How is the Tory government doing?

If i was placing an emergency order for drugs then i definitely wouldn't be approaching a company newly formed with no background or history. I would go to a known specialist supplier which is exactly what the Government haven't done on this.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:I’m blaming the idiots who procured them through a company with no experience and without checking a sample product first.

Thank you.

Norpig wrote:If i was placing an emergency order for drugs then i definitely wouldn't be approaching a company newly formed with no background or history. I would go to a known specialist supplier which is exactly what the Government haven't done on this.

Thank you.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:I’m not blaming the Chinese manufacturer, I’m blaming the idiots who procured them through a company with no experience and without checking a sample product first.

Unsure why I’ve needed to clarify that to you so many times it’s very simple.

It simply wasn't like that though and it's far from being very simple.

The actual story as opposed to the 'social media' story that you and Wanderlust have reacted to, taking what was said as 'gospel' without even trying to do a bit of independent research goes something like this.

A year before Corona virus was even known to exist Andrew Mills, who is an an adviser to the UK Board of Trade that Liz Truss chairs, gained rights to the production capacity of a Chinese factory through a firm he set up in February 2019.

So this clearly was NOT a preplanned thing to rip off the government to make Covid masks.

When Covid struck, Mills approached the government to make the masks in the clothing manufacturing company in China.

He was in fact the middleman, not the manufacturing company, which many nave jumped to the conclusion he was. His company did not have any manufacturing history, that is true but the Chinese manufacturing factory did.

Given the value of the contract, Mills he then asked for the contract to be signed with Ayanda, to which it says he is a senior board adviser and which is owned by his business associate, because it had more suitable banking infrastructure. Mills told the BBC his Board of Trade position played no part in the award of the contract.

The following is from the Governments Legal Department dated 1st July, 2020 - and basically sets out the why's and wherefores as to why things had to be done the way they have. It is a long read and in reply claims against another company, PestFix, acting as the middleman with, on the face of it, no PPE experience - which mirrors exactly the case we've been talking about above.

Please feel free to read through it at your leisure but the bottom line is don't believe as gospel what you read on social media!

PPE procurement in March/April 2020: market conditions

10. Prior to the current crisis, demand for PPE by NHS Trusts was partly serviced by “NHS Supply Chain’” (SCCL Ltd, a company owned by the Department of Health & Social Care (“DHSC”)) and partly through direct buying by NHS Trusts themselves, usually through wholesalers. Other health and social care organisations were responsible for sourcing their own PPE, for example through
wholesalers or directly from suppliers.

11. PPE has hitherto been in plentiful supply, with over 80% historically being manufactured in the Republic of China. That situation started to change dramatically in-mid March 2020, as the Covid pandemic unfolded across the world, and developed very rapidly towards the end of March (paragraph 22 of your letter acknowledges that the UK only went into lockdown on 23 March).
Existing supply chains were disrupted as prices rose dramatically, transportation links to the main manufacturing bases in the Republic of China were disrupted, and demand increased to unprecedented levels from across the globe.

12. The emerging problems in relation to the procuring of PPE in the UK were widely reported in the press around the middle of March and attracted considerable interest. In response to the emerging crisis, numerous approaches were made by entities offering to assist in sourcing and supplying PPE: to Members of Parliament; NHS Trusts and staff; and to Government departments and officials working within them.

13. By this stage it was already clear that established modes of procuring PPE and other critical supplies were no longer practical. Alternative strategies therefore had to be deployed instead and new sources of supply for PPE had to be identified and utilised. Accordingly, while existing suppliers continued to be handled by SCCL, potential new suppliers who had expressed interest
were directed towards a central email address, subsequently replaced by a public portal, through which offers could be logged and evaluated (see further below).

14. As already noted the rapid rise in global infection rates during this period led to a huge surge in demand for PPE. In the NHS, for example, demand for PPE increased between fivefold and two and a half thousand fold, depending on the category of item. The effect of such increased demand, which was being replicated on a global scale, led to a wholesale change in the relevant market
dynamics. Market power shifted decisively in favour of the suppliers, such that the competition was no longer between suppliers to satisfy government/buyer demand, but between different national health authorities to secure commitments to supply. Some countries also responded by banning PPE exports entirely, and some suppliers were induced by more attractive financial offers to renege on existing contractual commitments (this remains an additional risk). A worldwide shortage of some of the necessary raw materials and speculative buying by some commercial purchasers served only to exacerbate the situation.

