Recommendation COVID-M5.10: Transparency, Governance and Accountability in Emergencies

The UK government, Scottish Government, Welsh Government and Northern Ireland Executive should improve transparency, governance and accountability for procurement in an emergency.

As a minimum, these improvements should include the following:

Enhancing transparency

Any central digital platform used for procurement must allow for the automated collation of contract information and must reduce the administrative burden involved in publishing contract information.
Contracting authorities across the UK should be required to publish contract award notices (in Scotland) and contract details notices in addition to contract award notices (in England, Wales and Northern Ireland) irrespective of the country in which the supplier is based.

Governance: Fairness in emergency procurement

There should be no high priority lane.
All offers to supply healthcare equipment during a pandemic should be assessed according to the application of objective criteria.

Accountability: Approval process for emergency spending on healthcare equipment

In advance of a pandemic, each health and social care department in each government should agree, with their respective treasuries or finance departments, a process to scrutinise and approve emergency spending on healthcare equipment to ensure that there is a balance between accountability and timely spending decisions.