This is a House of Commons Committee report, with recommendations to government. The Government has two months to respond.
Government’s contracts with Randox Laboratories Ltd
Date Published: 27 July 2022
This is the full report, read the report summary.
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government needed to act rapidly to create high-volume testing capacity in the UK. As part of these efforts, it awarded contracts for testing services and goods to various companies, including Randox. From March 2020 to December 2021, the Department of Health & Social Care (the Department) and Public Health England awarded 22 contracts to Randox, or its strategic partner Qnostics Ltd, with a maximum total value of £776.9 million. These contracts were for the supply of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing services and goods.
Randox’s contracts for testing services included a £132.4 million contract awarded on 30 March 2020, and an extension to this contract worth £328.3 million awarded in October 2020. Both contracts were awarded without competition using emergency procurement rules that were called into force during the pandemic. By 18 October 2021, the latest data available to us, the Department had paid Randox £407.4 million for providing COVID-19 testing services and clinical goods.
1. Woefully inadequate record-keeping by the Department makes it impossible to have confidence that all its contracts with Randox were awarded properly. The Department was not able to provide documentation showing details of contractual negotiations or price benchmarking leading up to the award of its first £132 million contract for testing services with Randox in March 2020. The much larger £328 million contract extension was awarded seven months later, in October 2020, but the Department was still unable to provide key contract documentation on negotiations and benchmarking undertaken at the time. The Department also did not record any detailed due diligence on Randox in relation to either of these contracts. The large gaps in the document trail mean that it is impossible to say the contracts were awarded properly in the way that we would expect to be able to, even allowing for the exceptional circumstances and accelerated processes in place at the time.
Recommendation: The Department should write to us within two months, setting out details of when and how its commercial refresh will bring record-keeping up to standard and ensure that this is the case under all circumstances.
2. The Department failed to meet basic requirements to report publicly ministers’ meetings with external parties. The Ministerial Code requires all departments to report meetings that ministers have had with external parties and any hospitality received, in the interests of transparency and accountability. The Department properly declared only four of the eight meetings on testing that involved its ministers and Randox. In addition, it kept minutes of only two of these meetings. Details of some of these meetings emerged only because documents relating to Randox’s contracts were requested by MPs through the ‘Humble Address’ process and published in February 2022. The Department also did not declare hospitality that the then Secretary of State had received from Randox’s managing director on a ministerial visit to Northern Ireland in 2019 and Mr Hancock has since told us that his ministerial private office considered it was a political event and therefore did not need to be declared.1 The Department’s disclosures and record-keeping have been well below the standards we would expect under any circumstances. In emergency situations it is even more important to ensure that information is correctly documented.
Recommendation: In its Treasury Minute response, the Department should set out how it intends to strengthen its transparency processes and ensure that it enforces requirements and takes action where they are not followed.
3. The Department did not deal with potential conflicts of interest, despite clear concerns about Randox’s political connections. The Department did not show any evidence of taking any care over potential conflicts of interest when it awarded contracts to Randox. This was despite officials being aware of Owen Paterson’s contacts with Rt Hon Matt Hancock MP, the then Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, as a paid consultant for Randox while he was still a sitting MP, and the hospitality Mr Hancock received from Randox in 2019. For its first contract with Randox, the Department failed to identify any conflicts of interest, incorrectly stating at the time that consideration of conflicts of interest was not applicable to that contract award. The Department was not able to answer clearly how it makes sure that those involved in procurement give due consideration to potential conflicts of interest in their decision making, even where interests are properly recorded or declared. The Procurement Bill, published in May 2022, contains new requirements on departments to record conflicts of interests relating to contracts. We are also concerned about the Department’s prioritisation of testing suppliers through VIP and priority routes, including those referred by ministers, MPs or Number 10. Suppliers that came through these routes were awarded £6 billion out of the £7.9 billion total of testing contracts awarded between May 2020 and March 2021.
Recommendation: Alongside its Treasury Minute response, the Department should write to us to clarify the information it had on declared private interests and how it used this information to identify potential conflicts of interest in its procurement decisions. In addition to the expected new requirements to record conflicts of interest, government should strengthen its approach to ensure that conflicts of interest are not just documented, but also communicated and acted on by those awarding contracts.
