25 March 2025

(9.59 am)

Lady Hallett: Good morning, Mr Wald.

Housekeeping

Mr Wald: Good morning, my Lady. Before we resume today

there are a number of witness statements relating to

Week 3 evidence that we ask your permission to adduce

into evidence and to be published on the Inquiry’s

website.

If I could ask that the list of documents be brought up on to the screen, please.

These documents provide important additional contextual information and background which, my Lady, we hope will assist you when considering the evidence that you have heard in this investigation and for your report.

Lady Hallett: Very well. They may be published. Thank you, Mr Wald.

Mr Wald: Thank you, my Lady.

Our next witness and our first today is Mr Chris Young. May the witness be sworn or affirmed, please.

Mr Christopher Young

MR CHRISTOPHER YOUNG (affirmed).

Questions From Lead Counsel to the Inquiry for Module 5

Mr Wald: Please state your full name for the Inquiry .

Mr Christopher Young: My full name is Christopher Young .

Lead 5: Thank you, Mr Young, and thank you also for providing to the Inquiry a witness statement. Its reference is INQ000563070. It’s a statement that runs to 20 pages and is signed, I believe, by you at the back of it.

Could you confirm for us, please, that it’s true to the best of your knowledge and belief?

Mr Christopher Young: I can confirm that’s true.

Lead 5: Thank you very much, Mr Young.

By way of background, your background, we know I think from your witness statement that you first joined the finance function of the Department of Health and Social Care in 2005; is that right?

Mr Christopher Young: Correct, yes.

Lead 5: Thank you. And in 2014 you became a senior civil servant specialising in the finance profession as deputy finance director. Is that also correct?

Mr Christopher Young: That’s correct.

Lead 5: Thank you, and you were appointed director of finance at the DHSC in August 2017 and in January of 2020 you became the capital director of finance at DHSC?

Mr Christopher Young: Correct.

Lead 5: Then finally, you, in terms of your background, your credentials, your experience, you are a member, are you not, of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants?

Mr Christopher Young: I am, yes.

Lead 5: All right. That’s very helpful. Thank you.

In terms of accounting officers or fellow accounting

officers, at the outset of the pandemic there were two

of these, were there not: Mr David Williams and

Sir Chris Wormwald?

Mr Christopher Young: Sir Chris Wormwald was the Principal Accounting Officer

and David Williams was the Second Permanent Secretary,

also accounting officer, correct.

Lead 5: And you tell us that during non-pandemic times, the number of AO assessments, accounting officer assessments, undertaken in DHSC was minimal. Why is that, if you could just explain the difference between business as usual and the circumstances with which we were all presented during the pandemic?

Mr Christopher Young: Yeah. So essentially the rule book for accounting officers, their roles, their responsibilities, including an accounting officer assessment, is set out in Managing Public Money. Essentially, that’s Treasury’s rule book on how government departments should manage the public purse. Within that document it sets out the rationale of why and when accounting officer assessments are necessary.

In simple terms, when something new is novel and/or contentious enough to warrant an accounting officer, who is often one of the most senior senior civil servants in a department, to undertake a rounded assessment to give their personal endorsement, or not, on whether something should go ahead.

In ordinary non-pandemic times, the role of the Department of Health and Social Care didn’t necessarily mean that those sorts of assessments were needed on a frequent basis. From memory, the time that one was necessary prior to the Covid pandemic was in the possibility of a hard Brexit scenario, but outside of that, the Department was not making significant purchasing activities to warrant the need for an accounting officer assessment. So they were few and far between leading up to the pandemic itself.

Lead 5: All right, thank you for that. You’ve mentioned Managing Public Money and we will come back to that document in a few moments and I’ll be inviting you to explain the extent, if any, to which the circumstances of the pandemic affected how the guidance contained therein was to be applied. But before we get there, can I just explore with you, relatively briefly, the unique circumstances that were created by the pandemic so far as your work was concerned.

The Inquiry has already heard significant evidence to the effect that the economics of the supplier market was significantly imbalanced. There was global demand for PPE, which vastly exceeded the supply that was readily available. That’s right, isn’t it?

Mr Christopher Young: That’s right. That’s my understanding, yeah.

Lead 5: And this was – and it’s that demand that overwhelmingly influenced some of the decisions that you and your fellow AO colleagues needed to make; is that right?

Mr Christopher Young: Sorry, could you just explain?

Lead 5: Yes, the demand for PPE, the urgent need for PPE resulted in significant influence on the judgements, the discretions that you – we’ll come on to the specifics of this in a few moments – had to make in relation to particular offers.

Mr Christopher Young: So the scarcity of supply and the need to adopt a heightened risk appetite to, essentially, maximise our chances of securing the scarce PPE meant that when accounting officers took their overall assessment, they did have to take into account (a) that risk appetite, but (b) also what that meant in terms of the scarcity of the product itself. So the contextual market which you’ve described was an important factor in terms of (a) applying the Managing Public Money principles, but (b) bringing in that risk appetite that was set essentially by the Prime Minister from the outset of the pandemic.

Lead 5: And as you’ve already explained and you explain also in your written evidence, AO assessment and approval needed to be more frequent, it was more urgently conducted than in peacetime?

Mr Christopher Young: Correct.

Lead 5: And compared to business as usual, there was less opportunity and time for inspection and quality control, testing of goods before delivery, wasn’t there?

Mr Christopher Young: So in terms of my personal role, the reason I got brought into delegated accounting officer responsibilities was because of the volume and pace at which accounting officer assessments were required, which far exceeded business-as-usual times, to your point, but also far exceeded what was practically possible from one individual, which was David Williams at the time. Hence the –

Lead 5: I think that’s a “yes” to my question.

Mr Christopher Young: Hence the delegation to myself, yes. So the frequency and pace at which we were taking decisions was higher than you would ever imagine in – (overspeaking) –

Lead 5: Less opportunity and time for inspection?

Mr Christopher Young: Less opportunity and time for inspection because the cost of inaction, in terms of decision making, meant that deals would be lost because we were competing with every country around the world essentially.

Lead 5: Understood, understood.

Contracts required substantial upfront payments in advance of receiving the goods on many occasions?

Mr Christopher Young: Correct.

Lead 5: And AO approvals were given at short notice. Yes?

Mr Christopher Young: [No audible answer]

Lead 5: And those in excess of £100 million were handled by David Williams?

Mr Christopher Young: So David remained responsible for any decision over 100 million. Below that was myself and a colleague.

Lead 5: I think Mr Williams says that he handled a total of ten, so there were that number that exceeded the £100 million threshold. It follows, therefore, that the remainder fell to you and Mr Fundrey?

Mr Christopher Young: I’ve seen some evidence that suggests around 400 contracts were signed between March 2020 and July 2020. If ten of those, only ten of those fell, that would suggest that the vast majority fell to myself and Jon Fundrey. Those are just contracts that were approved so that number wouldn’t include ones that were rejected so you are correct, yeah.

Lead 5: Indeed. And was that workload, broadly speaking, split 50/50 between the two of you?

Mr Christopher Young: We operated a shift rota because one of the operational adjustments that was necessary from the outset was to cover non-UK business times, because we were operating in a global market. So, essentially, an accounting officer needed to be available from roughly 7 am through to 10 pm, seven days a week. So Jon and I, between us, organised a rota period which ensured there was at least one accounting officer available at all times, seven days a week, 7 am till 10 pm.

When the deals fell would depend. So the split of work, the time split, was 50/50. But when and where the deals fell, it wasn’t within our control.

Lead 5: I’m assuming that, over time, you ended up doing, broadly speaking, a roughly equivalent number of – considering a roughly – or authorising a roughly equivalent number of offers?

Mr Christopher Young: I don’t have those facts – (overspeaking) –

Lead 5: All right.

Mr Christopher Young: – to me, sorry.

Lead 5: It’s not critical. In terms of your training, as we’ve touched on, you’re a qualified finance professional with knowledge of MPM, Managing Public Money. You’re experienced in AO work, aren’t you?

Mr Christopher Young: Mm-hm.

Lead 5: You’re aware of the significant amounts that the DHSC budget deployed each year on the procurement of medical equipment and supplies?

Mr Christopher Young: So my finance director role, prior to it being split in January 2020, had oversight of the funding flows outwith the system, the NHS, et cetera. So I was aware of the levels of money that ordinarily are spent on NHS procurement activity.

Lead 5: And you have a knowledge of UK Government procurement processes and framework as well, don’t you?

Mr Christopher Young: I have knowledge, yes. I’m not a commercial expert, I’m not commercially qualified, but I had a knowledge.

Lead 5: That’s business as usual. So far as non-business as usual, or the extreme circumstances that prevailed during the pandemic, neither you nor, for that matter, any of the AOs had specific training or experience, understandably, in emergency procurement; is that right?

Mr Christopher Young: That’s correct. I think I would characterise the requirements of the AO during the pandemic as unprecedented, and in fact Managing Public Money specifically sets out that principled decision making in unprecedented circumstances is something that an AO may be expected to do.

I would characterise Covid-19 and the pandemic as unprecedented, so the parameters in which an accounting officer will take decisions stand the test of time, whether it be in an emergency or non-emergency, but the conditions and the specific conditions themselves were unique.

Lead 5: Nor did you have guidance or training on working together, for example in order to achieve a consistency of approach between yourself and Mr Fundrey. I know that you were in frequent contact with each other –

Mr Christopher Young: (The witness nodded)

Lead 5: – but that wasn’t following guidance or training, was it?

Mr Christopher Young: The answer is no, but however I think it’s important to note that both Jon and myself and David were all working from the same Managing Public Money playbook in terms of the criteria which an accounting officer would adopt, we were all working from the same data when it came to the scarcity of products, and we were all operating within the same consistent risk appetite set by the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary.

So there was no guidance, but with those common conditions in play and speaking regularly to each other several times a day – and my personal experience working with David Williams goes back many years, so there was no guidance on working together effectively, but we essentially were all working from the same playbook.

Lead 5: You mentioned the Health Secretary.

Could we bring up onto the screen a letter from the Health Secretary of 29 March 2020, in which he says to Sir Chris Wormald, the penultimate paragraph:

“I recognise, as part of this, the work you and your teams have been doing with colleagues in the Treasury to ensure that availability of funding is not a barrier or delay to the actions we need to take. On that basis, and recognising the extraordinary circumstances this country is facing, I am content to direct you to continue in this way, even where this means spending in excess of formal Departmental Expenditure Limits.”

Now, Mr Young, you comment on this in your written evidence. You say that, in relation to these words, this effectively – this “approved spending that may result in a regularity breach”. Do you remember that phrase that you used?

Mr Christopher Young: Yeah.

Lead 5: What did you mean by that, the “regularity breach”?