15. In these circumstances, suppliers were able to demand significant advance payments, and DHSC understands that other countries were offering to pay substantial sums of cash upfront to overseas producers in order to secure immediate commitments. When new sources of supply did come on
stream (for example, because existing facilities had been repurposed to manufacture PPE products), these offers would often only be open for 24 hours. If negotiations were not concluded in this time, stocks would simply be lost to another country instead.

16. Against that background, it is wholly fanciful to suggest that DHSC could have run any kind of competitive tendering process or “market-testing exercise”. The rapidly shifting availability of supply on the ground required decisions to be taken in hours, rather than days or months.

17. Critically, once the scale of the pandemic became clear, the market for acquisition of PPE was very much a suppliers’ market. Suppliers who found themselves inundated with highly attractive offers from across the world would simply have had no incentive to respond to a UK call for tenders, or to
hold off from committing their product on the favourable terms available elsewhere rather than await the outcome of a UK competition. Indeed, as paragraph 25.b of your own letter acknowledges, the EU’s first attempt at a joint procurement exercise for a very limited number of gloves, gowns and
overalls failed precisely because of a lack of suitable suppliers coming forward.

18. The importance of maintaining adequate stocks of PPE should not be underestimated. PPE is essential to keep health services running and to protect front-line workers caring for both Covid patients and others more generally. Any delay to the ordering of PPE that led to the NHS missing out in favour of other countries ran the risk of causing stock outages, which would put the lives of
both patients and NHS staff at risk. The critical nature of the items in question was (and had to be) at the forefront of DHSC’s procurement strategy during this period.

19. In short, in a matter of only a few days, the UK moved from a situation where it had to match predictable need with a steady and established supply of PPE to one in which demand had become unpredictable (because the scale and impact of the pandemic was unknown), existing supply chains were clearly and materially insufficient, and new supplies had to be obtained in the face of
surging and unprecedented global demand. That required an entirely new approach to procurement.

PPE procurement in March/April 2020: the Government’s response


20. In order to address the crisis in supply of PPE, the UK Government utilised three main buying routes. The first comprised existing suppliers, working through SSCL. The second involved using a strengthened team of staff in the UK Embassy in Beijing to identify potential sources of supply on the ground. The third, of which PestFix was part, comprised new suppliers who did not currently
work through SSCL. It is also appropriate to record the substantial voluntary efforts that were made within local communities both in terms of passing over existing PPE (for example, from school science departments) and of manufacturing items.

21. Part of the difficulty faced by the UK Government was that there was no single list of existing known suppliers of PPE given that some NHS Trusts chose to source supplies themselves rather than work through SSCL, while other health and care organisations made their own arrangements in any event. The UK Government also wished to identify not just existing suppliers of PPE (whether or not to the NHS), but also entities with a record of supply to the NHS and/or the public sector and/or who could re-purpose to supply PPE, particularly where they might have established links to manufacturers in the Republic of China, including those manufacturers who were themselves repurposing to make PPE.

22. Accordingly, in order to address the challenge of surging demand for PPE within the NHS, a new organisation was set up to focus solely on procuring PPE supplies for the public sector. This prevented undue pressure on NHS Supply Chain’s existing administrative capability, allowing it to continue to meet the need for other consumables in the healthcare system more generally and deal
with existing PPE suppliers. The new task force adopted an innovative “open-source” approach to procurement, calling for help from across the UK business community to help ensure critical supplies were maintained.

23. The “Coronavirus Support from Business” Scheme was launched on 27 March 2020.This encouraged businesses supplying a range of products and services, including PPE, to register on an online portal, to indicate how they might assist the government’s response to the pandemic, and
the scheme was widely advertised at the time.

24. Prior to this offers of support had been harvested from various sources across government including via a dedicated central email address, which
was established on 14 March 2020.

25. The response to the Parliamentary Question reflected the approach that had been taken, with details of the email address having been circulated by No 10 and Ministerial offices to key external business interests and a mechanism for capturing commercial offers put in place by the Government Commercial Function on 18 March 2020. A webform was subsequently made available for completion, prior to the opening of the online portal on 27 March 2020.

26. Suppliers who registered with offers of PPE were asked to complete a form indicating (inter alia) the products they were offering and details of price, quantity and technical certifications (including evidence thereof). They also had to give details of their business for the purposes of vetting. Many of the suppliers who registered were new to the PPE market but some did have previous valuable experience of international supply-chain management and importing goods. As already indicated, the UK Government was particularly interested in potential suppliers who had existing strong relationships on the ground in the Republic of China with companies which either manufactured
PPE or were re-purposing to do so, or had good local knowledge and contacts which might assist in identifying such manufacturers.

