COVID-19 lockdown almost a billion pounds in Government contracts has been awarded to 15 … Read more
A response from the Department of Health and Social Care to local MP Matt Western has insisted that the new Leamington Spa “mega-lab” is “publicly owned and operated,” despite staff being recruited … Read more
The cross-part public accounts committee has found that there is no evidence to show that the government’s £22bn test-and-trace programme to combat Covid-19 in England contributed to a reduction in … Read more
Boris Johnson told MPs that Covid contracts were “on the record for everyone to see”, despite the fact that dozens of Covid contracts had not been published at the time. … Read more
The Guardian has reported that a PR firm owned by Matthew Freud, who was closely associated with the Conservatives during David Cameron’s time as prime minister, was awarded a contract to provide … Read more
The Metro reports that a £91million contract between the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and a Chinese PPE firm was only published a day after the Government was … Read more
Transparency in public office is essential to any democracy, but the UK government’s aversion to scrutiny of its procurement track record during the pandemic – an aversion now the focus … Read more
According to the HSJ NHS England has invoked a ‘surge’ clause in its Covid contracts with private hospitals and given six private hospitals in London a week’s notice that their entire capacity … Read more
The government’s test and trace system run by Tory peer Dido Harding is paying nearly a million pounds every day to the private consultancy firm Deloitte. David Williams, the department of … Read more
