Evaluation of the accounts of corporations that gained profitable emergency contracts to provide private protecting gear (PPE) to the NHS through the peak of the pandemic exhibits 12 additionally claimed funds to place workers on furlough at taxpayers’ expense.
Many had no prior historical past of supplying PPE however acquired large boosts in income after securing offers to provide objects starting from robes to masks. Total the scramble to acquire PPE resulted within the Division of Well being and Social Care (DHSC) spending £9bn on personal protective equipment that was both substandard, faulty, previous its use-by date or dramatically overpriced.
These furlough claims had been authorized below the phrases of the £70bn job preservation scheme, however the revelations increase questions concerning the ethics of claiming taxpayer help whereas reaping windfall positive factors from profitable state contracts.
All 12 corporations that claimed furlough grants had gained PPE contracts by way of a so-called VIP lane, the place approvals had been fast-tracked usually after a suggestion by ministers and authorities officers. The federal government spent £5bn on VIP lane contracts with 47 corporations, however its use of the lane was found unlawful by the excessive court docket in final month.
