The British government has spent more than £5.5 billion of taxpayers’ money on personal protective equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Was it well spent? We have no way of knowing.
Not even a seventh of the government’s 600 PPE contracts have been published – meaning the public doesn’t know why a company was selected, what it is supposed to provide, who it is owned by, and whether it is solvent or suitably experienced.
In effect, the government is asking the public simply to trust its decisions, but this would be unwise. The government has chosen to skip competitive tendering for many of these contracts and instead to award them directly to preferred companies because of the “extreme urgency” of the pandemic. This is more than a little controversial, however. Direct contract awards are often linked to poor outcomes, low value for money and corruption.