Mr Christopher Young: So I think the really important bit of context in terms of what we’re looking at on screen now is the date.

Lead 5: Yes.

Mr Christopher Young: And the date, 28 March, in proximity to the end of the financial year, which was 31 March. Now, the timing of that is significant in terms of this specific request of the Health Secretary at the time, because what was potentially happening is that the efforts that were being undertaken to safeguard ourselves in terms of the pandemic may well have led to the Department of Health breaching its agreed revenue and capital departmental expenditure limits, which run from 1 April to 31 March, and that would mean that would create a situation where that spending, in Treasury terms, would be deemed irregular. So that’s a Treasury term where you don’t specifically have Treasury or Parliamentary approval to spend.

So this direction was giving clarity to both Sir Chris Wormwald and Sir Simon Stevens that they should not stop spending in the last couple of days of the financial year, to simply live within the agreed expenditure limits. So that essentially – a ministerial direction, again, is very, very rare in non-pandemic times, but this was directing Simon and Chris to continue doing what was necessary, even if that meant spending irregular amounts of money beyond the agreed budgets for the final few days of the financial year.

Lead 5: All right, thank you, Mr Young.

I said I’d come back to Managing Public Money, a document to which you’ve already made reference and I do that now. I don’t think we need to bring it up – but there it is, it’s on the screen. You set it out – actually, you set out the key parts of it in your written evidence at paragraph 25, which is at page 6, and the four key features or requirements are: regularity, propriety, value for money, and feasibility/deliverability, as I’m sure you’re very familiar with, with these.

First question is: did the ministerial direction have any bearing on those requirements within the MPM?

Mr Christopher Young: The ministerial direction, as I say, was specifically around the departmental expenditure limits in that last few days of that financial year. Related to that direction, and an exchange of information between David Williams and Matt Hancock at the time, it – the risk appetite, essentially, was set in terms of how we may apply the key criteria within Managing Public Money.

So that – the submission I’ve referenced in my statement from David Williams to Matt Hancock essentially put on record that we may well have to take a higher risk appetite when it came to accepting that certain stock may not end up being what we thought it was. We would have to take a higher risk appetite when it came to value for money. None of which meant that we wouldn’t necessarily have to put in place safeguards or consider those things appropriately, but what it was saying is that we would have to, by necessity, take a higher risk appetite when it came to either the feasibility of a deal and/or value for money in a deal.

So it didn’t take away the need to assess deals on the key criteria within Managing Public Money but it did set the context for where the risk appetite – (overspeaking) –

Lead 5: So can I take from that, let’s leave the ministerial direction to one side for the moment. Let’s focus, as you have in your last answer, on the higher risk appetite. There are four principles that we are now discussing arising out of Managing Public Money: regularity, propriety, value for money, feasibility or deliverability. Can I take it from your last answer that regularity and propriety remain unchanged despite the higher risk appetite, but those latter two, value for money, feasibility/deliverability need to be judged in the context of that higher risk appetite?

Mr Christopher Young: That’s a fair summary. So we would – we made all attempts to ensure that regularity and propriety remained in high regard and that included seeking the appropriate approvals from Treasury ministers. That included taking all action as possible to remain within the right regulations and statutory requirements, and having an effective governance process, as far as was practical.

When it came to feasibility, feasibility was very challenging in the circumstances that you set out earlier, in that we were operating in an international sellers’ market. It was very, very difficult, therefore, to assess with any full degree of confidence that the deal that was presented to you would arrive fully as expected.

In those circumstances, it was not possible to eliminate risk. It wasn’t practical or possible. We did take steps to minimise risk, by which I mean thinking about an incredibly important point around never letting unsuitable PPE get into the NHS distribution system. So even if substandard products did ultimately arrive, there would be a clinical check on arrival. It would never be put into the distribution of the NHS. And we would also look at the commercial remedies, so there was some commercial recourse for where deals didn’t necessarily come through as we would expect.

Lead 5: And by the former, just to be clear, I understand you to mean in your answer and in your written evidence, that where the risk appetite increases and it results in a given case in inadequate PPE arriving, there is a certainty that that would not make its way into the system?

Mr Christopher Young: That was my understanding. So my understanding was that where we were taking higher risk in terms of the feasibility of a deal, there would always be appropriate safety nets in place to make sure that if that risk crystallised, that would not result in unsuitable PPE being put out into the system.

Lead 5: Understood. Can we turn now, you talk about the challenging circumstances of this market, and I want to focus a little bit on the challenging experiences that you personally had on a day-to-day basis. You tell us, Mr Young, at paragraph 24 of your written evidence, that an average of 3.74 contracts per day were processed. I think you’re talking about either above or below the £100 million threshold, are you?

Mr Christopher Young: I think that was based on the information that I had available to me, which was 322 contracts between March and June 2020, per my statement. So I think that’s an average.

Lead 5: It could be either?

Mr Christopher Young: It could be higher, it could be lower.

Lead 5: It’s a far smaller number above that threshold?

Mr Christopher Young: It is.

Lead 5: As you’d expect?

Mr Christopher Young: Correct.

Lead 5: And then you add that you’re also informed that the most approvals on a single day was 11, which happened, I think towards the end of the PPE buying window, 18 May 2020 and, again, on 1 June 2020 – this is your paragraph 24.

Mr Christopher Young: Mm-hm, mm-hm.

Lead 5: That is towards the end of the buying window, isn’t it, so far as PPE is concerned?

Mr Christopher Young: I am not entirely sure on that, is my answer. My personal experience, I left my role, as we’re talking about today, in July. That felt like a point where things were normalising, in terms of we were able to take less risk when it came to value for money and feasibility. March, April and May still felt like a period, to me, where there was heightened risk and there was still a large volume of purchasing going on. So – and perhaps the second which – the second date you referenced which is 1 June –

Lead 5: 1 June.

Mr Christopher Young: – but to me, May still felt like a period where there was still a heightened risk appetite and lots of purchasing going on.

Lead 5: All right. Let’s try and get a better sense of what it was that you would need to do in order to approve – it wouldn’t have been 11, it wouldn’t have been you with sole responsibility for 11, but it might have been you dealing with something like half that number?

Mr Christopher Young: Yep, yep.

Lead 5: Yes. You had a vast quantity of material to consider at speed, didn’t you?

Mr Christopher Young: My role or the accounting officer assessment came at the end of what I think this Inquiry has heard is an eight-stage process.

Lead 5: That’s right.

Mr Christopher Young: So the information that came through to the accounting officer, there was a lot of information that came through in the request for an actual approval, most of which was included for completeness rather than an expectation or a need to go into every single detailed document attached. That’s because, usually, the team at stage 7 bought together everything and provided a summary to the accounting officer that then enabled them to take that information, apply the contextual knowledge they had from the demand data, and the risk appetite, and form a view on the deal in itself.

There was a lot of information contained in the requests, but as I say, most of it was usually there for completeness.

Lead 5: Let’s, just as a – for completeness, let’s just look at the constituent parts of what’s described as an “AO pack”.

Mr Christopher Young: Yeah.

Lead 5: And perhaps you could indicate whether it’s a document that you would have had regard to, whether you would have looked at, or whether it was something that was there for completeness and you wouldn’t necessarily have spent time considering.

Mr Christopher Young: Yeah.

Lead 5: So:

“Terms and conditions including evidence of acceptance or a summary of terms, highlighting the risks/reasons and subsequent external law firm legal advice (if sought) …”

Is that something you’d have looked at?

Mr Christopher Young: I think it’s – if I could answer the very simple question, the AO pack was essentially the one-stop shop which summarised all of the key information the accounting officer would have expected to have been assured throughout the previous seven stages. So if that pack signalled that something had been done, the accounting officer would not then go and interrogate that detailed document in the actual – in the information that came up.

We had to, and I had to, place my assurance in the experts that came before in the process. It was not the role, nor was it practically possible for me to get under the skin or undermine or oversee the detailed points within.

Lead 5: So that is not a document or a set of documents that you would have scrutinised?

Mr Christopher Young: Not if the AO checklist suggested that that assurance had been done.

Lead 5: All right. We may get similar answers to the other elements:

“The Department’s ‘Order Form’.”

Mr Christopher Young: Yeah. You will get similar answers.

Lead 5: We will?

Mr Christopher Young: Because essentially the checklist provided the accounting officer with the assurance that everything that he or she would have expected in the previous seven stages had been done.

Lead 5: Let’s just go through them so that you can confirm at least that they normally formed part of an AO pack, whether or not you would scrutinise the document itself.

“Notification of any advance ([or] upfront) payment required in the contract …”

Mr Christopher Young: Yeah.

Lead 5: Included; you wouldn’t necessarily scrutinise it unless the front of the AO pack revealed some irregularity?

Mr Christopher Young: That’s an important point, because when it came to upfront payments – which, for context, in non-pandemic times, are usually not a thing that the government does – the Treasury and the Cabinet Office both accepted that upfront payments were absolutely necessary, but we did get asked to try to keep them to a minimum.

Now, we effectively had no leverage on price, but we could try or we did try to keep upfront payments to a minimum. So having a look at what the percentage of the overall contract price was requested in the form of upfront payment was something that I would have specifically looked at.

Lead 5: Included in the pack is:

“The Department’s ‘New Supplier Form’ including bank details …”

Yes?

Mr Christopher Young: That’s a standard due diligence check that is necessary. I wouldn’t have checked that myself.

Lead 5: “A PDF supplier letter containing bank details …”

Mr Christopher Young: Again, a standard control that you would expect with any new supplier.

Lead 5: “Approval by the Clinical and Product Assurance … or approval through the MoD quality assurance …”

Yes?

Mr Christopher Young: Yeah.

Lead 5: “Technical documentation including photo and certificates for items …”

Mr Christopher Young: Correct.

Lead 5: “Department’s ‘Requisition Form’ …”

Mr Christopher Young: Correct.

Lead 5: “Foreign currency payments form (if appropriate) …”

Mr Christopher Young: Correct.

Lead 5: “Supplier quotation including a comparison to the average price, benchmark process and an explanation of why the offer was reasonable or better to proceed in the circumstances …”

Mr Christopher Young: Yeah. Again, that was an important point that I would have looked at in probably a little more detail. Insofar as we talked earlier around feasibility, one of the four – four criteria of Managing Public Money, we talked about feasibility being very difficult to assess. Value for money was another area that necessarily we had to take heightened risk, because we had effectively no leverage when it came to price.

So what we did try to do is safeguard the public purse as best as is possible by having a rolling seven-day average as a benchmark on price, and that would be something that the accounting officer would pay specific attention to, because if – if something was outwith that 25% benchmark it would not necessarily mean that that deal would be rejected but it may well cause rise for a query or a comment on the deal itself.