4. The award of the first Randox contract did not receive adequate scrutiny from senior officials and the role of ministers in signing it off was unclear. The Department’s then Second Permanent Secretary had some visibility of the first contract awarded to Randox, but he did not approve it as we would normally expect. Instead, Lord Bethell, the then Minister for Technology, Innovation and Life Sciences, was asked by departmental officials to provide his authorisation to proceed with the contract. The Department says this was not formal approval of the contract, but in the absence of any other senior sign-off for the contract from either officials or ministers, the contract was signed by a deputy director. Normal processes for contract spend approvals involving the Cabinet Office were also by-passed during the early months of the pandemic, which meant that the Cabinet Office did not provide its approval for Randox’s first contract for testing services.
Recommendation: Government should provide additional guidance to clarify the role of ministers in procurement processes, including contract discussions and approvals.
5. The Department failed to hold Randox to account for its performance against its first contract and awarded it another £328 million extension without competition. The Department did not set out any key performance indicators for Randox in its first contract and only introduced performance measures such as test turnaround times from July 2020 – a month after that contract was originally expected to end. When awarding the first contract, the Department saw Randox as a market leader and one of the few providers able to expand testing, but Randox still needed government support to fulfil the contract. The Department says that it was not surprised at Randox’s request for government help to secure necessary testing equipment, but details of the expected support were not clearly set out in the contract or considered when agreeing the contract price. Despite the performance issues with the first contract, which meant Randox took longer than expected to increase its testing capacity, the Department still awarded a £328 million extension to Randox without competition in October 2020 and appeared by then to have already become heavily reliant on its services.
Recommendation: We expect clear and definitive assurance from the Department that even where contracts are awarded in exceptional circumstances, it will set performance indicators and use these to hold providers to account.
6. The Department did not do enough work to determine whether Randox was making excess profits from its contracts with Randox. Randox’s published accounts do not yet cover the entire period of the contracts we considered, but they already show how Randox has substantially increased its profits and expanded its business since the start of the pandemic. Randox reported a profit of £177 million in the year to 30 June 2021, more than a hundred times greater than its £1.2 million profit for the 18 months to 30 June 2020. The company’s net assets also increased ten-fold in one year, from £17 million in June 2020 to £171 million in June 2021. However, the Department did not conduct like-for-like benchmarking of the price offered by Randox or consider supplier profit margins before awarding Randox its first testing contract. The Department told us that there was a more developed market of suppliers offering testing services by the time it awarded Randox’s contract extension in October 2020, but it again could not provide any evidence of negotiations on price or benchmarking conducted at the time. The Department was therefore unable to offer a view on whether there had been profiteering on testing contracts.
Recommendation: The government should strengthen its commercial guidance on ensuring that profits are not excessive, by including profit level expectations and obligations to benchmark in contract decision making.
