Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what criteria they used to select Deloitte to manage the procurement of personal protection equipment.

Deloitte is providing operational support for the procurement process of personal protective equipment (PPE) from existing and new manufacturers who can assist in scaling-up regulatory-approved PPE resources within the United Kingdom. As an existing professional services provider to the public sector, Deloitte’s expertise is being used to supplement in-house resource to deliver significant programmes of work, which currently includes the national response to COVID-19.

Guidance on how contracting authorities should respond to COVID-19 was published on 18 March in Procurement Policy Note – Responding to COVID-19. Authorities are allowed to procure goods, services and works with extreme urgency in exceptional circumstances using regulation 32(2)(c) under the Public Contract Regulations 2015. We have also made it clear that authorities must continue to achieve value for money for taxpayers, use good commercial judgement and publish the details of any awards made, in line with Government transparency guidelines. A copy of the procurement policy note is attached.