Lead 5: Last two items:

“FCO approval for the company concerned; and

“The ‘Submission to the DHSC Checklist’.”

Mr Christopher Young: Correct.

Lead 5: And it’s the submission to the DHSC checklist that you would primarily have focused on, is it?

Mr Christopher Young: That’s right.

Lead 5: Yeah. That’s the sort of cover sheet or pages that – beneath which lie those documents that we’ve itemised?

Mr Christopher Young: (Witness nodded)

Lead 5: We’ll look at one or two of them in due course.

Mr Christopher Young: Yeah.

Lead 5: So you relied – I take it from your answers that you relied to a significant extent on the judgements that had previously been made along the eight-stage process?

Mr Christopher Young: Yeah, the accounting officer came at the end of that process. We were independent and separate from the work that went on prior to that, which I think was helpful in respect of maintaining that independence. We weren’t sucked into unnecessary detail or influenced unduly. So at the end of the process, you could take a factual view of a deal. You could therefore apply, on top of that, the demand signalling information on the product and the risk appetite and come to a rounded view using the principles of Managing Public Money.

Lead 5: We touched, in earlier evidence in this module, on a two-week period after which offers should either be disregarded or in exceptional circumstances, continued in the system. Was that something that concerned you or did that only relate to earlier stages in the eight-stage process?

Mr Christopher Young: I can’t recall that two-week period ever being something that came to my attention.

Lead 5: So you would simply consider an offer as it reached your desk?

Mr Christopher Young: Correct.

Lead 5: All right. Was, in your view and on reflection, was there scope for any form of data analysis tool that might have helped you in your work, either by filtering out irrelevant material or providing focus that would have streamlined the work that you had to do?

Mr Christopher Young: I mean, I think essentially the accounting officer assessment, as I’ve said, came right at the end of a process which I understand this Inquiry has made specific challenges on over the previous weeks. What would say is that I don’t personally feel that the final stage, the accounting officer assessment, was, in any shape or form, a bottleneck to that process.

There were times where the constraints of email which was the form on the route that decisions came for approval, there were times where the constraints of email may have slightly slowed down things. I would say, as well, that the demand signalling data that the accounting officers used in terms of their – applying the context, the demand itself, there was a clear expectation and understanding that that data was not perfect.

So if I was going to go anywhere in terms of what may have been more helpful at the time, it would have been to have even more confidence in the data around the specific products, by which I mean the inventory data, the inbound orders data, and the actual usage data itself, because there was an understanding that that data was imperfect.

Lead 5: And its imperfections, given what you tell us in your written evidence, must have been a very serious problem. You said that you – at paragraph 36, you say:

“It is no exaggeration to say that I had a daily and real balance to strike between my AO responsibility as a custodian of the public purse, and, [towards the end of that sentence] saving lives.”

Then you say lower down, at paragraph 57, that you had to conduct what you describe as “basic sniff tests”. Yes?

Mr Christopher Young: I think that’s two slightly confusing, two slightly mismatched things there. So your first point around an accounting officer having a real trade-off between protecting the public purse and making sure that ultimately the overall objective, which was to buy enough PPE to save lives, was met.

Lead 5: Striking that balance –

Mr Christopher Young: Really important – it’s really important to note that we were spending amounts of money that were unthinkable in non-pandemic times, and that didn’t sit well with someone who spends many years of their career trying to do the best in terms of protecting the public purse.

So we had to take a choice, at times, and we knew those choices would not get it right every time from an accounting officer perspective.

Your second point around paragraph 57 of my statement in terms of –

Lead 5: Yes, it says, actually, it’s “the table [that] meets the basic sniff test.”

Mr Christopher Young: The basic – that essentially is in the context of the three accounting officers collectively agreeing with the SROs of the programme, Jonathan Marron and Emily Lawson, that we would have to, in the context of losing deals because of the pace of the eight-stage process, we were looking to streamline wherever we possibly could.

Now, what that meant, even though I mentioned earlier that the accounting officer assessment wasn’t a bottleneck in that overall process, it didn’t mean that we still shouldn’t look to streamline the process wherever we could, which meant that the three accounting officers decided to pass delegation down to the team who were recommending deals to myself, to David to Jon, that if a deal met, clearly met the conditions placed upon us by the Treasury, and there was no real judgement no accounting officer judgement needed, we were content to provide them with approval to sign off that deal.

So that’s the term “meet the basic sniff test”, essentially. Could I have used some crisper language? In hindsight, yes. Did I get any challenge back or questions from the team on what I meant? No. So it was clear at the time what we were doing, which the intent of that specific paragraph was to set out the continual attempts to streamline the full end-to-end process including stage 8 even though that in itself was an efficient part of the process.

Lead 5: You were liaising with other members of the team, with Mr Williams and Mr Fundrey, regularly, were you?

Mr Christopher Young: Oh, we spoke many times a day, including with the team. We were operating at distance, remotely. We were able to operate effectively, though, due to the technology allowing that, so multiple team calls –

Lead 5: Would you seek guidance from Mr Williams on occasion?

Mr Christopher Young: I wouldn’t say seek guidance. David had been an accounting officer and had been an experienced accounting officer for a number of years. In the very, very earliest part of the pandemic, so we’re talking early March, there may well have been some discussions to check that David was content with the approach that was taken, but essentially, David set the blueprint, David Williams set the blueprint for everything that came after that in terms of his approach and his documentation to some of the earliest deals, which, to put on record, were done alongside working with the Treasury, rather than outwith the Treasury.

So David essentially set the blueprint which didn’t, therefore, necessarily mean that Jon or I needed to check anything with him after that.

Lead 5: As to Mr Williams’s approach, he tells us, in relation to, I think, three matters, what his approach was. The first is whether financial links between a supplier and a referrer were, as he saw it, relevant in the decision to progress a contract. And he says this in his written evidence:

“The relationship between a referrer and a financial backer of the supplier had no effect on my decision to approve contracts which had been through the [High Priority Lane].”

You wouldn’t disagree with that as a matter of approach, would you?

Mr Christopher Young: Oh, I’d absolutely agree with that approach. The High Priority Lane, and referrers, were not a specific matter that any of the accounting officers concerned themselves with. And I think when I referenced the accounting officer decision coming at the end of the process, I think that, again, was very helpful in maintaining that independence. It didn’t matter to me personally where a deal had been referred from or to. What mattered to me is that the appropriate assurances that came within the first seven stages had been undertaken, and the deal was being recommended on the basis of it being a sound deal.

Lead 5: He says this, in relation to profits:

“Similarly, the level of profits of the supplier and distribution of profits had no effect. Given the sharp increases in the global prices of PPE we knew that significant profits were being made due to supply and demand.”

That’s his paragraph 72 of his second witness statement. You wouldn’t disagree with that either, would you?

Mr Christopher Young: No, no, if you look at some of the pre-pandemic prices for specific items of PPE and compare them to the average prices we were paying during the pandemic, it was clear that huge profits would be made. That was unavoidable. Again, the overall objective here was to ensure that we bought the amount of PPE that was necessary to save lives, and ideally, minimise the overall economic cost of the pandemic by shortening the period at which things were happening.

Lead 5: And of course, so far as pricing was concerned, your concern was to achieve value for money rather than investigate, interrogate, what the profit margin might be of the vendor, which is something that it was likely in any event to be a fruitless exercise in determining; is that right?

Mr Christopher Young: That’s right. As I said earlier, we had – effectively had no leverage when it came to price. That doesn’t mean to say that there wasn’t – you know, that we didn’t put safeguards in place when it came to value for money, but we had no leverage on price.

Lead 5: He finally says this in response to the question, and this is his paragraph 72, two paragraphs on from where we were just now:

“Did you consider a referrer vouching for or making representations on behalf of a supplier was relevant to the decision to progress a contract?”

And he says this:

“The referrer vouching for the supplier did not have any effect on my decision making about AO approval for contract, but may have played a part in the process of due diligence on the supplier, as part of an overall assessment of risk/benefit.”

You wouldn’t disagree with that either, would you?

Mr Christopher Young: No, again, my personal experience was that no personal pressure or anything was applied to me directly in regard to referrers. I put my assurance in the assurance process that came before it.

Lead 5: All right. Let’s – that’s very helpful, thank you for that.

Let’s move on now, then, to information which you had to consider when making a decision. We’ve looked at the AO pack. You had a daily Excel spreadsheet, did you not, a PPE dashboard, available to you?

Mr Christopher Young: Yeah. So one of the features of a typical day, as far as I can describe it, was a 8.30 call and a 6.30 pm call, both of which included review of the latest demand signalling data from the PPE teams.

Lead 5: Is one of those the PMO update?

Mr Christopher Young: Correct.

Lead 5: That’s the 6.30, is it? Yeah?

Mr Christopher Young: The 6.30 was named a pick list, so essentially the focus of that end of day call which Treasury were invited to was essentially to focus efforts on the most scarce resource – the most scarce PPE that needed to be prioritised for purchasing over the next 24 hours.

Lead 5: And you had a summary dashboard as well, did you not?

Mr Christopher Young: Yes, that’s correct.

Lead 5: Did you feel that the information that was made available to you was overwhelming, was adequate, was convenient, could have been improved?

Mr Christopher Young: There’s quite a few questions there.

Lead 5: It’s a multiple choice.

Mr Christopher Young: So I think nobody was under any illusions that the data was perfect. Just – I need to say that again, because whether data was sufficient, overwhelming, too much, the underlying data was not perfect and nobody was under any illusions that that was anything but the case.

Now, my involvement as an accounting officer was I received demand signalling data. I joined the end-of-day and start-of-day calls, but the point of that was to ensure that I had sufficient context to inform my decisions. I didn’t, and deliberately so, get lost in overwhelming amounts of detail. There was a key metric that, as an accounting officer, we always focused on, and that was the number of days calculated before a specific PPE product stocked out. Ran out, essentially. That was the key metric.

Everyone was clear that that key metric was a calculation of various assumptions, all of which included variables that were very difficult to predict in the circumstances.

Lead 5: Thank you, Mr Young.

In the relatively limited time remaining that we have this morning, can I just take you to a few specific examples and see how this played out in practice.

Can we start off with displaying INQ000512299.

Here we have an email chain between yourself, HM Treasury, and various finance and supply colleagues. And it says:

“In summary – whilst we will not take a risk on issuing sub-standard PPE …”

And this was the point you made a few moments ago.

Mr Christopher Young: Yeah.

Lead 5: “… to frontline staff (so following the [Treasury’s] condition on inspection here in the UK before issue), we need to take more risk on buying potentially sub-standard kit in order to secure it all … I would like us to adopt this immediately whilst we concurrently square off with HMT.”

Now in relation to – what did you mean by that last phrase?

Mr Christopher Young: The last sentence about concurrently squaring off with HMT?

