Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many of his Department's contracts for personal protective equipment are still to be uploaded to contract finder; what the value is of those contracts; whether those contracts were subject to competitive tendering; and when the remaining contracts will be published.
All contracts notices and associated contracts awarded by the Department for the supply of personal protective equipment in response to the COVID-19 pandemic are now available at the Contracts Finder service.
Regulation 32(2)(c) of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 allows for the direct award of a contract without advertising in cases of “extreme urgency brought about by events unforeseeable by the contracting authority”. The majority of COVID-19 related contracts were awarded using Regulation 32(2)(c) with the remainder using other procedures under the 2015 Regulations which allow for a direct award without tendering such as call-offs from pre-tendered framework contracts.