The Government wasted over £9.9 billion on PPE

[Streetwalker]

I think the key issue here is not that they felt it necessary to cough up vast vats of wonga, but who they turned to for provision of same.

It is clear that much of the items ordered were useless and much of the money squandered by routing through the old boys network.

No doubt some saw this as a chance to get their hands in the till . Is this not the case when spending all public money ?  The scale of it does make your eyes water mind . 

[T00ts]

Me.
Especially given the free booze and dodgy dealings.

If you can't beat them eh?    

[johnofgwent]

Yes I know. The trouble is I just get tired of all the easy judgements by people who were not at the centre of the actual situation. I keep saying hindsight is so useful but just what were these people facing at the time? What were the pressures really? Who would be in Government or an MP anymore?

Me.
Especially given the free booze and dodgy dealings.

[johnofgwent]

...and are we certain there would have been no waste? It's all hindsight.

No, one can never be certain there would not have been waste. As someone who has been a supplier to the defence sector and is therefore somewhat aubfaitvwith the process, my question is why were golf club and taproom chums awarded Megabucks deals when several pre-audited, pre-vetted organisations existed.

I admit some (rather a lot really) of those organisations on the preferred supplier list got their corruptly and I know how, but that does not really a xcuse the cabinet ministers throwing established processes to the wind and stuffing chests of dubloons into transit vans in pub car parks which is pretty much what they did.

[johnofgwent]

The government to be fair had little choice but to cough up whatever it costs to obtain supplies .  No good crying in the morning when you realise your wallet is empty and your head hurts

I think the key issue here is not that they felt it necessary to cough up vast vats of wonga, but who they turned to for provision of same.

It is clear that much of the items ordered were useless and much of the money squandered by routing through the old boys network.

[Sheepy]

It is big fraud by the Tory government's mates.

LOL the fastest change of tune for a while. 

[papasmurf]

We would all hope that it would have been better managed. Sadly the NHS does not come off too well either. I am not convinced that we know enough to make anything like a fair judgement of Government and we should not forget that no-one is superman. I am sure they were doing the best they could at the time. None of them are medics or scientists. They really are at the mercy of those with the knowledge.

With no tendering, no due diligence, and no follow up checks it was at the very least incompetence and a flagrant loss of taxpayers money.

[Borchester]

Sadly I have had to live today so news had to give. OK I'm no accountant but glancing down the list quickly I would have thought that most of the reasons are legitimate. It's big money but then it was for a lot of people. They didn't have the stocks they claimed but that is down to NHS mismanagement which I pointed out 2 years ago. At it's height I remember that getting PPE from anywhere was at a premium, now the scare is over and the value has dropped below purchase price. That is almost inevitable. I think those responsible were put in a position of buying whatever it could. We have to remember it was not normal times.
It's like everything else, we can all criticise now with hindsight. Perhaps we have forgotten just how panicked everything was.

Sorry Toots, but I agree with Pappy. As he said, there was no point in wasting money on PPE and masks and vaccines and such. The best thing would have been to dump him on the beach at the Lizard and if the fresh sea breezes didn't cure him, well, he would have been buggered anyway.

[T00ts]

It is big fraud by the Tory government's mates.

We would all hope that it would have been better managed. Sadly the NHS does not come off too well either. I am not convinced that we know enough to make anything like a fair judgement of Government and we should not forget that no-one is superman. I am sure they were doing the best they could at the time. None of them are medics or scientists. They really are at the mercy of those with the knowledge. 

[papasmurf]

It's big money but then it was for a lot of people. 

It is big fraud by the Tory government's mates.