Lead 5: Yes, exactly.

Mr Christopher Young: So, again, part of everything we did was to try to ensure that the Treasury came along with us, rather than being kept on the outside. So, again, one of the features of a typical day would be at least one call with the Treasury. They would, in their role, often on our behalf, have to seek Treasury ministerial approval for certain actions that were deemed novel or contentious or actually required additional spending budgets.

So when Jon, David and myself agreed that we needed to slightly heighten our risk in regards to the feasibility of every deal, that would mean that within perhaps half an hour of sending this email, that a conversation would be held with the Treasury as part of the daily conversations to explain to them why that was necessary.

Lead 5: Is that what actually happened in this case?

Mr Christopher Young: What you can’t see on what’s on screen now is, further down this email chain, the Treasury had already been pre-warned and were expecting this.

Lead 5: Okay, so it didn’t come as a surprise to them?

Mr Christopher Young: It did not come as a surprise to them.

Lead 5: All right. Would you say in most cases where there were deviations from a spending envelope, say, the Treasury were involved in the decision-making process or any approach that was adopted?

Mr Christopher Young: They were. And it’s really important to note, and I’d like to put on record, that Treasury officials were fantastic through the period that we worked with them. Their availability in very challenging times to work with us and be seen to be part of what we were doing was very, very good. The daily conversations and many, many email exchanges over the course of what were very, very long days meant that, in reality, everything was being done collectively and collaboratively.

Lead 5: We’ve heard from some of them already at this Inquiry. We heard from Mr Steve Barclay, we heard from Lord Agnew. Both of those witnesses grew frustrated that they were given limited time to sanction significant increases in funding or in spending envelopes. Do you want to comment on that, that point you may or may not have seen in previous evidence?

Mr Christopher Young: I can understand. I can understand. In ordinary times a Treasury minister would take as much time as they deemed fit to take such decisions, and they would ordinarily ask for a number of assurances that would give them confidence that the organisation or the department concerned would be safeguarding the public purse.

What I would say is that decisions such as what you’ve described being taken at short notice were often the point of a long and continuous conversation with the Treasury and their officials, and is entirely reflective of the pace and the nature at which things were moving in the pandemic.

From the very early outset we put in place an agreed budget with the Treasury, signed off by Treasury ministers, that very, very quickly became outdated. And I think, as such, it is – characteristically, Treasury ministers may – may – have got the sense of being done to in terms of decisions and short notice.

I think the Treasury and their officials were working with us to minimise the chances that that be the case, but in some respects it was simply unavoidable due to the pace at which things were moving and the way in which the data was evolving and the assumptions around – whether it be the stock levels, the actual disease itself, all of which was – were evolving at significant pace.

Lead 5: Let’s look at a small number of additional examples.

Can we display INQ000510725, please.

This is the cargo services Far East offer that you may recall. I don’t know if you do. And we have a section in the – this is the top sheet or one of the top sheets of the AO pack, isn’t it?

Mr Christopher Young: Correct, yeah.

Lead 5: And do you see the part that starts “The guide price for aprons is” and there are various parts that have been redacted out for reasons of sensitivity:

“The price is driven by the increase in demand across the globe for these products and we are competing with other governments to secure stock. This is the case at the moment across all PPE.”

Although we can’t see the actual figures, in this case there is a 900% price increase from the benchmark for the former and a 400% price increase for the benchmark in the latter.

Clearly this is a case in which the 25% limit was very significantly exceeded, wasn’t it?

Mr Christopher Young: Yes. I can’t see the figures so I’ll trust you that that is the case. If the question you were leading to was what would have been the, sort of, substance of an AO assessment based on this specific deal, it would be less likely to be approved, given those high percentage increases above the benchmark, but it wouldn’t automatically be a rejection because I think what, really importantly, the AO would be looking at would be the specific product concerned, and how many days until the NHS stocked out and the availability of the specific products concerned.

So it’s all part of a rounded decision, rather than one specific thing leading it to a formulaic yes/no decision.

Lead 5: That was the first half of my question. Yes. It wouldn’t rule it out, it would be dependent on the immediate need at a given moment. But the second half was: to what extent, if any, was the Treasury involved in a decision such as this where the pricing that was considered acceptable far exceeded that for which guidance was previously given?

Mr Christopher Young: So the Treasury, in their – when their ministers approved an increase in budget to ensure that spending remained regular, they placed upon us a number of conditions that they expected to be met, one of which was to make best attempts to stay within a 25% tolerance level. So that was a guide, best attempts, it wasn’t a cap. So therefore, where we did, unavoidably, exceed the 25% rolling benchmark, it did not mean that we had to go back to the Treasury for further approvals.

I think that would have been inefficient and probably it wouldn’t have been in keeping with the delegations that were provided to the accounting officers by the Treasury ministers.

Lead 5: Another issue that perhaps was addressed in less detail, given the circumstances, is due diligence. Do you recall having involvement in the P14 Medical Limited offer?

Mr Christopher Young: Not specifically, no.

Lead 5: Okay, let’s bring it up on the screen. INQ000521630. It might help jog your memory:

“P14 Medical are registered in the UK, their registration number is [so and so forth]. The company has an exemption from submitting full accounts …”

And then in a following document, INQ000521641, we see this:

“This is a small business … according to its website …”

Apologies, I’m moving quite swiftly through these now:

“There is limited financial data available as they file abbreviated accounts and have only been in operation since 2017 …”

And there are various concerns or caveats made.

This is, nonetheless, an offer that received approval. Is it fair to say that in normal circumstances, more due diligence would have been conducted, or on the basis of the concerns that were raised about the offer, it was one that wouldn’t have progressed?

Mr Christopher Young: I think that’s a fair assumption. I don’t think it’s appropriate to compare what was happening at the time to non-pandemic activities because in a non-pandemic environment, this sort of deal would have gone through weeks and weeks and weeks of due diligence. I think, just to comment on the two different P14 deals you’ve shown on screen over the last minute, you can see, in the second one, there is additional detail, and I think what that would have been is proportionate to the size and value of the deal on screen versus the earlier one, which I think wasn’t clear from what you showed, but I think was actually a lot lower value deal.

So in the circumstances, the due diligence and the information provided to the accounting officer was proportionate, which is why there’s more information here, and I think slightly off screen, which you can’t see right now, there is a little bit more information around the additional work – in the red text on screen there you can see the additional work that was undertaken to provide further assurance that some of those concerns hadn’t been completely eliminated but some work that was undertaken to minimise the risk.

Lead 5: So something was done but perhaps not as much as would have ideally been done?

Mr Christopher Young: Absolutely. Was it sufficient for the accounting officer to take the decision? Yes. Was it perfect? No.

Lead 5: All right. One last topic by way of example through a concrete case and then I just want to invite your reflections.

It’s fraud prevention. Could we have displayed INQ000519212. And then we’ll need – so this introduces it, then we’ll need to move on to INQ000519213, but I think you can see there we’ve also been asked that for new suppliers, in addition – is that – page 2, I think it is, of this – there we are. There it is. The third bullet point.

“We have also … been asked that for new suppliers, in addition to a completed supplier form, the supplier’s bank account details are provided on letterhead paper …”

And then if we go to display INQ000519213, we’ll see what was provided. And there it is. Bank account details on a letterhead.

On the face of it, it doesn’t look particularly compelling as a method of avoiding fraud. Do you take a different view about what was provided in this case?

Mr Christopher Young: I think – I mean, I think what you’re looking at on screen is (a) part of a standard suite of financial control checks that you would have in any scenario, whether that be pandemic or non-pandemic, but (b) it’s in isolation. So I think some of the correspondence in the previous exhibit showed that there was immediate follow-up to check that certain things were as you would expect.

So, ordinarily there is a validation of information that’s provided such as this on screen. So I think we’re looking at one thing in terms of a number of things that go into validating and checking a new supplier that hadn’t already been used.

Lead 5: All right. Mr Young, you provide your reflections towards the end of your written evidence. You say this at paragraph 80:

“Finally, I feel that despite the best attempts of all civil servants to find common ground, the risk appetite for procurement of PPE of [Treasury] Ministers was not always aligned with that of the Prime Minister and DHSC.”

Now, the evidence that you’ve given this morning was to the effect that there was close liaison and agreement between them, whereas at your paragraph 80, you’re effectively telling us that they didn’t always see eye to eye. Which was it, and if it was the latter, was that a problem?

Mr Christopher Young: So let me just make – sorry, let me make the distinction between the close collaborative work with Treasury officials, which, as I’ve said earlier, they were very much part of things as they evolved, and the comment made in my statement, I should clarify that I have a deep admiration for all of the work done from Treasury officials and Treasury ministers during the period.

The specific point I was making in my statement was that, upon agreeing a increased budget and making it very, very clear that Treasury ministers were providing the delegation to accounting officers and the parameters in which they expected those decisions to be taken, there were, in addition, a number of other conditions that were provided that seemed not wholly aligned to those delegations, specifically seeking levels and volumes of information at a frequency that, at that point in time, didn’t fully exist, which was known to the Treasury officials at the time, and actually, that condition in my opinion, whilst understandable at face value, actually risked distracting certain people who were working in the PPE team from actually getting on and sourcing and assuring deals when they were being asked to provide a huge volume of data to the Treasury at a frequency that was not wholly aligned to the delegations that the Treasury had provided for us to work within.

So delegating as a budget, delegating as approval rights, and giving – agreeing parameters in which to work within was all great and fine, but there was just some certain conditions that therefore just felt misaligned to those delegations and misaligned to the overall risk appetite that was set by the Prime Minister and agreed with the Health Secretary at the time.

Lead 5: So, Mr Young, final question to you from me: whether it relate to that or any other matter, which practical steps would you recommend in order to make the processes in which you were involved function better in the event of a future pandemic?

Mr Christopher Young: If the question is not not what we could have done better but actually what could we do better in hindsight –

Lead 5: Let’s focus on the future.

Mr Christopher Young: Yeah.

Lead 5: Yeah.

Mr Christopher Young: I would say that having much more mature, live data in respect of stock inventory would have been enormously helpful and made the real challenges as an accounting officer that I’ve described, and you have asked me about, not specifically easier, but the decisions would have been backed with even better information.

Mr Wald: All right. Mr Young, those are all my questions for you.

My Lady, I know that there are some questions from two of the CPs.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much indeed, Mr Wald.

Ms Mitchell, I think you’re going first.

Questions From Dr Mitchell KC

Dr Mitchell: I appear as instructed by Aamer Anwar & Company on behalf of the Scottish Covid Bereaved. I’d like to ask you first about a comment you make in relation to your recommendations. At paragraph 80 of your statement you say:

“In my opinion, there ought to be proper opinion going forward as to whether there’s a place for prioritising known suppliers, or those suppliers referred by trusted scenarios.”