1. On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we took evidence from the Department of Health & Social Care (the Department) and the UK Health Security Agency (the Agency) about the government’s contracts with Randox Laboratories Ltd (Randox) during the COVID-19 pandemic.2 Government correspondence and other documents relating to these contracts were published by the Department in February 2022, in response to a ‘Humble Address’ motion passed by the House of Commons in November 2021.3
2. At the start of the pandemic, the government needed to act rapidly to create high-volume testing capacity in the UK. As part of these efforts, it awarded contracts for testing services and goods, which included some to Randox. From March 2020 to December 2021, the Department and Public Health England awarded 22 contracts to Randox, or its strategic partner Qnostics Ltd, with a maximum total value of £776.9 million. These contracts were for the supply of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing services and goods. By value, almost all the contracts were for the provision of testing services, which involved processing PCR tests conducted at testing centres and settings such as care homes.4
3. Contracts for testing services included a £132.4 million contract awarded on 30 March 2020, and an extension to this contract worth £328.3 million awarded in October 2020. Both contracts were awarded without competition using emergency procurement rules that were called into force during the pandemic under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. According to the latest data provided to us, the Department has so far paid Randox £407.4 million for testing services and clinical goods.5
4. We have noted in our previous report on government procurement and supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) that evidence of decision making relating to contracts let during the early stages of the pandemic was very poor.6 The Department explained that due to the unprecedented circumstances of the pandemic and the speed at which people were working, full records were often not kept. The Department acknowledged that basic information relating to the first contract with Randox was not recorded, including information on contract negotiations, price benchmarking and due diligence. Although more complete contract documentation was provided for the higher-value contract extension awarded in October 2020, the Department was again not able to provide information on negotiations, benchmarking, and due diligence for that contract.7
5. Because basic information on the first contract was not recorded in the Department’s established systems, it had to review several officials’ email accounts to find evidence on its decision to award Randox the first testing contract. The Agency said that it had made attempts to trace those individuals involved at the time to see if they had any paper records or held other information, but recognised that there were lessons to be learnt about the need to keep complete documentation even in times of difficult contracting circumstances.8
6. The Department and Agency said that since then, they have instituted new measures to reinforce the importance of proper record-keeping. Both emphasised that there were now stronger expectations on all civil servants, with enhanced training and induction processes reiterating the responsibilities of all staff to keep better records. The Department added that if people did not meet expected standards, the Department or Agency would deal with that in the usual way that they would deal with any performance issue. In addition, the Department told us that commercial teams in the Department and the Agency were working closely together to ensure assurance mechanisms were in place. This included work to establish a single information management system which would contain all relevant commercial documentation for contract awards, including documentation of due diligence processes.9 Ministers remain personally responsible to Parliament for ensuring that their transparency returns are complete and up to date.
7. The Department failed to record in its own published transparency releases that Randox had attended four meetings on testing with ministers in 2020, although it did declare four other meetings involving ministers and Randox. Minutes or records of discussions were kept for two of these meetings.10 The Ministerial Code requires departments to publish details of ministers’ meetings with external organisations on a quarterly basis.11 However, details of some ministerial meetings with Randox emerged only because documents relating to Randox’s contracts were requested by MPs through the ‘Humble Address’ process and published in February 2022. The documents released included private emails and WhatsApp messages between ministers and Randox’s representatives that were not saved in the Department’s information systems at the time. The Information Commissioner has investigated the use of private correspondence channels at the Department, concluding in a July 2022 report that there were failings in the Department’s compliance with transparency obligations.12 The Department admitted to us that the omissions in recording and reporting ministerial meetings were “a straight error”. Its explanation was that transparency returns are completed by ministers’ private offices, and staff working in those offices had faced significant workload pressures at that time.13
8. The Ministerial Code further requires that hospitality received by ministers in a ministerial capacity is declared on departments’ quarterly transparency releases.14 During a March 2019 ministerial visit to Northern Ireland, Matt Hancock, the then Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, toured Randox’s premises. He also attended a private dinner and stayed overnight at a country estate owned by Randox’s managing director. None of these events were recorded in the Department’s transparency returns relating to hospitality or ministers’ external meetings. The Department said questions around the declaration of any hospitality received were for Mr Hancock to answer.15 Mr Hancock has subsequently written to us noting that at the time, his ministerial private office had made the judgement that both the dinner and overnight stay were political events and therefore did not need to be declared. He also noted that his stay had saved the taxpayer the cost of a hotel room. He also stated that he was not involved in any testing contract negotiations.16
