We need to talk about isolation suits - also known as "coveralls". THREAD

Experimental data shows that during the pandemic we have used 533,000 coveralls using the emergency procurement procedure that bypasses all normal governance controls. But how many have we purchased? https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ppe-deliveries-england-12-october-to-18-october-2020/experimental-statistics-ppe-distributed-for-use-by-health-and-social-care-services-in-england-12-october-to-18-october-2020

Well, it's rather difficult to tell. If you add together the eleven biggest contracts for coveralls - and I'll return to these below - you can see we've spent a total of £708m on them. But Government has done a very careful job of redacting the per unit price.

But not quite careful enough.

This contract ( https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/Attachment/22c249c1-00d5-42cd-b695-012c0333c020), with Initia Ventures Limited, shows Government paid £16.28 or £24.28, depending on the type.

And we know from correspondence with Government with our old friends Pestfix ( https://goodlawproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/PestfixGLD4-1.pdf) that it paid them £16.22 per unit.

But let's be generous to Government and take the highest of those three prices, £24.28. At that unit price, £708m buys you just over 29m coveralls.

Which is quite a lot more than the 533,000 we've used.

Putting it another way, we only needed to spend less than £13m rather than the £708m we have spent.

And if that's not odd, look at who we've spent that £708m with...

The biggest contract has gone to Plymouth Bretheren linked office interior design specialist Unispace. https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/92a59e2d-aefc-4df6-b1a5-c15fb7f2b051?origin=SearchResults&p=1

The second biggest has gone to P14 Medical, a small loss making firm run by a Tory councillor in Stroud. https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/4b73ab6f-61a1-4bcc-be05-c61a036ec4ed?origin=SearchResults&p=1

The third biggest went to a Hong Kong company called Cargo Services Far East Limited about which we can know very little. https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/bc2e8481-d5a4-40b4-acdb-09819bf47027?origin=SearchResults&p=1

The fourth biggest went to Medicine Box Limited ( …https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09457710/filing-history), a micro entity with £48,840 in next assets https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/97066bbc-b895-4c95-93d1-39774d5ee886?origin=SearchResults&p=1

The fifth biggest (for a mere £32,560,000) went to Initia Ventures Limited, a dormant company with net assets of £100. https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/Attachment/22c249c1-00d5-42cd-b695-012c0333c020

The sixth biggest went to our old friends Crisp Websites Limited, trading as Pestfix, with net assets of £18k but which has received at least a third of a billion in PPE contracts. https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/ed3fb919-7a4c-4ffe-98bf-64aee55e250e?origin=SearchResults&p=1

The seventh biggest went to SG Recruitment UK Limited, a small healthcare recruitment firm which received a "going concern" warning from its auditors and is owned through the tax haven of Jersey. https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/47288058-3d0d-4236-9c25-d750b01c9502?origin=SearchResults&p=1

The eighth - and indeed the ninth because there are two contracts both for £20.25m - ( https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/d2391711-53e6-4941-9430-2af895842e71?origin=SearchResults&p=1 and https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/85ef995b-3e53-489f-8271-12d0bd4c5582?origin=SearchResults&p=1) went to something called "Tower Supplies" which isn't a legal entity at all but some reports suggest links to, yes, Plymouth Bretheren.

The tenth biggest contract went to Kau Media Group Limited, a digital market agency that files "Filleted accounts"
https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/71f17c7f-0635-4fae-bdfc-49df3bdb8fbe?origin=SearchResults&p=1

And the eleventh biggest went to Initia Ventures Limited, the dormant company I mentioned earlier in the chain https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/84cc8590-d96d-42d4-b2a8-9c204ca9e6e0?origin=SearchResults&p=1.

Oh and if you didn't feel trolled enough already, the second contract (for £16.28m) is exactly half the size of the first (for £32.56m).

And, of course, no one is using these things.

And even Government admits - of the ones they brought from Pestfix (which I am pretty sure are unusable https://twitter.com/JolyonMaugham/status/1299390928399065088) - that they are sitting untested in a warehouse.

Why would we spend £708m on these things, which no one uses and at least some (or most or even all) of which are sitting untested in a warehouse, with this weird ragtag of counterparties?

It's not hard to think of ugly theories - but I do struggle to identify attractive ones...