Now what I want to know is, first of all, what did you mean by “trusted scenarios”? Are those trusted sources?

Mr Christopher Young: I think what I meant with that statement is – I think this Inquiry has seen some of the data around the number of offers received. Many, many, many of which were well intended. So 50,000 offers from over 15,000 suppliers. How the triaging happens on that volume of information in the most effective way I think is something that we certainly should be thinking about, looking at it for a future pandemic.

And not to go into any sort of suggestion of preferential treatment, but thinking about where there are more trusted suppliers. So, as an accounting officer, one of the things I would have looked at in any deal, for example, is whether a supplier is an existing supplier to the NHS, which would increase my confidence in the feasibility of such a deal, rather than an unknown supplier, whether it be to the Department of Health or actually new to the market.

So finding a way of increasing confidence in the actual feasibility of a deal, particularly in the context of the volume of deals and volumes of offers, is something that I do think is worth thinking about going forward.

Dr Mitchell KC: And so the “trusted scenarios”, were those the trusted sources? Are we talking there about the priority lane?

Mr Christopher Young: I wasn’t specifically referencing the priority lane. I think what I was suggesting is, given some of the challenges that an accounting officer faced in really trying to understand and gain confidence in the feasibility of a deal, the more that can be done to increase confidence in that feasibility, the better. Whether that’s an existing NHS supplier or a UK supplier or other sources, essentially, we’re just looking for that increased confidence.

Dr Mitchell KC: So who were the trusted suppliers – trusted scenarios that you were referring to in your statement, paragraph 80?

Mr Christopher Young: The – I guess the trusted scenarios would be those suppliers that were known to us.

Dr Mitchell KC: Are those suppliers referred by trusted scenarios?

Mr Christopher Young: Trusted scenarios. So we had a system where we couldn’t scale the existing NHS sourcing arrangements but those arrangements are in place because they bring in trusted sources and trusted contracts. NHS procurement activity takes place using existing frameworks where trusted suppliers that have been through effective due diligence are placed.

So this, essentially, the comment is around – essentially, around how you increase your confidence and your trust that a deal will be as feasible as you hope it will be.

Dr Mitchell KC: And we heard part of the idea about increasing confidence is to minimise risk, particularly in a sellers’ market. Could you perhaps give us any idea, or if you’ve thought of any, of how you might minimise or guard against the possibility of corruption in respect of what you describe as trusted scenarios (unclear)?

Mr Christopher Young: Well, I think, if we’re thinking about individuals who were brought in to work within the process itself, ie, the process of sourcing contracts and sourcing suppliers, those individuals will have gone through a process of declarations of interest and registering conflicts of interest, so in my experience and my personal involvement, which came at the end of a process –

Dr Mitchell KC: Indeed.

Mr Christopher Young: – I had to place my assurance that those sorts of conflicts of interest had been dealt with earlier in the process by those involved.

Dr Mitchell KC: Okay. Thank you.

And very briefly, you state that you didn’t give preferential treatment to deals emanating for the HPL, High Priority Lane. Were you ever asked to give updates to anyone or liaise with anyone who had made an offer thorough this lane?

Mr Christopher Young: Personally, no. My point at the end of the eight-stage process, as I’ve said earlier, safeguarded a degree of independence. My review of deals were based on the facts in front of me, the scarcity of the product, and the overall risk appetite. I never had any personal engagement with any referrer in any shape or form. And I must say this, and I mean this completely authentically, the whole HPL thing has come as quite a big surprise to me, years later, because everything that was done, everything that was – that I did personally, was with clean, honest intent. And I do feel it’s put a stain on a lot of hard work that was undertaken during the process to try and do the right thing and save lives and make sure we had enough PPE.

So it has come as a real personal surprise to me, years later – not that people made profits, to my earlier comment, but that there was some, obviously some sinister work that I know has been looked at through other avenues.

Dr Mitchell: My Lady, those are my questions.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much indeed, Ms Mitchell.

Mr Dayle, I think you’ve got a couple of questions.

Questions From Mr Dayle

Mr Dayle: Thank you, my Lady.

Mr Young, I ask questions on behalf of the Federation of Ethnic Minority Healthcare Organisations, or FEMHO, and I have two very short topics.

Firstly, were PPE procurement decisions expressly reviewed for their compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty?

Mr Christopher Young: That was not something that I had personal consideration of, in my assessments at the end of the process. What I would say is that my assumption would be that that would be considered in the same way in which any other legal or statutory requirement would have been considered in the earlier stages of assurance, and had there been any specific issues in regards to that topic in the same way in which other matters would have been brought to my attention by exception, I would have expected that to be the same. I cannot personally recall any example where that was the case.

Mr Dayle: Okay. Can I ask for your assistance with this: how was impact on ethnic minority healthcare workers considered in the context of contract assessment?

Mr Christopher Young: Personally, it wasn’t, when it came to my specific role. Again, I can’t speak for assurances and considerations that were taken earlier in the process. All I can say is that, had there been any specific concerns on that matter, it should have been related as part of the overall assessment and recommendation of a deal. So it was something that the accounting officer would and could take into consideration, but again, I cannot personally recall that ever being raised as an item of exception.

Mr Dayle: And the second topic, and perhaps at the risk of going over territory that you might have covered, did equality considerations, the matter of ill-fitting PPE, for example, factor into your financial assessments and procurement specifications?

Mr Christopher Young: The risk of unsuitable PPE being purchased was part of the consideration when I talked earlier about one of the four Managing Public Money criteria, feasibility. So it was a real risk and very challenging when operating with international suppliers to know with certainty that the PPE you would be buying would be as intended, and exactly as per the technical specification, which is why that, when it came to assessing the deals and approving the deals, we had to go with some risk when it came to that specific point, but in the knowledge that the equipment would all be inspected, clinically inspected upon arrival into the UK, and no substandard PPE should therefore have been distributed into the system which would have included ill-fitting PPE, because – “ill-fitting”, I guess, is a rather general term, I would say if it didn’t meet the technical specifications that were expected of that specific product.

Mr Dayle: Very well, thank you.

Thank you, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much, Mr Dayle. I’m very grateful.

Mr Young, that completes the questions we have for you. You’re not the first witness, and I suspect you’re not the last – I think we’ve got at least one more – who feels that that huge amount of effort that you and your colleagues put into obtaining supplies of PPE to save lives has been undermined by certain aspects of the procurement process. I am genuinely sorry that people who worked as hard as you did and your colleagues did should have been put under that kind of scrutiny when it wasn’t fair. So I hope you understand why we’re looking at it, and we are implying no criticism of you or most of your colleagues by doing so. So thank you very much indeed for what you did, and thank you for the help you’ve given to the Inquiry.

The Witness: Thank you, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: Very well. I shall be extraordinarily generous and give you an extra three minutes’ break. I shall return at 11.30.

(11.13 am)

(A short break)

(11.30 am)

Lady Hallett: Ms Shehadeh.

Ms Shehadeh: My Lady, our next witness is Andrew Slade. Please can he be sworn or affirmed.

Mr Andrew Slade

MR ANDREW SLADE (sworn).

Questions From Counsel to the Inquiry

Ms Shehadeh: Please can you state your full name for the record.

Mr Andrew Slade: Andrew Keith Ridout Slade.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. Now, you have provided the Inquiry with a witness statement dated 30 September 2024, and it is INQ000506956. Can I ask you to confirm, please, is that witness statement true to the best of your knowledge and belief?

Mr Andrew Slade: It is.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. Turning, by way of introduction, to your professional background, you joined Welsh Government in 2012; is that correct?

Mr Andrew Slade: That’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: And in January 2018 you became the Director General of Economy, Skills and Natural Resources; is that right?

Mr Andrew Slade: That’s also correct.

Counsel Inquiry: And you led Economy, Skills and Natural Resources until April 2022?

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And so you were in that role during the course of the pandemic?

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes, and in subsequent roles in a different configuration, but yes, for that period.

Counsel Inquiry: You then became Director General of Economy, Treasury and Constitution, and in the following March, 2024, you became Director General of Economy, Energy and Transport?

Mr Andrew Slade: That’s right.

Counsel Inquiry: You’ve also held a number of senior roles outside of Wales in the public sector; is that a fair summary?

Mr Andrew Slade: It is fair, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. You address, in your witness statement, very helpfully, the role of the Commercial and Procurement Directorate. Now, to be clear, the Commercial and Procurement Directorate, which we’ll refer to as CPD for speed, if that’s all right, develops procurement policy for the Welsh Government and the public sector in Wales. Is it right that it is also sometimes referred to as the National Procurement Service?

Mr Andrew Slade: That is right, in respect of its outward-facing role within the wider Welsh public sector and that’s a brand that, to some extent, we continue to use for those functions, support and guidance for the wider public sector.

Counsel Inquiry: So where the phrase “National Procurement Service” or “NPS” is found in exhibits to your statement, that is a reference to the CPD?

Mr Andrew Slade: It is.

Counsel Inquiry: Now, CPD sat within Economy, Skills and Natural Resources group so it became within the remit of the group of which you were director general?

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And it itself was led by Dean Medcraft; is that right?

Mr Andrew Slade: He was the acting director, that’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: Now, CPD has both a policy role and an oversight role in relation to government procurement. In practical terms, what does CPD do?

Mr Andrew Slade: So looking out into the public sector at large it provides guidance, helps with interpretation of the regulatory framework, training, develops capability and capacity, and manages and leads a number of category-wide procurement frameworks from which public sector and voluntary sector bodies can go ahead and buy services and goods; and then internally facing into the Welsh Government, it provides advice and support to all of Welsh Government’s buying activities and it has a certain number of control roles, as well. In respect of any attempt to make a departure from the rules, CPD would be involved in signing those off.

Counsel Inquiry: You mention there having a control role. Does the CPD ensure that contracts – contracting authorities comply with their obligations under the PCR, historically under the PCR?

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes, to a degree. Obviously each organisation that is buying must affirm, you know, be clear that it’s meeting the rules and stand for those themselves. But CPD has a coordinating and oversight role and provides advice on regulation.

Counsel Inquiry: The Inquiry has already heard that in relation to procurement of PPE, NWSSP was the relevant contracting authority during the pandemic. Is it right that the CPD worked closely with NWSSP?

Mr Andrew Slade: It is right, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Audit Wales have reported that the NWSSP did not comply with its obligations under the Procurement Contracts Regulations to publish contract award notices within the 30-day deadline, and before I go on to ask you a question about that, can I ask that we have on screen, please, INQ000214235 at page 45. And there we are.

This is an extract from that report. At paragraph 2.30, Audit Wales say they had looked at nine samples:

“Of the nine full contract award notices published in our sample, none were published within 30 days of awarding the contract. On reviewing them, we found several had incorrect dates for the date the contract was awarded. Shared Services is rectifying these errors.”

