Britain’s government is facing growing criticism over how it awarded contracts for COVID-19 virus-related goods and services, its detractors alleging a “chumocracy” in which politically connected companies got priority.
“I think in comparison to Britain 10 years ago, there’s a level of corruption that we haven’t reached before,” said Emily Barritt, a lecturer in law at King’s College London.
The latest revelation came last month when then-British secretary of state for health and social care Matt Hancock resigned after it emerged that he was having an affair with Gina Colodangeloa, university friend he had appointed as an aide.
Hancock was already facing questions over a series of virus-related contracts.
One was a ￡30 million (US$41 million) contract to produce vials for COVID-19 testing that was awarded without competition to a company run by his former neighbor — someone who had no background in making medical goods.
The Daily Telegraph has reported that another ￡28 million contract was awarded to a healthcare company where Colodangelo’s brother is strategy director.
Last month, the British High Court of Justice ruled against British Minister for the Cabinet Office Michael Gove.
Gove had unlawfully awarded a ￡560,000 contract for communications to market research firm Public First, having failed to go through proper procedures.
The company’s founders are friends of Dominic Cummings, who until recently served as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s top adviser.
The opposition Labour Party is calling for an independent probe into the government’s handling of the pandemic.
“The huge part of the story is all the issues that remain unresolved with regards to cronyism,” British Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland Ian Murray told the BBC.
Rules on awarding public contracts were already very flexible, said Daniel Fisher, a postgraduate researcher at City University of London.
The pandemic “has provided opportunities to relax rules even further,” with a loosening in ethical standards leading to “speedy opaque contracting,” Fisher said.
The British Department of Health and Social Care said that it was “inaccurate to say we have relaxed the procurement rules.”
The ministry has “stringent rules in place” and “ministers have no role in this process,” it said.
The government does have the right in the case of a major emergency to award contracts without competitive tendering, but it is legally obliged to publish the terms of the contracts awarded — something it did not do in a number of cases.
The Good Law Project, a British non-profit campaign group, has taken legal action against the government, including the case that led to the High Court ruling against Gove.
It estimates that spending on contracts linked to the virus amounted to at least ￡17 billion between April and November last year.
The government failed to publish details of ￡4.4 billion of these contracts, it said.
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