Recommendation 12

The NAO reported that of the 176 contracts in dispute, most of these were still in the early stages of being resolved. Eighty-three of the 176 contracts are still in the first stage of the commercial resolution process with a further 59 having entered formal commercial discussions. At present, no cases have moved into the litigation stage of the commercial dispute process.30 Despite this, the Department denied that there is a logjam in resolving these cases and said that there was a team dedicated to resolving these disputes within the Department. Much of the work of that team revolves around checking that the PPE provided meets the technical specifications to then be released into the health and social care sectors.31 That team is also expected to draw on the experience within the Department’s commercial function, as well as government’s wider commercial expertise, where relevant.32 Although it was reluctant to go into specifics on commercial negotiations the Department said it was confident that it was making good progress against its quarterly targets for resolving these cases.33 The NAO, however, has reported that the Department is forecasting that 35% of these cases will not be resolved until 2023.34