And it goes on to explain that some VEATs were published within the 30-day deadline but that wasn’t strictly a requirement.

There is an explanation there which is obviously that staff were under an awful lot of pressure at the time. We’ve heard about that pressure in a UK and Scottish context already.

Thank you, we can have that off the screen now.

When you talk about a sort of control role or an oversight role, was CPD aware that that 30-day deadline wasn’t being met by NWSSP?

Mr Andrew Slade: I don’t know for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they did, mainly because the focus was on ensuring that material was procured effectively and quickly. And I think some of the recordkeeping and the publications came later, as is slightly indicated in that comment. I think from memory the Auditor General goes on to say that in investigating each of those cases, there wasn’t anything wrong with the procurement; it was simply a delay in getting the material published.

And just to clarify, the role of CPD in control terms is in relation to aspects of Welsh Government’s internal procurement in that sense.

Counsel Inquiry: So you don’t see the role of CPD as extending to bodies such as NWSSP, complying with their obligations in procurement law, assisting them with that, holding them accountable to that?

Mr Andrew Slade: Assisting, yes, and providing guidance and advice in working with UK Government and other relevant parties but not there as an enforcer. There were different control arrangements for the NHS through another part of Welsh Government.

Counsel Inquiry: And in hindsight, do you think perhaps CPD should have that role where it liaises closely with the body that has the significant budget?

Mr Andrew Slade: Liaison is very close. The teams work very closely together. They would have a very strong, shared understanding of the rules, and I’m sure Shared Services Partnership colleagues would be involved in helping shape Welsh Government policy because they’ve got so much to contribute, but I don’t think there’s a sort of formal control role for CPD and I think that would be tricky to arrange because of the way the Welsh Government is organised and our various other bodies around Wales that undertake these types of roles.

Counsel Inquiry: And just briefly on this point before we turn on to another topic, you were keen to point out there that you didn’t think there was necessarily anything wrong with the contracts themselves, but the principle of publishing a contract award notice under the previous regulations was to allow members of the public to see how taxpayer money is being spent. Would you agree that the principle of publication honours transparency, honours accountability?

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes, and it’s certainly a lesson that I think we have learned for the future. But I think in the context of the heat of the pandemic, the focus of effort was elsewhere.

Counsel Inquiry: And would you further agree that if there isn’t proper transparency there is a risk of loss of public confidence in the way that government spend taxpayer money?

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes, transparency assists generally in that regard.

Counsel Inquiry: Right. I’m going to ask you about the procurement activities that CPD carried out. I’ll say at the outset we know they were very limited, and we’ve mentioned previously that NWSSP was the contracting authority that sourced the majority of the PPE –

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – used in the health and social care system. But the CPD was involved in the procurement of PPE outside of health and social care settings. Can you explain very briefly how that was done?

Mr Andrew Slade: CPD colleagues liaised very closely with the Welsh Local Government Association and with procurement functions out in local authorities and had a strong longstanding relationship there, and that came in good stead during the pandemic.

One of the things that they would have been working on in the early phases of the pandemic would have been with local government on supply to the care sector. And as that went on, I think they continued to work with local government on supply for domiciliary settings, domestic care, as distinct from in a care home or in another health and social care setting.

They were also very closely involved in helping other bits of the public sector with their own PPE demands, particularly as the pandemic went on, and as rules developed around what should be being used in different settings. So I’m thinking there of schools, public transport, those sorts of things.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. There was also a framework agreement in relation to FFP2 disposable masks. You explain at paragraph 118 of your statement that this framework agreement was made available to NWSSP and they made call-offs from that for the purchase of FFP2 masks for the use in health and social care settings; is that right?

Mr Andrew Slade: I think so, I understand. So the two frameworks that are relevant that were being managed by CPD related to PPE and workwear in one respect, and in relation to cleaning materials in another. And I think that that was available to colleagues in the SSP, the Shared Services Partnership, as indeed would all of the frameworks have been to draw down from, whether that was through direct awards or through mini competitions. In reality, I think much of what was bought was through direct awards and through more emergency-related routes.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

Moving on then to procurement policy in Wales. We’ve already heard from previous witnesses about the Procurement Policy Notes that were issued by the Cabinet Office during the pandemic.

You tell us at paragraph 86 of your statement that:

“During the pandemic all four UK home nations tried to adopt a consistent approach to the many procurement challenges that arose. Officials from the [CPD], and … other devolved governments, worked with the UK Cabinet Office to develop the four Procurement Policy Notes …”

So the issuing of these Procurement Policy Notes, it was coordinated, it was agreed, it didn’t come as a surprise to Welsh Government?

Mr Andrew Slade: No, I think this would be an example of where we would say we had co-designed those policy notes with colleagues across the rest of the United Kingdom, and I think there were weekly calls with the Cabinet Office in other devolved governments as part of that, along with regular – possibly monthly – calls with the Crown Commercial Service team.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And those following the Inquiry will be familiar with them, but we had PPN 01/20 published in March 2020, which was really the first PPN which signalled that the use of direct awards would be acceptable during the pandemic.

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: It was followed by PPN 02/20, 03/20 and then 04/20, which was published in June 2020, and it dealt with recovery and transition from Covid-19.

Just briefly, that final PPN, it wasn’t adopted as is, word for word, but it was amended so that it made sense in the Welsh context. Is that a fair –

Mr Andrew Slade: Substantially identical but references tweaked to make sure that they made sense in the Welsh context.

Counsel Inquiry: And in terms of the law, the framework, you say in your witness statement at paragraph 94 that the legal and regulatory framework in place during the pandemic didn’t pose any specific problems or challenges for the CPD or bodies it was assisting. Is that correct, to the best of your understanding?

Mr Andrew Slade: It is. They were established rules. We were familiar with them. The rest of the public sector was familiar with them. And they had enough components within them to allow for deployment in an emergency situation, like, as you say, direct awards and single-tender actions and so on.

Counsel Inquiry: I’d want to focus with you now on, I suppose, what was different in the Welsh procurement policy landscape as compared to the UK, the UK centrally.

There are particular pieces of legislation. I’m thinking of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act.

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And the – not legislation but the Procurement Policy Statement of 2012, which was then followed by the Procurement Policy Statement of 2021. You address these in your witness statement in detail.

Before I go on, were the principles encompassed by these applicable during the emergency, during the pandemic?

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes, they were. But the pressing needs of the emergency were the top thing that mattered. So we had used procurement policy as a tool to try to embed greater sustainability in supply chains in relation to carbon reduction, in relation to ethical employment in supply chains, in relation to driving community benefits, and that continued to be important, but I would say that it was much more important to make sure that the right PPE in this context was arriving where it needed to be at the right time, and that was the overriding factor at stake.

Counsel Inquiry: And we’ve heard, for example, that the majority of PPE was imported and the majority of PPE was disposable. So perhaps that first principle you –

Mr Andrew Slade: Is tricky, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Indeed.

Mr Andrew Slade: And we did look at the possibility of re-usable material, but that also remained tricky through the pandemic, in terms of cleansing and disinfection and simply having something that was usable and fit for purpose.

Counsel Inquiry: And we’ll come to attempts to innovate with later witnesses today.

The Procurement Policy Statement of 2021 also emphasises collaboration. It talks about integrating procurement into the heart of Welsh policy development and:

“… [supporting the] Welsh Government[‘s] policy objectives relating to progressive procurement, such as the Foundational and Circular Economy, through collaborative, place-based … procurement activity which nurtures resilient local supply chains.”

That’s a long sentence, but can I ask you, was this in part drawn from the experience of supply chain disruption during the pandemic?

Mr Andrew Slade: It was informed by that, yes, in that later statement.

Counsel Inquiry: And that reference to nurturing local resilient local supply chains, what does that mean, in practical terms? What are the expectations of Welsh contracting authorities and in particular NWSSP in relation to that?

Mr Andrew Slade: In non-emergency times, the hope is that you will be working with partners to build supply chains, in this context in Wales, that you’ll be working with companies, small to medium size enterprises to make it easier for them to pitch for government contracts. I mean, around a third, just under, of public spending in Wales comes through procurement of goods and services by the public sector so it’s an important area of spend. Those things continued to be important through the pandemic and were particularly important in the context of trying to ginger up local supply, and as you’ve mentioned, you’ll want to come on to that later today. But the main focus there was on, through the pandemic itself, getting hold of supplies and making sure that those were effectively distributed.

Counsel Inquiry: There is now also the Social Partnership and Procurement Act 2023 and there is also, we know, new legislation that only came into force very early this year.

In terms of procurement policy for Wales and lessons learned from procurement during the pandemic, what in your view are the key lessons as applicable to emergency procurement?

Mr Andrew Slade: That you need to be – back to your point about transparency, you need to be transparent about how you are using the rules, that you are very clear upfront about what you are trying to do, that you make sure that you’ve got proper records that can be gone back over at a later stage so that you’re ensuring compliance. I think that’s a key lesson learned and a point to take forward.

And then slightly straying into the how do you get domestic supply up and running, what can you do with supply chains through procurement policy to put them in a stronger place, either for responding to an emergency or, indeed, to build indigenous supply in anticipation of such things happening? That’s a bit more complicated, because as I think my colleague Alan Brace said recently, resilience brings with it costs, but that’s part of the thinking for the future through the change policy.

And the Welsh Act, the Social Partnership Act, enshrines in law for public bodies in Wales a number of the principles that were being operated prior to the pandemic and I think it’s fair to say, although I’m not an expert and I no longer look after the procurement function, that the most recent changes at the UK level are all about increased transparency and increased flexibility in procurement arrangements.

Counsel Inquiry: You’ve referred there to the creation of indigenous supply chains as being part of the thinking for the future. Are you aware of any concrete steps that have been taken to ensure that there is diversification of supply chains ahead of a pandemic striking?

Mr Andrew Slade: My understanding, although I’m not directly answerable for these areas now, a lot of work went on through PPE preparedness. There was, I mean, initially in the pandemic, there was the work on the winter plan but we went on to have a more strategic approach to procurement of PPE led by colleagues in the Health and Social Services Group and by the Shared Services Partnership, and I believe that those lessons have been absorbed and woven into how we operate, collectively.

And then, in relation to supply chains, we now have established mechanisms for getting ready at pace to stand up local domestic supply. That’s slightly different from that slightly trickier question about what do you do for the longer return in terms of indigenous supply where you might be wanting to create stores and stocks of material domestically, and that comes at a cost and it’s also very unlikely that UK manufacturers are going to be the cheapest manufacturers across the world. So that has to be borne in mind.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

You alluded a few moments ago to the fact that the majority of PPE procurement took place by way of direct awards or emergency procurement. Almost by definition, emergency procurement doesn’t take place very often, and so it’s not something that even seasoned procurement professionals have a great deal of experience of. They may do now. Do you think the CPD should have had in place guidance to disseminate to contracting authorities specifically addressing how to go about emergency procurement and direct awards, the contracts?