9. In addition to the wider efforts to improve basic documentation, the Department told us that it had introduced measures such as spot checks by the principal private secretary to reinforce the importance of proper record-keeping in private offices. The Department explained that the measures were designed to ensure staff in private offices and policy teams always kept records of any discussions that had substantive government business as part of them or were relevant to decision making. This applied to both minuting of meetings and maintaining records of ministers’ engagements with external organisations.17
10. Regulations governing public contracts require departments and other bodies to identify and manage conflicts of interest in the procurement process. The Procurement Bill, published in May 2022, reinforces these requirements and would also explicitly require departments and bodies to prepare conflicts of interest assessments before contracts are awarded.18 The Department acknowledged it had a clear responsibility to determine whether there are live conflicts of interest associated with those involved in decision making around contracts.19 However, in the case of the first Randox contract, the Department failed to carry out any identification or assessment of conflicts of interest. It erroneously stated on contract documentation that consideration of conflicts of interest was deemed “not applicable” because the contract was directly awarded under emergency procurement procedures.20
11. The Department did not appear to have considered potential concerns about Randox’s political connections in its decision making, such as Owen Paterson’s lobbying on behalf of Randox, hospitality offered to Matt Hancock by Randox’s managing director, or the company’s donations to the Conservative party. The Department said that it had been aware that Mr Paterson was a paid consultant for Randox while he was still a sitting MP, although it said this did not necessarily mean the company had been treated any differently to other potential suppliers. The Department noted it would not necessarily have been aware of Randox’s donations to the Conservative party or hospitality offered to ministers in a political capacity, and that these might not have been relevant to the consideration of conflicts of interest in this case. The Department said that it did not believe that Randox had gained any benefit from its direct engagement via Mr Paterson or any other route.21 However, it is basic good practice to address, and be seen to address, any concerns where there may be a risk of conflicts of interest, including the perception of competing interests, impaired judgement or undue influence. This would involve identifying, documenting and managing risks that decisions may be influenced.22
12. Consideration of potential conflicts of interest is also relevant to other contracts with testing suppliers. Some suppliers offering testing services were referred to the Department by ministers, MPs or Number 10. The Department marked supplier offers as ‘VIP’ if they had been referred from these sources and the suppliers were given priority status. From May 2020 to March 2021, these priority suppliers received £6 billion of the £7.9 billion of testing contracts awarded during this period.23 The Agency’s view is that there was not a causal association between being a priority supplier and being awarded a contract, because it said every contract went through the same technical validation and commercial processes.24
13. The negotiation and approval processes for the first contract awarded to Randox in March 2020 were unclear and not fully documented.25 The Department said that standard processes were in place at the time for commercial specialists to negotiate contracts, which included checking accreditations for services and tests, considering supply chain issues and assessing whether suppliers had the resources to deliver contracts. However, the Department admitted that it could not provide documentation to show any of this in writing for the Randox contract.26
14. The first contract did not receive the level of senior scrutiny and sign-off that we would expect for a contract of this size, particularly one awarded without competition. The contract was signed by a deputy director in the Department after officials received authorisation to proceed with the contract from Lord Bethell, the then Minister for Technology, Innovation and Life Sciences in the Department.27 However, Lord Bethell’s authorisation was not formal approval for the contract and the Department confirmed that ministers were not asked to sign off contracts. It added that at that time, contracts were being assured by the Department’s then Second Permanent Secretary, David Williams.28 The Department acknowledged that the lack of documentation to demonstrate formal approval for the first Randox contract was “deeply unfortunate”.29 The Department also confirmed that the head of NHS Test & Trace was not consulted about the award of the subsequent contract extension in October 2020.30
15. The Cabinet Office did not approve the first contract with Randox, as it would normally do for contracts worth over £10 million in line with its regime of commercial spending controls. The Department did not submit the Randox contract for approval before it was awarded, but said it brought the contract to the Cabinet Office’s attention after the fact, along with others that would also have required commercial spending approval.31
16. The Department did not include key performance indicators (KPIs) in its first contract with Randox against which it could judge how the company was performing. The Department said the reason it had not set performance measures in the contract was because its focus at the time was on building the system of testing capacity and understanding how to get that system to work most effectively. It added that there were a number of performance metrics that it did monitor on a frequent basis, some of them daily, as well as conducting weekly calls with Randox to discuss performance. However, the Department did introduce contractual KPIs for Randox’s subsequent contracts.32
17. Randox asked for government help within weeks of being awarded its first contract to enable it to deliver its contracted level of tests. Randox needed access to specialist testing equipment held in universities and other laboratory facilities, which it and other suppliers received after ministers requested equipment loans on their behalf. The Department said it was not surprised at the amount of help Randox needed from government. The Department noted that contracts were explicitly written to allow for suppliers to ask for assistance on various fronts, which it did not consider unusual at the time.33 However, the National Audit Office’s review of available contract documentation found that, prior to the award of its first contract, Randox had not specified it would need government support to secure testing equipment required to fulfil the contract. The Department was also unable to demonstrate how such help was factored into its negotiations with Randox on price.34