27. . Given that the entire premise of the scheme was to identify new sources of supply (the established
market being no longer able to fulfil demand), it would have been perverse to narrow down the field by imposing artificial pre-qualification requirements such as a minimum turnover requirement or unnecessary prior experience. The whole purpose of the Government’s “open-source” approach was to maximise the number of offers to prevent shortages of critical products (and to impose
restrictions of the kind suggested would further have entailed substantial procurement law risks).

28. Rather than focusing on the identity of the potential supplier, the validity of the offer was the key focus, thereby allowing smaller suppliers with strong contacts in PPE supply to offer the support the Government urgently needed. Equally, past experience in PPE supply was not considered a prerequisite, as other businesses (of whatever size) might also be able to leverage their
manufacturing contacts to engage with foreign enterprises converting existing facilities to PPE production. While it was of course possible for DHSC to continue liaising with existing large-scale suppliers during this period (and indeed it did so, through NHS Supply Chain), the nature of the changed market conditions required the development of alternative sources of supply and it was
appropriate not to impose unnecessary hurdles in the way of securing that objectives.

29. In this way over 24,000 offers of support were received from some 16,000 potential suppliers. The information they provided was initially assessed and verified by a cross-governmental team. Once this initial approval had been granted, offers were then passed to buying teams (some 500 staff
seconded from a range of departments), who prioritised these offers on the basis of how urgently the particular product was needed, the quantity on offer, value for money (using existing price benchmarks), certainty of supply and lead times. Where appropriate, further financial checks were
conducted prior to contracts being concluded.

30. In so far as technical requirements were concerned, specifications were provided by NHS Supply Chain. These were based upon the existing specifications used for SSCL, but appropriately modified so as to make them accessible (without, for the avoidance of doubt, reducing the key
requirements to meet the necessary technical standards). The relevant specifications were published online on 30 March 2020: see https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/technicalspecifications-for-personal-protective-equipment-ppe).

31. When offers were being evaluated, the technical suitability of the products on offer was confirmed with separate teams at NHS Supply Chain. Once the closing team had finalised the commercial terms of the proposed contract, details would be sent to the senior officials at DHSC for a final decision. It should be stressed that this final decision was not a mere formality and, based on HM
Treasury criteria, careful assessment was given to whether the proposed purchase would represent value of money in the circumstances (prices recently paid for similar products being a key point of reference).

32. As a result of this enhanced engagement with the market, over 600 contracts for PPE have now been concluded with almost 200 different suppliers; these range in value from under £1 million to over £100 million, amounting to some £5.5 billion in total. Full details of all these awards will be published in due course.

33. However, for present purposes, we would simply note that the very strategy which your clients’ Claim seeks to impugn has in fact proved successful. Over 8 billion items of vital PPE have been secured for the NHS and critical shortages have thus far been avoided. Furthermore, on the basis of our client’s engagement with the market, it is clear that if such a proactive, open-market approach had not been followed the UK would have been left without PPE at a critical time, with consequent risks to public health and human life. We would also note that the whole process of increasing the supply of PPE has had to take place in wholly exceptional circumstances, not least in which unnecessary travel has been prohibited making it impossible to visit new facilities or suppliers, and which has required an extraordinary degree of commitment from staff deployed from other responsibilities at very short notice.

34. It should be noted that the pre-contractual quality assurance process did not represent the only safeguard to ensure that PPE supplied into the NHS was of appropriate technical standard. Where PPE was obtained using a new supplier, on arrival in the UK the supplies were immediately quarantined. Thereafter, they were checked and quality assured by the appropriate regulatory
bodies to ensure necessary technical specifications and standards were met before being released for use. In the event that any product fails to meet the necessary specifications, the Department can seek a full refund of any sums already paid over.

https://goodlawproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/PestfixGLD4-1.pdf

It's clear that the pandemic has had a considerable influence on the newly-released unemployment figures - which are massive - 140 thousand redundancies announced in a single month - however there is an underlying trend which indicates a shift in society. For the first time in history there are over a million people working on zero hours contracts - five times the figure in 2010.
That rise had been steady well before Covid but I'm sure that the uncertainty has pushed more employers towards putting the risk on the staff although you'd hardly notice the difference in the rise on a graph to date as it has been steadily on the increase since the day David Cameron was elected.
So up to a million people who are on zero hours contracts will not appear in the unemployment figures even if they are getting no work as is the case for many at the moment.
And a few local employers I was chatting to are also considering employment contract reviews to ameliorate their risk in the next wave by adopting a zero hours policy so I can only envisage the number rising further.
There is also a question over those who are currently furloughed. When that scheme comes to an end we might see another huge surge in unemployment i.e. the cliff edge folk are talking about.