Mr Andrew Slade: I think there was some advice and guidance already out there, but as you say, it might not have been tested and it might have been based on theory rather than practice. The only thing I’d say to that is that we worked very closely with UK Government on that first procurement advice note in March of 2020. That was a joint effort across the UK to get advice out into public sector contracting authorities on making use of emergency provisions within the regulatory framework.

Counsel Inquiry: CPD did produce something called the buyers guide for PPE –

Mr Andrew Slade: They did.

Counsel Inquiry: – during the pandemic, and I wonder if we could have up on screen, please, INQ000198576. Thank you. There it is on the screen. And this buyers guide was developed with the support of the British Safety Industry Federation?

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And it was aimed at assisting procurement teams across the public sector in identifying non-compliant PPE, and it provides a handy list of products approved for sale in the UK.

Page 1. It sets out that there has been a:

“… huge influx of offers to supply PPE to the Welsh public sector. Critical items such as face masks and gloves fall into various classes and categories …”

And the Inquiry has heard about the differing responsibilities of those regulating medical devices and personal protective equipment already.

What led to the development of this buyers guide?

Mr Andrew Slade: A general view, I think within the procurement community, that a lot of smaller public bodies and voluntary sector organisations were getting inundated, as the text suggests there, with offers of product. We already knew, through the work that we were doing through central government and through colleagues’ work in the Shared Services Partnership just how much was out there in terms of substandard PPE. I don’t think this buyers guide was particularly aimed at large public sector bodies or, indeed, ourselves; it was more for other people out there in the public and voluntary and community sectors to give them some help in understanding what sort of standards they should be looking for when they were buying PPE.

Counsel Inquiry: It was also provided to CERET, wasn’t it?

Mr Andrew Slade: It was, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And we see there in the last line:

“NPS” [so that is CPD] are currently seeing a huge amount of suspect PPE documentation from a wide variety of sources.”

So again, was that something that had come to your attention through intelligence sharing with your liaison with the industry?

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes, with through liaison with the industry, liaison with local government, liaison with other contracting parties across Wales, NPS/CPD would have regular meetings with other buyers across Wales and would be putting out newsletters and guidance on a regular basis. So all of that intelligence, the two-way process would have been fed in here. I think, in this case, in relation to suspect PPE documentation, we found lots of things with, sort of, screengrabs and other, you know, visually alarming changes to documentation coming in, bad grammar, a whole range of things of that sort, incorrect references, things like that.

Counsel Inquiry: Can we turn to page 6 of this document, please. It addresses the issue of fake certificates. Is that – there we are –

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – we have it on screen now, heading “Counterfeit Products”. So the guide provides some examples of what to look out for and some visual examples and so on?

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Now, it’s a very short guide. It runs to only seven pages. You’ve referenced at page 1, or the author references at page 1 that guidance can’t all be easily accessed in one place. Was this short, handy guide for buyers needed in part because the regulatory landscape was very complicated?

Mr Andrew Slade: I think it was probably needed for a range of reasons, partly that, as you describe, partly just because of the pace at which things were happening, but also guidance, medical guidance on what we should be doing through the pandemic was changing as well, through this period. So a lot of queries and questions were being raised and a lot of parties out in the market were trying to exploit that general sense of things moving and developing, turbulence in the system. And I think that was part of it.

Counsel Inquiry: This guide, or this version, is dated June 2020. Is this the earliest version, as far as you’re aware?

Mr Andrew Slade: I had thought that we had produced something in May but I may have misremembered that.

Counsel Inquiry: All right. The question, in any event, is the same, which is: should a guide like this be put in place by the CPD or any other public authority as part of pandemic preparations in the future?

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes, ideally, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: CPD also held formal seminars and training sessions for procurement staff, and also worked along alongside the Life Sciences Hub, which we’ll come to later today in more detail but, essentially, Life Sciences Hub had a role in triaging offers of supply of PPE –

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – to NWSSP. Is it right that in fact some CPD staff were integrated into the Life Sciences team to assist them?

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And so this wasn’t simply an advisory role, staff were redeployed swell the ranks, essentially?

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes, either directly or virtually, but to make sure that, as you say, the ranks were swollen to meet demand, and also to share and develop learning and expertise on what was available and what shouldn’t be being bought.

Counsel Inquiry: So would it be fair to say that the CPD took on a role that was in fact beyond its original remit and adapted –

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – during the pandemic? And brought together not only procurement experience but also developed experience in, as we’ve seen from the buyers guide, certification, PPE-specific intelligence on product specifications, on attempts at fraudulent certification, regulatory requirements, and so on?

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes, all those things.

Counsel Inquiry: And are there plans, to the best of your knowledge, to stand up this kind of work again in the event of a future pandemic?

Mr Andrew Slade: I think so. It forms part of our arrangements and it would certainly be one of my recommendations to the Inquiry in terms of responding in future.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. I’m going to ask you now about mutual aid and cooperation between the four nations. You’ve explained in simple terms how the consequential funding works in your statement and you have referred to the Barnett formula. Wales received a total of £1.022 billion in consequential funding from the UK Government in relation to PPE; is that right?

Mr Andrew Slade: That’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: And does that encompass all PPE or is that restricted to the NWSSP spend?

Mr Andrew Slade: I can’t remember in relation to the money that came in as consequential funding. The money that I know we spent was reported through the Shared Services Partnership, so – it was getting close to 400 million, I think 385 million, reported by the Shared Services Partnership as having been spent by the NHS in Wales on PPE, out of that pot of money that had come from the UK Government.

Counsel Inquiry: Right. You also address in your statement the pandemic stock principles which were agreed between the four nations, and you also set out a little bit about how mutual aid between the nations worked. Wales made good use of mutual aid arrangements, didn’t it?

Mr Andrew Slade: It did. We were supported in doing so by ministers, but again, as I think my former colleague Alan Brace set out in his evidence, we were net exporters through mutual aid in the event to other parts of the United Kingdom, particularly England and Northern Ireland. We also received supplies from Scotland and Northern Ireland and also from the UK arrangements as part of that.

Counsel Inquiry: And mutual aid also extended to the loan of 20 million tests to England. So the arrangement there was that Wales effectively transferred 20 million tests to England, and England then replenished that stock?

Mr Andrew Slade: That’s my understanding, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Is that what’s meant by “loan”?

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And do you see that as playing – mutual aid – a key role in ensuring that Wales has sufficient PPE in the event of a future pandemic?

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes, as a government, we concluded, ministers were very clear about this from I think April of 2020 onwards, that we ought to have a three-pronged approach to this: we should get on and source our own supply, and that was done through the Shared Services Partnership; we should participate in mutual aid arrangements and support other parts of the UK as they supported us; and that we should look to stimulate domestic supply of things that were in short supply or areas where we thought there might be, you know, innovations needed to assist the health and social care services.

Counsel Inquiry: Welsh Government made a number of attempts to stimulate domestic manufacture, and we’ve touched upon this already, but on 3 April 2020 the First Minister issued a call to action for Welsh businesses to create a new Welsh supply chain of PPE. And that was then echoed by Ken Skates. The Critical Equipment Requirement Engineering Team was set up, CERET was set up, to assist with that. And we will hear from them later on.

I just want to come back to something you say in your statement, you say:

“The effectiveness of steps to stimulate domestic production was not formally measured …”

Is this perhaps something Welsh Government or CPD should have been monitoring during the pandemic?

Mr Andrew Slade: I think so. It’s a little bit like the point you made earlier about coming back to make sure that things are properly published and timescales are met. There are components of what we did where it would have been better, preferable, to have kept more records or have more information available. I am sure, knowing how hard colleagues worked across the procurement professions, and in CERET and elsewhere, that this would have been about the sheer pace of work, the volume of things coming in, and the focus on making sure that offers were triaged, that work was followed up and fed into the system to supply PPE. But yes, I think for the future, having better oversight of what was happening and keeping better records of how things were taken up, and what supply was arranged and available through manufacturing supply chains, that – it would be preferable to have that information.

Counsel Inquiry: Notwithstanding that lack of information, can we just look at paragraph 238 of your witness statement. There it is. You tell us that:

“Over 30 companies repurposed production lines to produce hand sanitiser, 25 … repurposed production lines to make face visors, 30 companies provided decontamination solutions …”

And so on. You say:

“Welsh Government estimates, in total, 400 jobs were created [for] this commercial activity … [and] volunteers made over 5000 sets of scrubs.”

Thank you.

Can we have up also INQ000470704. Page 2.

These are bullet points sketched out for a public statement to be made by the First Minister, and we see there the fourth bullet point from the bottom explains that there is work being done to secure a new supply chain, there are examples there being given, and that Wales has become self-sufficient in scrubs.

We can have that down off the screen now, thank you.

So Wales didn’t need to, from that point on, import any more scrubs for use in the health and social care sector?

Mr Andrew Slade: I don’t know if that is the case. At the time significant numbers were being produced. Whether that continued to be the case throughout the rest of the pandemic, I don’t know.

Counsel Inquiry: So this might be a snapshot in time, you’re not able to say?

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

Can we have up on screen, please, INQ000472023. And page 3.

This is a PPE lessons learned presentation dated 22 January 2021. We see there some lessons learned including supply issues experienced which we’ve heard about:

“Engaging and on-boarding Welsh Manufacturers took time and effort. Welsh PPE market may not be sustainable or competitive on cost.”

The report authors there take the view that it may simply not be sustainable to rely on Welsh manufacture of PPE. We’ve discussed this a little in your evidence already. In light of that, do you think there might have been difficulties in implementing the policies you’ve referred to earlier in your evidence?

Mr Andrew Slade: Not in the sense that they can be supplemental and they can help with provision, you know, and supply of this type of material; but it won’t be a solution in and of itself. And, you know, as I mentioned earlier, it’s very unlikely that UK manufacturing is going to be the cheapest source of a manufactured good, in many cases, compared with what is available through international markets, and we have to be realistic about that.

And I think my recommendation, you know, to the Inquiry, back to the point I was making earlier, is have arrangements that you can stand up quickly that will be effective, and where people understand broadly what’s going to happen, because that will get things moving quicker. But that’s not the same as saying we’ll have everything produced domestically to meet the needs of a future pandemic.

Counsel Inquiry: In terms of pandemic preparedness, we’ve heard a great deal about the PIPP stockpile, we’ve heard about pandemic preparedness exercises. On reflection, do you think perhaps procurement had been siloed off, considered as a separate topic area to pandemic preparedness generally?

