The UK spending watchdog is investigating government procurement during the coronavirus pandemic….
Gareth Davies, Head of the National Audit Office (NAO), said it was looking at procurement around personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators and the Nightingale hospitals.
Speaking in The Guardian’s Politics Weekly podcast iand discussed in yesterday's Supply Management News, Gareth Davies said “We are looking at government’s procurements in the pandemic, not just on PPE but other significant areas as well.”
UK spending watchdog is investigating government procurement during the coronavirus pandemic
“It’s very important the government hasn’t got itself into a new mode of awarding work without competition, where maybe now there is time to do those things properly.” said Davies, responding to spend on consultants during the pandemic...
Back in April, on a Procurement Policy Note (PPN), the Cabinet Office noted that authorities may need to “procure goods, services and works with extreme urgency.” The PPN said “in responding to Covid-19, contracting authorities may enter into contracts without competing or advertising the requirement.”
In June the research company Tussell said the UK public sector had awarded contracts worth £1.6bn (see Supply Management article) in response to Covid, including £33m on consultancy, mostly without competitive tender.
More recently, Labour MP Rushanara Ali asked Boris Johnson during Prime Minister’s Questions about “£150m spent on faulty masks” and “a staggering one billion pounds worth of contracts awarded without proper due diligence.”
Earlier this month, a report from the Open Contracting Partnership and Spend Networks has claimed $130bn has been spent by governments worldwide on contracts to manage Covid (see Supply Management article...Contracts to manage Covid), with a “lack of timely and open information about basic contracting details makes these deals highly vulnerable to waste, fraud and other misuses.”
See the full article "Spending watchdog investigating pandemic procurement" and links in Supply Management 22nd September 2020