I'm not blaming the Tories for Covid but if as seems likely, the lines between unemployment and working a contract that gives no or low actual work are becoming increasingly blurred, they need a detailed review of the benefits system to ensure it will cope with what's ahead.

Not a fan of this rag but it does summarise the numbers well.

This is a wonderful attempt to spin the failure of the track and trace system.
Enjoy!

Norpig wrote:If i was placing an emergency order for drugs then i definitely wouldn't be approaching a company newly formed with no background or history. I would go to a known specialist supplier which is exactly what the Government haven't done on this.

The facts are vastly different to what you read on social media.

Let me ask you this question to see if you would give a different reply to the one above.

You need life saving drugs immediately but you can't get them from your normal suppliers because of a sudden worldwide demand. However your cousin at another hospital tells you of a specialist supplier in China, which they use having spare capacity and could order you some via themselves acting as a middleman would you do it?

I suspect you would.

Let's refine the question a bit more then,

You need the drugs urgently and say your brother who works at a veterinary company who gets drugs from a specialist supplier in China tells you they have spare capacity and are capable of supplying the drugs you need to a standard to pass whatever quality threshold the NHS requires and the could act as a middleman for you, would you do it - bearing in mind people will and are dying if you don't?

I think you would - but I'll let you answer that.

If you did though how would you feel if a week or so later you read on social media 'NHS's Mr Norpig buys drugs from his brothers vet's practice - wtf!!!!' and 'only did it to grease his own family's pocket - the robbing fucking bastards'

That's basically what's happened here - a Chinese clothing company had contracted 'future' capacity to a company and the capacity fell due during the initial wave of the Covid pandemic.

The owner of that company contacted someone he knew looking for PPE equipment in an emergency where lives are at risk and offers that capacity to make the required stuff, to the spec supplied.

That's all that seems to have happened here but social media has gone wild and gullible people have believed it as gospel without trying to check what actually happened and why.

Good thread on the topic from Jo Maugham QC on Twitter (put it into unroll app to make it easier to consume)

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1291244082145177600.html

TLDR? Some of the highlights from their proceedings so far:

- The https://twitter.com/GoodLawProject has been challenging Government's £15bn supermarket sweep approach to PPE procurement through the courts. We have issued judicial review proceedings into three particularly odd looking deals involving a pest controller, a wholesale confectioner and Ayanda.

- Government to response to the formal pre action letter on Ayanda, contains an interesting series of admissions:

The first is that Prospermill – the £100 company owned by the Mills – “secured exclusive rights to the full production capacity of a large factory in China.” This seems – to put it mildly – implausible.

The second is that, apparently, Government was prepared to enter into a £252m contract – the largest we have yet seen for the purchase of PPE – with a £100 company owned by an adviser to Liz Truss (*you’re not allowed to know that anymore).

The third is that Govt bypassed normal procurement procedures that exist to guard against waste and cronyism to buy its entire predicted annual consumption – at elevated pandemic levels – of FFP2 facemasks from one adviser/supplier.


Whole thing's well worth a read for anyone interested.

Sluffy wrote:

It simply wasn't like that though and it's far from being very simple.

The actual story as opposed to the 'social media' story that you and Wanderlust have reacted to, taking what was said as 'gospel' without even trying to do a bit of independent research goes something like this.

A year before Corona virus was even known to exist Andrew Mills, who is an an adviser to the UK Board of Trade that Liz Truss chairs, gained rights to the production capacity of a Chinese factory through a firm he set up in February 2019.

So this clearly was NOT a preplanned thing to rip off the government to make Covid masks.

When Covid struck, Mills approached the government to make the masks in the clothing manufacturing company in China.

He was in fact the middleman, not the manufacturing company, which many nave jumped to the conclusion he was.  His company did not have any manufacturing history, that is true but the Chinese manufacturing factory did.

Given the value of the contract, Mills he then asked for the contract to be signed with Ayanda, to which it says he is a senior board adviser and which is owned by his business associate, because it had more suitable banking infrastructure. Mills told the BBC his Board of Trade position played no part in the award of the contract.

The following is from the Governments Legal Department dated 1st July, 2020 - and basically sets out the why's and wherefores as to why things had to be done the way they have.  It is a long read and in reply claims against another company, PestFix, acting as the middleman with, on the face of it, no PPE experience - which mirrors exactly the case we've been talking about above.

Please feel free to read through it at your leisure but the bottom line is don't believe as gospel what you read on social media!

PPE procurement in March/April 2020: market conditions

10. Prior to the current crisis, demand for PPE by NHS Trusts was partly serviced by “NHS Supply Chain’” (SCCL Ltd, a company owned by the Department of Health & Social Care (“DHSC”)) and partly through direct buying by NHS Trusts themselves, usually through wholesalers. Other health and social care organisations were responsible for sourcing their own PPE, for example through
wholesalers or directly from suppliers.

