IT’S HERE

The report from the National Audit Office on the Gov’s PPE spending

And it’s DAMNING

Here are the top 8 scandalous take-outs…

Brace yourselves

1) Contracts worth £18bn were awarded, £10.5bn of these with ZERO competition

2) Spending controls were not applied due to the seniority of staff working on contracts

3) Gov did not set out a process to mitigate risks such as bias or conflicts of interest

4) A “high-priority lane” was set up for firms recommended by officials, ministers, MPs & peers

5) 1 in 10 firms going through the priority lane got contracts vs 1 in 100 for the bog-standard lane

6) Sources of referrals to high-priority lane were sometimes not even recorded

7) One high-priority lane supplier was even added in error

8) There was not always a clear audit trail to support key procurement decisions or inadequate documentation

DRUMROLL FOR THE CONCLUSION...

“We cannot give assurance that the Gov has adequately mitigated the increased risks arising from emergency procurement or applied appropriate commercial practices in all cases”

= TORY CORRUPTION

Now what?

Full report here:

https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Investigation-into-government-procurement-during-the-COVID-19-pandemic.pdf

END

And credit where it’s due to @GarethDaviesNAO and the @NAOorguk

We look forward to the next report due this month on what was actually delivered and the value for money of these contracts...