At the start of the pandemic Government had to rapidly create high volume COVID-19 testing capacity, but the National Audit Office (NAO) has found that, even taking the exceptional circumstances into account, “the documentation of the decision-making process for such large contracts was inadequate”, and Government did “not document key decisions adequately when awarding a contract to Randox Laboratories Ltd (Randox) for testing services”.
The gaps in the audit trail mean the NAO was “not able to provide positive assurance in the normal way, but has not seen any evidence that the government’s contracts with Randox were awarded improperly”.
The Committee will question senior officials at DHSC and UK Health and Security Agency.
If you have evidence on these issues please submit it here by 6 pm Wednesday 11 May 2022.