11. PPE has hitherto been in plentiful supply, with over 80% historically being manufactured in the Republic of China. That situation started to change dramatically in-mid March 2020, as the Covid pandemic unfolded across the world, and developed very rapidly towards the end of March (paragraph 22 of your letter acknowledges that the UK only went into lockdown on 23 March).
Existing supply chains were disrupted as prices rose dramatically, transportation links to the main manufacturing bases in the Republic of China were disrupted, and demand increased to unprecedented levels from across the globe.

12. The emerging problems in relation to the procuring of PPE in the UK were widely reported in the press around the middle of March and attracted considerable interest. In response to the emerging crisis, numerous approaches were made by entities offering to assist in sourcing and supplying PPE: to Members of Parliament; NHS Trusts and staff; and to Government departments and officials working within them.

13. By this stage it was already clear that established modes of procuring PPE and other critical supplies were no longer practical. Alternative strategies therefore had to be deployed instead and new sources of supply for PPE had to be identified and utilised. Accordingly, while existing suppliers continued to be handled by SCCL, potential new suppliers who had expressed interest
were directed towards a central email address, subsequently replaced by a public portal, through which offers could be logged and evaluated (see further below).

14. As already noted the rapid rise in global infection rates during this period led to a huge surge in demand for PPE. In the NHS, for example, demand for PPE increased between fivefold and two and a half thousand fold, depending on the category of item. The effect of such increased demand, which was being replicated on a global scale, led to a wholesale change in the relevant market
dynamics. Market power shifted decisively in favour of the suppliers, such that the competition was no longer between suppliers to satisfy government/buyer demand, but between different national health authorities to secure commitments to supply. Some countries also responded by banning PPE exports entirely, and some suppliers were induced by more attractive financial offers to renege on existing contractual commitments (this remains an additional risk). A worldwide shortage of some of the necessary raw materials and speculative buying by some commercial purchasers served only to exacerbate the situation.

15. In these circumstances, suppliers were able to demand significant advance payments, and DHSC understands that other countries were offering to pay substantial sums of cash upfront to overseas producers in order to secure immediate commitments. When new sources of supply did come on
stream (for example, because existing facilities had been repurposed to manufacture PPE products), these offers would often only be open for 24 hours. If negotiations were not concluded in this time, stocks would simply be lost to another country instead.

16. Against that background, it is wholly fanciful to suggest that DHSC could have run any kind of competitive tendering process or “market-testing exercise”. The rapidly shifting availability of supply on the ground required decisions to be taken in hours, rather than days or months.

17. Critically, once the scale of the pandemic became clear, the market for acquisition of PPE was very much a suppliers’ market. Suppliers who found themselves inundated with highly attractive offers from across the world would simply have had no incentive to respond to a UK call for tenders, or to
hold off from committing their product on the favourable terms available elsewhere rather than await the outcome of a UK competition. Indeed, as paragraph 25.b of your own letter acknowledges, the EU’s first attempt at a joint procurement exercise for a very limited number of gloves, gowns and
overalls failed precisely because of a lack of suitable suppliers coming forward.

18. The importance of maintaining adequate stocks of PPE should not be underestimated. PPE is essential to keep health services running and to protect front-line workers caring for both Covid patients and others more generally. Any delay to the ordering of PPE that led to the NHS missing out in favour of other countries ran the risk of causing stock outages, which would put the lives of
both patients and NHS staff at risk. The critical nature of the items in question was (and had to be) at the forefront of DHSC’s procurement strategy during this period.

19. In short, in a matter of only a few days, the UK moved from a situation where it had to match predictable need with a steady and established supply of PPE to one in which demand had become unpredictable (because the scale and impact of the pandemic was unknown), existing supply chains were clearly and materially insufficient, and new supplies had to be obtained in the face of
surging and unprecedented global demand. That required an entirely new approach to procurement.

PPE procurement in March/April 2020: the Government’s response


20. In order to address the crisis in supply of PPE, the UK Government utilised three main buying routes. The first comprised existing suppliers, working through SSCL. The second involved using a strengthened team of staff in the UK Embassy in Beijing to identify potential sources of supply on the ground. The third, of which PestFix was part, comprised new suppliers who did not currently
work through SSCL. It is also appropriate to record the substantial voluntary efforts that were made within local communities both in terms of passing over existing PPE (for example, from school science departments) and of manufacturing items.