18. The first contract was originally intended to run for 12 weeks, ending in June 2020. However, Randox faced difficulties meeting the service levels specified in the contract. There were a number of reasons for this, including Randox taking longer than expected to increase capacity as well as lower than forecasted demand for testing. The Department and Randox agreed that Randox would keep testing beyond the expected end of its contract in June 2020, and it met its contracted number of tests in September 2020. During the extended period that Randox continued testing to meet its contractual commitments, the Department established additional performance measures. These included test turnaround time targets introduced in July 2020, which measure the time taken to process tests.35
19. Despite issues with the performance of the first contract, in October 2020 Randox was awarded a contract extension worth £328 million (around two and a half times the value of the original contract), again without competition. At the time, the Cabinet Office questioned why the Department had not used a competitive tender for the extension. The Department explained that the months between March and October 2020 had been “extremely intense” and that it simply had not had time to go through a competitive contract process.36 It did, however, acknowledge that the testing market had matured by October 2020 and there was a more competitive range of suppliers.37 Contract documentation prepared before the extension was awarded noted that a competitive tender was not the preferred course of action for the Department because Randox was considered a fundamental part of meeting testing targets at that time.38 The Department told us that even though a variety of suppliers were providing testing services by then, Randox was “already an important part of the infrastructure” and that government needed to utilise all of the testing capacity available to it.39
20. For its first testing contract with Randox, the Department paid a price of £49.60 per single test. The contract price included the cost of supplying test kits, laboratory processing, transporting test kits and completed samples, and reporting of results. The Department could not provide details of contract negotiations prior to the contract’s award, including on the price.40 However, the Department believes it had standard processes in place at the time for interrogating costs and negotiating price reductions. The Department and the Agency acknowledged that no price benchmarking was carried out before the first contract was awarded. They said this was because there were no other companies offering an end-to-end testing service equivalent to Randox’s, so like-for-like comparisons could not be made at that time. The Agency added that the government’s aim at that stage of the pandemic was to build up testing capacity, which meant buying from all suppliers that could offer the necessary services rather than choosing among them.41
21. The Department said that in relation to contract pricing, it did not consider the advantage to Randox that might be gained by the company winning early government contracts for testing (for example, from setting itself up as an established provider of testing services). The Department reiterated that the focus at the time was on increasing testing capacity. This meant that even though the supplier market matured during 2020 and more suppliers came on board, the Department still had to engage with all suppliers able to provide services rather than choosing the most competitively priced ones.42 Nevertheless, Randox benefited from capital investment it was able to make as a result of its government contracts, with the cost of this capital spending factored into the price that Randox charged for its services. The company spent £70 million on building additional laboratory space and other set-up costs to deliver its contracts.43
22. The Department did not monitor the profitability of Randox before deciding to award contracts to the company. The Department said that when contracts were awarded in 2020, it did not have the time or the ability to undertake this sort of monitoring.44 The latest accounts Randox has filed with Companies House are for the year to 30 June 2021, in which it reported a profit of £177 million for that year. This is more than a hundred times greater than the profit of £1.2 million that Randox reported for the 18-month financial period to 30 June 2020 (which included the first three months of the pandemic).45 In addition, the company’s external auditors have issued a Qualified audit report in respect of two matters relating to stock balances, which may mean the profit for 2020–21 was higher than stated in the accounts.46 Any further profits from the COVID-19 testing contracts we looked at will fall into future financial years. The Department said it was not in a position to answer whether Randox could have been in financial difficulty if it had not received government testing contracts. It noted that due diligence would have looked at hazards and risks associated with the financial stability of the company, but it was not able to confirm this had been the case as due diligence on Randox was not documented.47
23. Randox’s published accounts do not yet cover the entire period of the contracts we considered. Its accounts for the year to 30 June 2021 reflect how the company has already expanded as a result of increased business through the pandemic. At June 2021, the company had net assets of £171 million, a ten-fold increase on its net assets of £17 million in June 2020. The company further noted that it had doubled its workforce since 2020. Randox acknowledged in its published accounts: “The company has been positively impacted as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and expects future trading results to reflect this as a result of further sales from COVID-19 testing services and testing kit products”.48
Members present:
Dame Meg Hillier
Mr Louie French
Peter Grant
Kate Green
James Wild
Draft Report (Government’s contracts with Randox Laboratories Ltd), proposed by the Chair, brought up and read.
