Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 15
15
The Department had not calculated the value of unusable or potentially unsuitable items but told...
Conclusion
The Department had not calculated the value of unusable or potentially unsuitable items but told us that it was currently undertaking work to estimate this and committed to coming back to us with a timetable for when this would be complete.24 It told us that it was investigating potential fraudulent activity and acknowledged that while the levels of fraud were very low, the costs could run to millions of pounds. It told us that its PPE contracts contain clauses which allow it to reclaim costs for substandard PPE or PPE that was not provided, but it could not tell us how many of these contracts it was pursuing or how much progress it had made. The NAO reported the value of potentially unusable items will amount to hundreds of millions of pounds.25
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
7b: PAC recommendation: The department should also update us on the number of contracts (and their financial value) in which it is seeking to recover costs for undelivered or substandard PPE. 7.5 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: July 2021 7.6 Alongside the efforts to fully reconcile the total spend and receipt of high-quality PPE (set out in response to recommendation 7a), work is underway to identify contracts where, due to supplier delivery or product quality failure, the department is seeking to recover the costs of undelivered or substandard PPE. 7.7 This is an ongoing reconciliation process. These matters are being investigated and passed through a governance forum, the Commercial Assurance and Approvals Board (CAAB). This Board has been established to support the decision-making process to progress all matters to completion. 7.8 The department plans to write to the Committee by the end of July to report: • the number and value of contracts where it has been successful in recovering the costs of undelivered or substandard PPE; • the number and value of contracts where efforts have been made to recover the costs of undelivered or substandard PPE, and the delta of any settlement vs the original contracted agreement can be reported (i.e. a write down/off against the contracted value); and • the number and value of contracts that it is still seeking to recover costs for undelivered or substandard PPE.