Recommendation 10

We asked the Department, given this wide spread of PPE storage, what steps it is taking to introduce a modern stock management system for the PPE programme.23 We noted the importance of having a system where it knows exactly how much PPE it holds, where it is and what the expiry dates are, and is able to easily access it all.24 The NAO reported one example of a contract where the Department seemingly did not know how much PPE it had received and amended the contract to 53.7 million items despite the fact that it had already received 54.3 million items.25 Despite this, the Department told us that it was already able to say what stock it holds and the expiry dates of items. It also said that given that it is still distributing nearly 700 million items a month this is freeing up more space to then access the remaining PPE in storage. It did concede, however, that getting to a position where it has reduced down its stock to a level where it can reduce the number of storage locations would take some time.26 20 Q5 21 Q1 22 Q3 23 Q97 24 Qq102–103 25 C&AG’s Report, para 2.4 26 Qq103–104 Management of PPE contracts 11 2 Managing issues with contracts Ongoing contractual disputes