Thursday, July 27, 2023
UK Government in £20m hole on PPE
The Guardian reports that the UK government appears unlikely to recover any money from a healthcare recruitment agency that allegedly failed to deliver on a multimillion-pound PPE contract awarded during the Covid pandemic.
The paper says that the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has confirmed it is in a dispute over the £20m-plus contract awarded to SG Recruitment UK Ltd, however, the agency’s parent company has gone into liquidation, raising questions about whether the government can recoup any funds:
SG Recruitment was granted its first contract in April 2020, only five days after it was referred to the government’s fast-track “VIP lane”, following an introduction by the Conservative peer Lord Chadlington. A month later the agency, which has since been renamed, was awarded a second multimillion-pound contract.
When SG Recruitment gained its first Covid contract, it was a small, loss-making company that supplied healthcare workers to the NHS, and appears to have had no experience providing PPE. It has since emerged in a court judgment that its parent company, Sumner Group Holdings, registered in Jersey, was facing financial difficulties less than two years earlier. It went into liquidation last October.
The revelations raise further questions about the government’s buying of PPE during the pandemic, when it suspended normal procurement rules, and the extent of due diligence it carried out on companies before awarding large contracts.
The DHSC has consistently defended its processes but critics have pointed to £9bn spent on PPE that was subsequently written off, and the operation of the “VIP lane”, which gave high priority to offers from companies with political connections. Companies referred to the VIP lane, which has since been ruled unlawful, had a 10 times greater success rate for being awarded contracts.
The government is pursuing £1.6bn spent on PPE contracts it says were unsatisfactory, but insists it is unable to provide details due to confidentiality.
And so the saga drags on. I just hope that the current Covid Inquiry is going to look into the billions of pouunds wasted by this government in this way during the pandemic.
The paper says that the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has confirmed it is in a dispute over the £20m-plus contract awarded to SG Recruitment UK Ltd, however, the agency’s parent company has gone into liquidation, raising questions about whether the government can recoup any funds:
SG Recruitment was granted its first contract in April 2020, only five days after it was referred to the government’s fast-track “VIP lane”, following an introduction by the Conservative peer Lord Chadlington. A month later the agency, which has since been renamed, was awarded a second multimillion-pound contract.
When SG Recruitment gained its first Covid contract, it was a small, loss-making company that supplied healthcare workers to the NHS, and appears to have had no experience providing PPE. It has since emerged in a court judgment that its parent company, Sumner Group Holdings, registered in Jersey, was facing financial difficulties less than two years earlier. It went into liquidation last October.
The revelations raise further questions about the government’s buying of PPE during the pandemic, when it suspended normal procurement rules, and the extent of due diligence it carried out on companies before awarding large contracts.
The DHSC has consistently defended its processes but critics have pointed to £9bn spent on PPE that was subsequently written off, and the operation of the “VIP lane”, which gave high priority to offers from companies with political connections. Companies referred to the VIP lane, which has since been ruled unlawful, had a 10 times greater success rate for being awarded contracts.
The government is pursuing £1.6bn spent on PPE contracts it says were unsatisfactory, but insists it is unable to provide details due to confidentiality.
And so the saga drags on. I just hope that the current Covid Inquiry is going to look into the billions of pouunds wasted by this government in this way during the pandemic.
