The Financial Times, internationally recognised daily newspaper, renowned for its comprehensive coverage of global markets, corporate news, analysis, and commentary, was looking for some help. It was working on stories around the amount of public money spent on procuring PPE equipment in the UK through the pandemic, and the level of transparency of those contracts.
Their analysis of recent PPE contracts had caused significant consternation, including the use of direct awards to poorly qualified suppliers. The newspaper was looking for a data partner to help them understand the scope of the problem.
We worked with the organisation, providing deep analysis of our data on all published covid PPE contracts. We modelled the figures, providing estimates of the volume of PPE contracting, and the breakdown of open contracting vs direct, or ‘fast lane’ awards. We looked at how the UK PPE procurement compared to the rest of Europe.
As a result we discovered, at the time of publishing, the UK spent £3.2bn on medical and protective equipment, over €1bn more than Germany, the next biggest buyer of PPE, with published contracts worth €2.3bn between March 1 and July 2020. Britain accounted for 30 per cent of the overall EU-UK spending on PPE, according to our research.
The creation of this research allowed the Financial Times to publish a series of articles on the the scope of the PPE contracting in the UK and the quantity of published vs direct award contracts.
We regularly release new articles and blogs using our world leading data. Below are some recent entries relevant for researchers and the press.