Ordered, That the draft Report be read a second time, paragraph by paragraph.
Paragraphs 1 to 23 read and agreed to.
Summary agreed to.
Introduction agreed to.
Conclusions and recommendations agreed to.
Resolved, That the Report be the seventeenth of the Committee to the House.
Ordered, That the Chair make the Report to the House.
Ordered, That embargoed copies of the Report be made available, in accordance with the provisions of Standing Order No. 134.
Adjourned till Thursday 8 September at 9:30am
The following witnesses gave evidence. Transcripts can be viewed on the inquiry publications page of the Committee’s website.
Shona Dunn, Second Permanent Secretary, Department of Health and Social Care; Dame Dr Jenny Harries, Chief Executive, UK Health Security AgencyQ1–132
The following written evidence was received and can be viewed on the inquiry publications page of the Committee’s website.
GCL numbers are generated by the evidence processing system and so may not be complete.
1 Transparency International UK (GCL0001)
All publications from the Committee are available on the publications page of the Committee’s website.
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Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy Annual Report and Accounts 2020–21 |
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Lessons from implementing IR35 reforms |
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The future of the Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors |
HC 118 |
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Use of evaluation and modelling in government |
HC 254 |
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Local economic growth |
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Department of Health and Social Care 2020–21 Annual Report and Accounts |
HC 253 |
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Armoured Vehicles: the Ajax programme |
HC 259 |
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Financial sustainability of the higher education sector in England |
HC 257 |
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Child Maintenance |
HC 255 |
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Restoration and Renewal of Parliament |
HC 49 |
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The rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine programme in England |
HC 258 |
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Management of PPE contracts |
HC 260 |
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Secure training centres and secure schools |
HC 30 |
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Investigation into the British Steel Pension Scheme |
HC 251 |
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The Police Uplift Programme |
HC 261 |
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Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic |
HC 29 |
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1st Special Report |
Sixth Annual Report of the Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts |
HC 50 |
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Low emission cars |
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BBC strategic financial management |
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COVID-19: Support for children’s education |
HC 240 |
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COVID-19: Local government finance |
HC 239 |
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COVID-19: Government Support for Charities |
HC 250 |
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Public Sector Pensions |
HC 289 |
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Adult Social Care Markets |
HC 252 |
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COVID 19: Culture Recovery Fund |
HC 340 |
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Fraud and Error |
HC 253 |
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Overview of the English rail system |
HC 170 |
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Local auditor reporting on local government in England |
HC 171 |
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COVID 19: Cost Tracker Update |
HC 173 |
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Initial lessons from the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic |
HC 175 |
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Windrush Compensation Scheme |
HC 174 |
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DWP Employment support |
HC 177 |
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Principles of effective regulation |
HC 176 |
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High Speed 2: Progress at Summer 2021 |
HC 329 |
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Government’s delivery through arm’s-length bodies |
HC 181 |
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Protecting consumers from unsafe products |
HC 180 |
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Optimising the defence estate |
HC 179 |
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School Funding |
HC 183 |
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Improving the performance of major defence equipment contracts |
