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An FOI request of the Health and Safety Executive in relation to PPE supplied to the Department of Health by Pestfix has turned up some quite extraordinary material. THREAD
The first is that, although the DHSC has refused in the litigation to release price data for the £32m coverall contract (or at all), the HSE has released that price data further to the FOI request. It shows we paid Crisp Websites £14.02 per coverall (plus shipping).
A comparison price today from Unicef ( https://supply.unicef.org/s0305117.html ) for type 6B coveralls is $8.12 (i.e. less than half what we paid Crisp Websites).
Of course, prices of coveralls have fallen since the height of the first wave but this huge price differential raises real questions about why we purchased (by my calculations: see attached thread) c. 36 years worth of supply at top of the market prices. https://twitter.com/JolyonMaugham/status/1320996355872083968
Second, it seems pretty clear DHSC did not know what it was buying when we entered into this £32m contract for what the deliverables describe as "isolation suits" (first pic). The embedded "Specification" we bought to shows they met standard EN 14126:2003...
... but this email (which I *believe* to be from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency) says they also need EN 13034 certification and I can't find any suggestion in the "Specification" that they do.
Note also "not for C-19 h/c use".
Note also "not for C-19 h/c use".
You can see the same point about EN 14126 specification in Government's own technical specifications for "type 6B coveralls" ( https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/927550/Essential_technical_specifications_PPE_and_medical_devices-v0.3_Oct2020_accessible.pdf) which this Pestfix supply ends up being released as (albeit the path to that result is an, umm, interesting one).
So initially, after we bring judicial review proceedings) there are multiple emails rejecting the Pestfix coveralls. See eg the below (although there are LOTS of examples in the FOI disclosure).
That, of course, is not the answer that Government wants in order to be to tell the High Court what a marvellous job it did on PPE procurement. And it leads to this *extraordinary* email from the Health and Safety Executive.
A few points about the email: the Health and Safety Executive is, it seems, being asked to provide false evidence by Government to enable it to defend @GoodLawProject's litigation. HSE is being "bombarded with calls" and feels under so much pressure that it needs legal advice.
Another email from Hatmill - which I believe to be an external agency providing support to Government - observes drily that "There seems to be quite a bit of 'political' pressure to get these through the QA process" (I assume QA refers to Quality Assurance).
Meanwhile Pestfix is writing and saying "we do not want it to be made public-knowledge that PPE from Pestfix has not passed HSE inspection."
At one stage even the Army gets involved...
You can pick the thread up here: https://twitter.com/JolyonMaugham/status/1327565260904128512?s=19