21. Part of the difficulty faced by the UK Government was that there was no single list of existing known suppliers of PPE given that some NHS Trusts chose to source supplies themselves rather than work through SSCL, while other health and care organisations made their own arrangements in any event. The UK Government also wished to identify not just existing suppliers of PPE (whether or not to the NHS), but also entities with a record of supply to the NHS and/or the public sector and/or who could re-purpose to supply PPE, particularly where they might have established links to manufacturers in the Republic of China, including those manufacturers who were themselves repurposing to make PPE.

22. Accordingly, in order to address the challenge of surging demand for PPE within the NHS, a new organisation was set up to focus solely on procuring PPE supplies for the public sector. This prevented undue pressure on NHS Supply Chain’s existing administrative capability, allowing it to continue to meet the need for other consumables in the healthcare system more generally and deal
with existing PPE suppliers. The new task force adopted an innovative “open-source” approach to procurement, calling for help from across the UK business community to help ensure critical supplies were maintained.

23. The “Coronavirus Support from Business” Scheme was launched on 27 March 2020.This encouraged businesses supplying a range of products and services, including PPE, to register on an online portal, to indicate how they might assist the government’s response to the pandemic, and
the scheme was widely advertised at the time.

24. Prior to this offers of support had been harvested from various sources across government including via a dedicated central email address, which
was established on 14 March 2020.

25. The response to the Parliamentary Question reflected the approach that had been taken, with details of the email address having been circulated by No 10 and Ministerial offices to key external business interests and a mechanism for capturing commercial offers put in place by the Government Commercial Function on 18 March 2020. A webform was subsequently made available for completion, prior to the opening of the online portal on 27 March 2020.

26. Suppliers who registered with offers of PPE were asked to complete a form indicating (inter alia) the products they were offering and details of price, quantity and technical certifications (including evidence thereof). They also had to give details of their business for the purposes of vetting. Many of the suppliers who registered were new to the PPE market but some did have previous valuable experience of international supply-chain management and importing goods. As already indicated, the UK Government was particularly interested in potential suppliers who had existing strong relationships on the ground in the Republic of China with companies which either manufactured
PPE or were re-purposing to do so,  or had good local knowledge and contacts which might assist in identifying such manufacturers.

27. . Given that the entire premise of the scheme was to identify new sources of supply (the established
market being no longer able to fulfil demand), it would have been perverse to narrow down the field by imposing artificial pre-qualification requirements such as a minimum turnover requirement or unnecessary prior experience. The whole purpose of the Government’s “open-source” approach was to maximise the number of offers to prevent shortages of critical products (and to impose
restrictions of the kind suggested would further have entailed substantial procurement law risks).

28. Rather than focusing on the identity of the potential supplier, the validity of the offer was the key focus, thereby allowing smaller suppliers with strong contacts in PPE supply to offer the support the Government urgently needed. Equally, past experience in PPE supply was not considered a prerequisite, as other businesses (of whatever size) might also be able to leverage their
manufacturing contacts to engage with foreign enterprises converting existing facilities to PPE production. While it was of course possible for DHSC to continue liaising with existing large-scale suppliers during this period (and indeed it did so, through NHS Supply Chain), the nature of the changed market conditions required the development of alternative sources of supply and it was
appropriate not to impose unnecessary hurdles in the way of securing that objectives.

29. In this way over 24,000 offers of support were received from some 16,000 potential suppliers. The information they provided was initially assessed and verified by a cross-governmental team. Once this initial approval had been granted, offers were then passed to buying teams (some 500 staff
seconded from a range of departments), who prioritised these offers on the basis of how urgently the particular product was needed, the quantity on offer, value for money (using existing price benchmarks), certainty of supply and lead times. Where appropriate, further financial checks were
conducted prior to contracts being concluded.

30. In so far as technical requirements were concerned, specifications were provided by NHS Supply Chain. These were based upon the existing specifications used for SSCL, but appropriately modified so as to make them accessible (without, for the avoidance of doubt, reducing the key
requirements to meet the necessary technical standards). The relevant specifications were published online on 30 March 2020: see https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/technicalspecifications-for-personal-protective-equipment-ppe).

31. When offers were being evaluated, the technical suitability of the products on offer was confirmed with separate teams at NHS Supply Chain. Once the closing team had finalised the commercial terms of the proposed contract, details would be sent to the senior officials at DHSC for a final decision. It should be stressed that this final decision was not a mere formality and, based on HM
Treasury criteria, careful assessment was given to whether the proposed purchase would represent value of money in the circumstances (prices recently paid for similar products being a key point of reference).

32. As a result of this enhanced engagement with the market, over 600 contracts for PPE have now been concluded with almost 200 different suppliers; these range in value from under £1 million to over £100 million, amounting to some £5.5 billion in total. Full details of all these awards will be published in due course.