[T00ts]

A large amount of money was paid out for PPE that was unfit for purpose. Have you not watched any news today?


https://www.itv.com/news/2022-02-01/covid-government-discloses-87-billion-of-losses-on-ppe


Covid: ITV News reveals £8.7 billion of losses on PPE in government accounts

Buried on page 199 of the Department of Health and Social Care's annual report published yesterday is the shocking disclosure that it has incurred £8.7 billion of losses - £8.7 billion! - on £12.1 billion of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) bought in 2020/21.
Think about how that money could have been deployed in hospitals. Surely there needs to be a statement from Sajid Javid to Parliament about this.
Here is the excerpt from the DHSC annual report: "The Department estimates that there has been a loss in value of £8.7 billion of the £12.1 billion of PPE purchased in 2020-21."
The impairment relates to

• £0.67 billion - "PPE which cannot be used, for instance because it is defective."
• £2.6 billion - "PPE which is not suitable for use within the health and social care sector but which the Department considers might be suitable for other uses (although these potential other uses are as yet uncertain)."
• £0.75 billion - "PPE which is in excess of the amount that will ultimately be needed."
• £4.7 billion - "Adjustment to the year-end valuation of PPE due to the market price of equivalent PPE at the year-end being lower than the original purchase price."

In other words the DHSC paid above the odds for more PPE than was needed, tons of which are not fit for purpose. A jaw dropper, even in jaw-dropping times.
On page 200 of the DHSC annual report, is another worrying admission, namely that the department has not "re-established effective [financial] controls in all areas" having "adapted" its procurement and inventory management systems at the start of the pandemic.
It says these changes "contributed to a significant loss of value to the taxpayer " and left the Department "open to the risk of fraud".
It gets worse for the Department of Health and Social Care.
The public sector's auditor in-chief, Garett Davies, refused to give a clean bill of health to the department's 2020/21 accounts.
He "qualified" the accounts (in the jargon) because "£1.3 billion of the department's Covid-19 spending was spent either without the necessary HM Treasury approvals or in breach of conditions set by HM Treasury.
Davies has also qualified his regularity opinion due to insufficient evidence to show that the Department's spending, particularly on Covid-19 procurement, was not subject to a material level of fraud".

He is basically saying the department failed the test of competence.
The findings that the department may have been subject to "material" fraud and breached Treasury stipulations are damning.
These failures happened while Matt Hancock was health secretary. He would have been under pressure to take responsibility and resign if still there. Presumably there will have to be an internal DHSC inquiry into all this.
Officials and ministers may have been at serious fault.
And for the avoidance of doubts, those £8.7bn of PPE losses I revealed above were uncovered by the National Audit Office.
I should of course point out that DHSC was under extreme pressure at the start of the crisis. In part that pressure was greater because of years of austerity, plus a failure to prepare for crisis and build resilience into the system.
That said some of its chaotic procurement of PPE may be understandable and perhaps forgivable, because of the extreme need to make good the lack of PPE to protect health and care workers.

Sadly I have had to live today so news had to give. OK I'm no accountant but glancing down the list quickly I would have thought that most of the reasons are legitimate. It's big money but then it was for a lot of people. They didn't have the stocks they claimed but that is down to NHS mismanagement which I pointed out 2 years ago. At it's height I remember that getting PPE from anywhere was at a premium, now the scare is over and the value has dropped below purchase price. That is almost inevitable. I think those responsible were put in a position of buying whatever it could. We have to remember it was not normal times.
It's like everything else, we can all criticise now with hindsight. Perhaps we have forgotten just how panicked everything was.

[papasmurf]

Yes I know. The trouble is I just get tired of all the easy judgements by people who were not at the centre of the actual situation. I keep saying hindsight is so useful but just what were these people facing at the time? What were the pressures really? Who would be in Government or an MP anymore?