HC 185 |
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Test and Trace update |
HC 182 |
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Crossrail: A progress update |
HC 184 |
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The Department for Work and Pensions’ Accounts 2020–21 – Fraud and error in the benefits system |
HC 633 |
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Lessons from Greensill Capital: accreditation to business support schemes |
HC 169 |
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Green Homes Grant Voucher Scheme |
HC 635 |
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Efficiency in government |
HC 636 |
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The National Law Enforcement Data Programme |
HC 638 |
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Challenges in implementing digital change |
HC 637 |
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Environmental Land Management Scheme |
HC 639 |
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Delivering gigabitcapable broadband |
HC 743 |
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Underpayments of the State Pension |
HC 654 |
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Local Government Finance System: Overview and Challenges |
HC 646 |
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The pharmacy early payment and salary advance schemes in the NHS |
HC 745 |
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EU Exit: UK Border post transition |
HC 746 |
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HMRC Performance in 2020–21 |
HC 641 |
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COVID-19 cost tracker update |
HC 640 |
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DWP Employment Support: Kickstart Scheme |
HC 655 |
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Excess votes 2020–21: Serious Fraud Office |
HC 1099 |
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Achieving Net Zero: Follow up |
HC 642 |
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Financial sustainability of schools in England |
HC 650 |
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Reducing the backlog in criminal courts |
HC 643 |
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NHS backlogs and waiting times in England |
HC 747 |
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Progress with trade negotiations |
HC 993 |
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Government preparedness for the COVID-19 pandemic: lessons for government on risk |
HC 952 |
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Academies Sector Annual Report and Accounts 2019/20 |
HC 994 |
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HMRC’s management of tax debt |
HC 953 |
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Regulation of private renting |
HC 996 |
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Bounce Back Loans Scheme: Follow-up |
HC 951 |
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Improving outcomes for women in the criminal justice system |
HC 997 |
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Ministry of Defence Equipment Plan 2021–31 |
HC 1164 |
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1st Special Report |
Fifth Annual Report of the Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts |
HC 222 |
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Support for children with special educational needs and disabilities |
HC 85 |
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Defence Nuclear Infrastructure |
HC 86 |
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High Speed 2: Spring 2020 Update |
HC 84 |
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EU Exit: Get ready for Brexit Campaign |
HC 131 |
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University technical colleges |
HC 87 |
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Excess votes 2018–19 |
HC 243 |
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Gambling regulation: problem gambling and protecting vulnerable people |
HC 134 |
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NHS capital expenditure and financial management |
HC 344 |
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Water supply and demand management |
HC 378 |
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Defence capability and the Equipment Plan |
HC 247 |
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Local authority investment in commercial property |
HC 312 |
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Management of tax reliefs |
HC 379 |
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Whole of Government Response to COVID-19 |
HC 404 |
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Readying the NHS and social care for the COVID-19 peak |
HC 405 |
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Improving the prison estate |
HC 244 |
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Progress in remediating dangerous cladding |
HC 406 |
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Immigration enforcement |
HC 407 |
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NHS nursing workforce |
HC 408 |