33. However, for present purposes, we would simply note that the very strategy which your clients’ Claim seeks to impugn has in fact proved successful. Over 8 billion items of vital PPE have been secured for the NHS and critical shortages have thus far been avoided. Furthermore, on the basis of our client’s engagement with the market, it is clear that if such a proactive, open-market approach had not been followed the UK would have been left without PPE at a critical time, with consequent risks to public health and human life. We would also note that the whole process of increasing the supply of PPE has had to take place in wholly exceptional circumstances, not least in which unnecessary travel has been prohibited making it impossible to visit new facilities or suppliers, and which has required an extraordinary degree of commitment from staff deployed from other responsibilities at very short notice.

34. It should be noted that the pre-contractual quality assurance process did not represent the only safeguard to ensure that PPE supplied into the NHS was of appropriate technical standard. Where PPE was obtained using a new supplier, on arrival in the UK the supplies were immediately quarantined. Thereafter, they were checked and quality assured by the appropriate regulatory
bodies to ensure necessary technical specifications and standards were met before being released for use. In the event that any product fails to meet the necessary specifications, the Department can seek a full refund of any sums already paid over.

https://goodlawproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/PestfixGLD4-1.pdf

I've no idea why you are replicating this. Do you actually know what it is? Let me help...

The Government is being taken to court for this dodgy procurement of PPE (by Good Law etc represented by the law firm Rook Irwin Sweeney)

You have reprinted part of the response sent by the Government's solicitor acting in this (CLG) which is outlining the Government's defence - and stating to Rook Irwin Sweeney that the government will defend the claim against them in court. 

Pretty much the equivalent of the Government saying "we didn't do it Guv" so prove it in court.

I may be mistaken but as far as I know they haven't gone to court yet so whatever the government claims - i.e. what you've selectively quoted above - is completely irrelevant as it's up to the court to decide whether or not the government is guilty.

wanderlust wrote:I've no idea why you are replicating this. Do you actually know what it is? Let me help...

The Government is being taken to court for this dodgy procurement of PPE (by Good Law etc represented by the law firm Rook Irwin Sweeney)

You have reprinted part of the response sent by the Government's solicitor acting in this (CLG) which is outlining the Government's defence - and stating to Rook Irwin Sweeney that the government will defend the claim against them in court. 

Pretty much the equivalent of the Government saying "we didn't do it Guv" so prove it in court.

I may be mistaken but as far as I know they haven't gone to court yet so whatever the government claims - i.e. what you've selectively quoted above - is completely irrelevant as it's up to the court to decide whether or not the government is guilty.

Yes I know exactly what it is and even referenced the fact above, so I don't need your help thank you.

If you bothered to actually read what I quoted it is the factual background of what actually happened in what the government did - and nothing at all to do with their defence of the case which carries on from the point I stopped quoting.

You are correct that the case has not gone to court and personally I don't think it ever will as the action has been brought on incorrect assumptions imo.

I don't know how you can conclude that the factual background is completely irrelevant but then again you do have a long history of not letting facts stand in the way of the tales you love to tell.

Have you checked any of the governments statements to conclude they are facts Sluffy?

T.R.O.Y. wrote:Have you checked any of the governments statements to conclude they are facts Sluffy?

I don't need to as the elected representatives of our respective constituencies do that for me (and everybody else) by means of questions in the House and all party membership of Parliamentary scrutiny committees.

Bit different from the 'Wild West' of social media where anybody can say whatever they want (within the law) and so many people believe it at face value as being the gospel truth!

A government statement doesn’t need to be fact checked?

The entire premise of your point is that statement is factual, but you haven’t checked if it is?

T.R.O.Y. wrote:A government statement doesn’t need to be fact checked?

The entire premise of your point is that statement is factual, but you haven’t checked if it is?

As I've said, it has already been done last month by the relevant scrutinising body -

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53117011

As an aside, and just a throwaway thought more than anything, why aren't the national press with all their investigative journalist not all over this like a rash a month on from then if there really is anything in it?

Did you know, I presume you did, that the body pushing for the legal review is an activist pressure group called the 'Good Law Project' and was founded by Jolyon Maugham, a barrister who had a bee in his bonnet about Brexit and launched legal challenges to it and at one point apparently intended to set up his own political party called 'Spring' and stand against the then PM Theresa May in her own constituency!

He didn't do it in the end.

He is most famous for these tweets - it really, really is worth reading them!!!

