Matt Hancock acted unlawfully when his department did not reveal details of contracts it had signed during the Covid pandemic, a court has ruled.

A judge said the health secretary had "breached his legal obligation" by not publishing details within 30 days of contracts being signed. The public had a right to know where the "vast" amounts spent had gone and how contracts were awarded, he added.

The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) has struck deals worth hundreds of millions of pounds during the coronavirus pandemic.

Campaign group the Good Law Project and three MPs - Labour's Debbie Abrahams, Green Caroline Lucas and Lib Dem Layla Moran - took legal action against the department over its "wholesale failure" to disclose details of the contracts agreed.

Under the law, the government is required to publish a "contract award notice" within 30 days of the awarding any contracts for public goods or services worth more than £120,000.

The Good Law Project also claimed that the government breached its own transparency policy, which requires the publication of details of public contracts worth more than £10,000.

In his ruling, Mr Justice Chamberlain said: "There is now no dispute that, in a substantial number of cases, the secretary of state breached his legal obligation to publish contract award notices within 30 days of the award of contracts. There is also no dispute that the secretary of state failed to publish redacted contracts in accordance with the transparency policy."

The judge said the health secretary had spent "vast quantities" of public money on Covid-related goods and services during 2020.

"The public were entitled see who this money was going to, what it was being spent on and how the relevant contracts were awarded," he added.

He said this was important so that competitors of those awarded contracts could understand whether the obligations had been breached.

Bodies such as the National Audit Office, as well as Parliament and the public, to "scrutinise and ask questions about this expenditure".

Mr Justice Chamberlain acknowledged that the situation faced by the DHSC during the first few months of the pandemic had been "unprecedented".

He said it was "understandable that attention was focused on procuring what was thought necessary to save lives".

But he added that the DHSC's "historic failure" to publish details of contracts awarded during the pandemic was "an excuse, not a justification".

For Labour, shadow Cabinet Office minister Rachel Reeves called the judgement "troubling and unsurprising, and a perfect example of how this government believes it is one rule for them another for the rest of us".

She added: "This government's contracting has been plagued by a lack of transparency, cronyism and waste and they must take urgent steps to address this now - by winding down emergency procurement, urgently releasing details of the VIP fast lane, and publishing all outstanding contracts by the end of the month."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56125462 (Extract)





Of course, Hancock may have acted illegally but he'll apologise, blame expediency and won't have to incur any penalty for his "illegal" actions ......

The UK government faces growing calls to release details of a VIP fast lane for emergency procurement contracts related to its pandemic response after the health secretary, Matt Hancock, was found to have acted unlawfully.

Last year, ministers and officials refused to admit which companies were awarded multimillion-pound Covid-19 contracts after being processed in a high-priority channel for firms with political connections.

A report by the National Audit Office said a government unit, set up to procure PPE in a highly unusual departure from standard procurement practice, established the high-priority lane to deal with leads “from government officials, ministers’ offices, MPs and members of the House of Lords, senior NHS staff and other health professionals”.

Labour stepped up its criticism of the government on Saturday, led by deputy leader Angela Rayner who said the government must “come clean” over £2bn in funds awarded to “donors and cronies”, adding: “This is public money, the public has a right to know.”

The Good Law Project (GLP) has called on the government “to publish the names of all the companies who went through the VIP lane, together with who introduced them and, where they were successful, the prices they were paid”. It has also urged the government to publish PPE contracts “with pricing details visible to enable proper scrutiny” and recover funds from companies who failed to meet their obligations.

UK government under growing pressure over Covid procurement

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...id-procurement



Chumocracy, Cronyism, Concealment, Corruption .....

.... the Guardian

Hi

A point to be made, but urgency was everything.

I will not critcse the Government over Vaccines, they have done brilliantly well.

PPE and Track and Trace, a disaster.

Indeed ..... but urgency generated panic, profligacy and profiteering among the Tories .....

I await the NAO's report on the government's inadequate, wateful and deadly reponse to the pandemic with interest .....

Indeed ..... but urgency generated panic, profligacy and profiteering among the Tories .....

I await the NAO's report on the government's inadequate, wasteful and deadly response to the pandemic with interest .....