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Restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster |
HC 549 |
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Tackling the tax gap |
HC 650 |
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Government support for UK exporters |
HC 679 |
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Digital transformation in the NHS |
HC 680 |
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Delivering carrier strike |
HC 684 |
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Selecting towns for the Towns Fund |
HC 651 |
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Asylum accommodation and support transformation programme |
HC 683 |
|
26th |
Department of Work and Pensions Accounts 2019–20 |
HC 681 |
|
27th |
Covid-19: Supply of ventilators |
HC 685 |
|
28th |
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s management of the Magnox contract |
HC 653 |
|
29th |
Whitehall preparations for EU Exit |
HC 682 |
|
30th |
The production and distribution of cash |
HC 654 |
|
31st |
Starter Homes |
HC 88 |
|
32nd |
Specialist Skills in the civil service |
HC 686 |
|
33rd |
Covid-19: Bounce Back Loan Scheme |
HC 687 |
|
34th |
Covid-19: Support for jobs |
HC 920 |
|
35th |
Improving Broadband |
HC 688 |
|
36th |
HMRC performance 2019–20 |
HC 690 |
|
37th |
Whole of Government Accounts 2018–19 |
HC 655 |
|
38th |
Managing colleges’ financial sustainability |
HC 692 |
|
39th |
Lessons from major projects and programmes |
HC 694 |
|
40th |
Achieving government’s long-term environmental goals |
HC 927 |
|
41st |
COVID 19: the free school meals voucher scheme |
HC 689 |
|
42nd |
COVID-19: Government procurement and supply of Personal Protective Equipment |
HC 928 |
|
43rd |
COVID-19: Planning for a vaccine Part 1 |
HC 930 |
|
44th |
Excess Votes 2019–20 |
HC 1205 |
|
45th |
Managing flood risk |
HC 931 |
|
46th |
Achieving Net Zero |
HC 935 |
|
47th |
COVID-19: Test, track and trace (part 1) |
HC 932 |
|
48th |
Digital Services at the Border |
HC 936 |
|
49th |
COVID-19: housing people sleeping rough |
HC 934 |
|
50th |
Defence Equipment Plan 2020–2030 |
HC 693 |
|
51st |
Managing the expiry of PFI contracts |
HC 1114 |
|
52nd |
Key challenges facing the Ministry of Justice |
HC 1190 |
|
53rd |
Covid 19: supporting the vulnerable during lockdown |
HC 938 |
|
54th |
Improving single living accommodation for service personnel |
HC 940 |
|
55th |
Environmental tax measures |
HC 937 |
|
56th |
Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund |
HC 941 |
1 Letter from Matt Hancock, 20 May 2022
2 C&AG’s Report, Investigation into the government’s contracts with Randox Laboratories Ltd, Session 2021–22, HC 1018, 24 March 2022
3 Department of Health & Social Care, Return to an Address of the Honourable the House of Commons dated 17 November 2021 for specified minutes, notes, and correspondence relating to Government contracts awarded to Randox Laboratories Ltd., HC 1072, 3 February 2022
4 C&AG’s Report, paras 1, 5, 8
5 C&AG’s Report, paras 9, 12, 19
6 HC Committee of Public Accounts, COVID-19: Government procurement and supply of Personal Protective Equipment, Forty-Second Report of Session 2019–21, HC 928, 10 February 2021, para 1
7 Qq 27, 34, 57; C&AG’s Report, paras 13, 2.30, 3.3
8 Q 35, C&AG’s Report, para 13
9 Qq 85, 90–91, 122
10 C&AG’s Report, para 2.25
11 Cabinet Office, Ministerial Code, May 2022, para 8.14
12 Information Commissioner’s Office, Behind the screens – maintaining government transparency and data security in the age of messaging apps, July 2022
13 Q 75
14 Cabinet Office, Ministerial Code, May 2022, para 7.24
15 Q 101
16 Letter from Matt Hancock, 20 May 2022
17 Q 85
18 Procurement Bill [HL], Part 5: Conflicts of interest, clauses 74–76
19 Q 103
20 C&AG’s Report, para 2.29
21 Qq 76, 100–103, 112
22 Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, Conflicts of interest, Session 2014–15, HC 907, 27 January 2015, paras 1.1–1.7, 3.7–3.8
23 C&AG’s Report, paras 1.10–1.12
24 Qq 93, 95
25 C&AG’s Report, paras 11, 13
26 Qq 41–42
27 C&AG’s Report, paras 13, 2.6–2.7
28 Qq 44–46, 128
29 Q 47
30 Qq 86–88, Letter from the Department of Health & Social Care and the UK Health Security Agency, 13 June 2022
31 Q 111; C&AG’s Report, para 1.18
32 Qq 52–53; C&AG’s Report, para 17
33 Q 54; C&AG’s Report, para 15
34 C&AG’s Report, para 2.10
35 Q 54; C&AG’s Report, paras 16–17
36 Qq 59–60; C&AG’s Report, para 19
37 Q 39
38 C&AG’s Report, para 3.5.
39 Q 71
40 Qq 22, 49; C&AG’s report, para 11
41 Qq 23–25
42 Qq 39–40
43 C&AG’s Report, para 14
44 Qq 37–38
45 Q 57; Randox Laboratories Limited, Annual report and financial statements for the financial year ended 30 June 2021; Randox Laboratories Limited, Annual report and financial statements for the 18 month financial period ended 30 June 2020. Randox originally reported a loss of £14.9 million for the 18 month period to 30 June 2020, but this was restated in the latest accounts to a profit of £1.2 million due to the correction of an accounting error.
46 Randox Laboratories Limited Annual report and financial statements for the financial year ended 30 June 2021
47 Q 57
48 Randox Laboratories Limited, Annual report and financial statements for the financial year ended 30 June 2021