Prominent lawyer Jolyon Maugham clubs fox to death while wearing kimono

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/dec/26/prominent-lawyer-jolyon-maugham-tweets-about-clubbing-a-fox-to-death


Sounds a complete nutjob in my opinion (I don't want him suing me!).

Maybe the national press do too?

Think you've been a bit naive here just taking the government case as factual - again we have covered the difference between facts and theories a few times. It is of importance, for example Maugham disproves one of their arguments here:

Does the Government’s explanation for why it bought the FFP2 masks hold water? Well, here's what Government's letter says - and let's compare it to what Government elsewhere said the technical standard in force at the time required.



Here is Government’s own description of what EN 149:2001+A1:2009 required at, we believe, the time the contract was entered into.

You can read it (again on the web archive) here: web.archive.org/web/2020041421….

It says quite clearly that there “must” be head-loops.

As usual post brexit trade talks are going badly in the hands of Liz Truss. She is jeopardising an agreement with Japan over her obsession with cheese even though total annual blue cheese exports to Japan are only worth £102k.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53737388

I'm not disputing that mistakes may well have been made from the government side and/or from the manufacturing side.

Clearly if goods are commissioned in English and manufactured in China there's always a possibility of a communication error, something lost in translation so to speak.

Maybe that consignment was meant for another country were ear loop fasting's are acceptable are acceptable and 'our' head loop ones dispatched to them in error by the manufacturer something as simple as that - who knows?

The bottom line being that if the error was on the government side we stand the loss if on the manufacturing side the contract provides for remedial action.

Maybe that's already been agreed to already, I certainly would expect there has been dialogue between the government and manufacturer by now to identify what caused the issue and who it should be resolved.

As I say though, if it is such a big story then where is the national press in all of this?

Didn't the government state that our track and trace system was "world class"?

Fact check that.

Sluffy wrote:I'm not disputing that mistakes may well have been made from the government side and/or from the manufacturing side.

Clearly if goods are commissioned in English and manufactured in China there's always a possibility of a communication error, something lost in translation so to speak.

Maybe that consignment was meant for another country were ear loop fasting's are acceptable are acceptable and 'our' head loop ones dispatched to them in error by the manufacturer something as simple as that - who knows?

The bottom line being that if the error was on the government side we stand the loss if on the manufacturing side the contract provides for remedial action.

Maybe that's already been agreed to already, I certainly would expect there has been dialogue between the government and manufacturer by now to identify what caused the issue and who it should be resolved.

As I say though, if it is such a big story then where is the national press in all of this?

Nobody's disputing it was a mistake, hardly going to be spaffing money up the wall on purpose are they.

I think the main issue here is how many mistakes seem to be occurring and preventing them from happening again - assessing what wrong is a vital step in improving processes for the future, surely even you can agree on that?

This is now the third time public money (large amounts) has been spent on PPE that isn't fit for use in the NHS questioning how that keeps happening isn't just a perfectly legitimate thing to do it's should be encouraged.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:

Sluffy wrote:I'm not disputing that mistakes may well have been made from the government side and/or from the manufacturing side.

Clearly if goods are commissioned in English and manufactured in China there's always a possibility of a communication error, something lost in translation so to speak.

Maybe that consignment was meant for another country were ear loop fasting's are acceptable are acceptable and 'our' head loop ones dispatched to them in error by the manufacturer something as simple as that - who knows?

The bottom line being that if the error was on the government side we stand the loss if on the manufacturing side the contract provides for remedial action.

Maybe that's already been agreed to already, I certainly would expect there has been dialogue between the government and manufacturer by now to identify what caused the issue and who it should be resolved.

As I say though, if it is such a big story then where is the national press in all of this?

Nobody's disputing it was a mistake, hardly going to be spaffing money up the wall on purpose are they.

I think the main issue here is how many mistakes seem to be occurring and preventing them from happening again - assessing what wrong is a vital step in improving processes for the future, surely even you can agree on that?

This is now the third time public money (large amounts) has been spent on PPE that isn't fit for use in the NHS questioning how that keeps happening isn't just a perfectly legitimate thing to do it's should be encouraged.

I refer you to this -

32. As a result of this enhanced engagement with the market, over 600 contracts for PPE have now been concluded with almost 200 different suppliers; these range in value from under £1 million to over £100 million, amounting to some £5.5 billion in total.

Three 'questionable' contract awarded (they've yet to be shown to have done anything wrong) and two known contract mistakes - this one and the 'Turkey' one equate to a 1 in 300 chance or 0.33% error rate.

I have no problem whatsoever of investigating what has gone wrong in the two known cases or any others that may arise but unless you know something I don't an error rate on contracts of 0.33% seems amazingly good to me - does it not to you too?