Back in April, the Government appointed ex Goldman Sachs banker Lord Deighton as "PPE Tsar". https://www.gov.uk/government/news/olympics-chief-brought-in-to-boost-ppe-production

Earlier this month, Government stated that on 20 April it had awarded a £300,000 contract, without any tendering process, to "Chanzo" ( https://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:473244-2020:TEXT:EN:HTML&src=0).

In fact the contract was not awarded until 25 August (although sent under cover of a letter dated 20 August - figure that one out!) but related to services delivered from April ( https://atamis-1928.cloudforce.com/sfc/p/#0O000000rwim/a/4J000000kDim/brJSVz423zVcKB2NcGBUGTdyzwObgwnCNUF3HzQnOjQ).

The services to be delivered (for £300,000) were (1) a 'Chief of Staff' (a glorified Executive Assistant) for six months; (2) helping recruit 2 full time temporary HR roles for six months; and one for three months; and (3) HR advice pending appointment of those roles.

You might think roles (2) and (3) are jobs a Chief of Staff could do. And you might wonder whether £300k was value for money for a six month Chief of Staff role. Even if it meant someone else recruiting 2-3 temporary staff. Especially if the contract was awarded without tender.

If you did have those concerns they would hardly be alleviated by the knowledge that Chanzo's website carried a glowing recommendation from, yep, Lord Deighton.

Why, you might even conclude they were channelling generous public contracts to pals!