A large amount of money was paid out for PPE that was unfit for purpose. Have you not watched any news today?


https://www.itv.com/news/2022-02-01/covid-government-discloses-87-billion-of-losses-on-ppe


Covid: ITV News reveals £8.7 billion of losses on PPE in government accounts

Buried on page 199 of the Department of Health and Social Care's annual report published yesterday is the shocking disclosure that it has incurred £8.7 billion of losses - £8.7 billion! - on £12.1 billion of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) bought in 2020/21.
Think about how that money could have been deployed in hospitals. Surely there needs to be a statement from Sajid Javid to Parliament about this.
Here is the excerpt from the DHSC annual report: "The Department estimates that there has been a loss in value of £8.7 billion of the £12.1 billion of PPE purchased in 2020-21."
The impairment relates to

• £0.67 billion - "PPE which cannot be used, for instance because it is defective."
• £2.6 billion - "PPE which is not suitable for use within the health and social care sector but which the Department considers might be suitable for other uses (although these potential other uses are as yet uncertain)."
• £0.75 billion - "PPE which is in excess of the amount that will ultimately be needed."
• £4.7 billion - "Adjustment to the year-end valuation of PPE due to the market price of equivalent PPE at the year-end being lower than the original purchase price."

In other words the DHSC paid above the odds for more PPE than was needed, tons of which are not fit for purpose. A jaw dropper, even in jaw-dropping times.
On page 200 of the DHSC annual report, is another worrying admission, namely that the department has not "re-established effective [financial] controls in all areas" having "adapted" its procurement and inventory management systems at the start of the pandemic.
It says these changes "contributed to a significant loss of value to the taxpayer " and left the Department "open to the risk of fraud".
It gets worse for the Department of Health and Social Care.
The public sector's auditor in-chief, Garett Davies, refused to give a clean bill of health to the department's 2020/21 accounts.
He "qualified" the accounts (in the jargon) because "£1.3 billion of the department's Covid-19 spending was spent either without the necessary HM Treasury approvals or in breach of conditions set by HM Treasury.
Davies has also qualified his regularity opinion due to insufficient evidence to show that the Department's spending, particularly on Covid-19 procurement, was not subject to a material level of fraud".

He is basically saying the department failed the test of competence.
The findings that the department may have been subject to "material" fraud and breached Treasury stipulations are damning.
These failures happened while Matt Hancock was health secretary. He would have been under pressure to take responsibility and resign if still there. Presumably there will have to be an internal DHSC inquiry into all this.
Officials and ministers may have been at serious fault.
And for the avoidance of doubts, those £8.7bn of PPE losses I revealed above were uncovered by the National Audit Office.
I should of course point out that DHSC was under extreme pressure at the start of the crisis. In part that pressure was greater because of years of austerity, plus a failure to prepare for crisis and build resilience into the system.
That said some of its chaotic procurement of PPE may be understandable and perhaps forgivable, because of the extreme need to make good the lack of PPE to protect health and care workers.

[T00ts]

Toots have you been following the news and current affairs about the issue?  The has been criticism since just after pandemic started.

https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n639

The UK's PPE procurement scandal reminds us why we need ways to hold ministers to account

BMJ 2021; 372 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n639 (Published 08 March 2021)Cite this as: BMJ 2021;372:n639



https://goodlawproject.org/news/gov-publishes-40-ppe-contracts/

Government publishes 40 PPE contracts totalling £4.2bn – a year late

Yes I know. The trouble is I just get tired of all the easy judgements by people who were not at the centre of the actual situation. I keep saying hindsight is so useful but just what were these people facing at the time? What were the pressures really? Who would be in Government or an MP anymore? 

[papasmurf]

...and are we certain there would have been no waste? It's all hindsight.

Toots have you been following the news and current affairs about the issue?  The has been criticism since just after pandemic started.

https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n639

The UK's PPE procurement scandal reminds us why we need ways to hold ministers to account

BMJ 2021; 372 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n639 (Published 08 March 2021)Cite this as: BMJ 2021;372:n639



https://goodlawproject.org/news/gov-publishes-40-ppe-contracts/

Government publishes 40 PPE contracts totalling £4.2bn – a year late

[T00ts]

There were companies with experience queueing up to tender for the work, the got no reply, due diligence takes about a minute on the internet.

...and are we certain there would have been no waste? It's all hindsight.