Mr Andrew Slade: I don’t know for sure. I think it’s fair to say that procurement colleagues had not been directly involved in pandemic preparations but then colleagues from the Shared Services Partnership may well have been, so I’m not sighted on that component. Procurement colleagues were certainly involved in some of the work we did around no-deal Brexit preparations and the purchasing components associated with that and impacts on the supply chains, but I think there is an argument for greater involvement of procurement in contingency preparedness.

Thinking back to other issues that I’ve been involved with over my career, we’ve certainly had procurement specialists involved in things like animal health and welfare crises or in situations where we were dealing with flooding problems and aftermath of flood clear-up, where again, having procurement professionals involved has been helpful.

Counsel Inquiry: The CPD was drafted in to assist Life Sciences Hub Wales who in turn were drafted in to help NWSSP?

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: So a great deal of collaboration that we’ll hear about throughout the course of today. Is there enough investment in procurement professionals in Wales? Is that something that needs to be scaled up ahead of time before an emergency such as a pandemic comes along?

Mr Andrew Slade: I think there are two points there. One, I think the public sector generally needs more experts in procurement and supply chain management and in contract management. That would apply in, for want of a better term, peacetime as much as in an emergency situation. But yes, in terms of being ready for major situations of the sort that we’re discussing here today, having more of that expertise available would be important.

Ms Shehadeh: Thank you for answering my questions. If you’ll wait there, there will be questions from other people.

Thank you, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much indeed.

Ms Morris, I think you’re next.

Questions From Ms Morris KC

Ms Morris: Thank you, my Lady.

Good afternoon, Mr Slade. I ask questions on behalf of Covid Bereaved Families for Justice UK.

Just two topics, please. The first – you say in your statement that contracts that exceeded – sorry, payments exceeding 25% of a contract value had to go through approval by the Welsh Government. So my questions are: why was it set at that value, first of all? And did it cause any delays to the processing of those contracts?

Mr Andrew Slade: I’m not sure I know the background to the – why the threshold was set, whether it’s prescribed in law or whether that was to do with our own procedures. This would all have been in relation to the work of the Shared Services Partnership where we had pretty clear control mechanisms both for the actions of the Shared Services Partnership themselves, but also where, as you’ve pointed out, various things had to come in to Welsh Government for some form of counter-signature.

My understanding is, although I wasn’t responsible for those areas, that there were summary processes used to make sure that those kinds of checks weren’t a hold-up beyond what was needed to make sure that what we were proposing or what Shared Services colleagues were proposing to do was a sensible thing to do.

Ms Morris KC: So they still happened?

Mr Andrew Slade: They still happened.

Ms Morris KC: But in a more expedited way –

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes, indeed.

Ms Morris KC: – is that correct? Okay, thank you.

Second topic, please, the Welsh Government Head of Counter Fraud prepared an audit and risk assessment – committee prepared a report in January 2022. I think you’ve been shown that document –

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes.

Ms Morris KC: – by the Inquiry before giving evidence this morning.

Under its heading of “Potential Lessons”, it highlights that the CIFAS national fraud database was only used in 10% of post-awards and claims in bulk uploads. So just so I can maybe set some context with you, if that’s okay. The National Fraud Database, is that a database of individuals to identify any fraud prior to awarding a contract in business-as-usual times?

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes, and we would use it, although clearly, as that report made out, not as extensively as maybe we could in relation to pre-approvals but also checks afterwards before monies were paid out.

Ms Morris KC: I see.

Mr Andrew Slade: I think this report from our colleague at the Head of Counter Fraud unit was largely aimed at work we were doing on grants to businesses in relation to economic support rather than in relation to procurement of PPE.

Ms Morris KC: Okay. But the purpose of it then is to – it’s a fraud prevention tool; is that fair to say?

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes.

Ms Morris KC: And the observation that is made by the committee is that if it’s used post-award, you’ve missed an opportunity there to identify –

Mr Andrew Slade: And it slows things down, as well.

Ms Morris KC: And it slows things down?

Mr Andrew Slade: Yes.

Ms Morris KC: And if you use it post-award the only remedy, you’ve then got to try to get the money back as opposed to influencing the decision that you’re making about whether to give the award or not?

Mr Andrew Slade: That’s correct. I mean, generally we use a lot of business intelligence tools and a number of other Creditsafe-type checks to get a very quick handle on who we’re dealing with out in the private sector. But that is a different and additional mechanism. As I say, in this context I think my colleague was referring to grants to business through our economic support throughout the pandemic.

Ms Morris KC: Just help me, then, finally please, was it used then for the PPE award contracts pre –

Mr Andrew Slade: I –

Ms Morris KC: – pre-award – (overspeaking) –

Mr Andrew Slade: I don’t know because that would be in this context, a matter for colleagues in the Shared Services Partnership.

Ms Morris: Thank you, that’s helpful. Those are my questions. Thank you.

The Witness: Thank you.

Ms Morris: Thank you, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: Thank you, Ms Morris, very grateful.

Ms Parsons, I think you’re up next.

Questions From Ms Parsons

Ms Parsons: Thank you, my Lady.

Can you hear me, Mr Slade?

Mr Andrew Slade: I can, good afternoon.

Ms Parsons: Good afternoon. I ask questions on behalf of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru. I want to ask you first, please, about supplies of PPE to frontline healthcare workers in Wales.

We have been repeatedly told by the Welsh Government that Wales never ran out of PPE at a national level. And at paragraph 263 of your statement you quote Vaughan Gething’s evidence to the Senedd’s Health and Social Care Committee that there was enough PPE in the system, and that was in evidence on 30 April 2020.

In that same month, Mr Slade, April 2020, the Royal College of Nursing carried out a survey among nurses in Wales.

We don’t need to turn up, but for the Inquiry’s reference it is INQ000214235, page 29.

I’ll just summarise the results, if I may, before turning to the question.

So the Royal College of Nursing results found as follows:

Only 46% of respondents said they had sufficient supplies of fluid-resistant masks.

Only 52% had sufficient supplies of eye protection.

Only 57% had sufficient supplies of gowns.

And only 63% had sufficient supplies of FFP3 masks.

So really significant shortages.

How do you, Mr Slade, reconcile Mr Gething’s narrative on the one hand with the experience of the nursing community in Wales on the other?

Mr Andrew Slade: I think probably both things can be true. You can have enough PPE stocks in circulation at the national level and yet there can be problems at the local level, in terms of distribution and supply. One of the reasons – I recall a discussion in our executive committee in Welsh Government in April – one of the reasons that the colleagues on the health and social services side brought in the military to do assessment work was to look at what was happening at the local level, what was happening with local health boards and what was happening with local government colleagues, as well, in terms of distribution.

So there are definitely lessons that we can learn about what happens at the local level, but I think it can also be true that what was circulating at the national level was sufficient for needs across the nation as a whole.

Ms Parsons: Before moving on, what were those problems that you referred to there in distribution and supply at a local level?

Mr Andrew Slade: I think, from memory, often around provision of information about what was needed where, and what stocks were held at a local level. So, again, I think my colleague Alan Brace mentioned some situations where there just was a lack of understanding at the local level of what was available locally – I think that was probably in the care context – but, what can you do to increase flows of information in intelligence at the local level to try to address those issues at that level rather than necessarily what’s happening at the national level.

Ms Parsons: We’ve been speaking about the early stages of the pandemic. What about later on, Mr Slade? The British Medical Association conducted a survey of doctors in Wales in February 2021, so we’re a year on, and only 37% of respondents had adequate supplies of PPE for non-aerosol-generating procedures.

And I would also add, Mr Slade, that many of the members of the group I represent witnessed shortages well into 2020 and into 2021 among frontline healthcare workers.

Were you aware of ongoing problems? And if so, again, how do you reconcile those ongoing problems with the statement that Wales never ran out at a national level?

Mr Andrew Slade: I wasn’t involved directly, because these were matters dealt with by my colleagues on the health and social services side of Welsh Government, and obviously out in the NHS, but I think we were aware, at the top of the organisation, that there were still concerns in places about provision of particular material, and that work was going on within local health boards and with the Shared Services Partnership and with local government where relevant to try to meet those needs as far as possible.

Ms Parsons: Can we move on, please, to the second topic, and that is supplies of PPE specifically in care homes in Wales.

We read at paragraph 32 within of your statement, Mr Slade, that the Welsh Government was not aware of any instances in care settings running out of PPE.

Please could we have up on the screen INQ000518355, at page 19.

This is the witness statement of Dr Chris Llewelyn, the chief executive of the Welsh Local Government Association. And he says at paragraph 42, I’ll read it out:

“Local authorities and care providers were initially left to procure, store and distribute PPE for themselves or as part of regional arrangements. It was not until the Welsh Government moved focus away from the NHS and tasked Shared Services formally with supplying social care that stability and a basic level of supply was achieved across the wider care sector. By 7 May 2020, around two-thirds of the social care sector’s needs were being met by Shared Services.”

Do you accept, Mr Slade, that the PPE needs of care homes were overlooked in the early stages of the pandemic, and if so, why was that?

Mr Andrew Slade: I don’t think they were overlooked. There were conversations going on back in February about how best to get supplies into the care sector, and then those manifested themselves in the decisions taken in March to roll into the work of the Shared Services Partnership the provision of supply into the care sector.

In those early weeks, as I mentioned earlier in my evidence, colleagues in CPD were engaging closely with local government colleagues about helping local authorities meet their statutory needs as procurers of PPE for their care homes and their care settings.

So care was very definitely in the mix early on and it was very definitely part of what ministers wanted to do in terms of using the Shared Services Partnership’s capabilities. And I think we’ve already said, as a government, that in a future pandemic we would immediately move to involving provision for care settings into the work of the Shared Services Partnership.

Ms Parsons: Does it follow from your last comment, Mr Slade, that you’d agree with me that the response by the Welsh Government to supply care homes was slower than it could or should have been?

Mr Andrew Slade: Colleagues – again, I wasn’t answerable for this area so I can only comment from what I observed – colleagues were working incredibly hard to try to address all the issues arising from the pandemic, and colleagues were advising ministers – and ministers needed little persuading – that the best thing to do, once the pandemic was getting going, was to roll provision to the care sector into the work of the Shared Services Partnership, which I believe ultimately was helpful. And as you saw there from Chris Llewelyn’s statement, by May around two-thirds of all stocks going through were coming through the Shared Services Partnership.

Ms Parsons: Yes, and just finally before we move on from this, following what you said about helping local authorities out to meet their statutory obligations, was it not the responsibility of the Welsh Government via the Shared Services from the 19 March 2020 to supply care homes?

Mr Andrew Slade: It was a partnership with local government through the Shared Services Partnership, as I understand it, to get the stocks out to joint equipment stores so that they could be distributed at a local level.

Ms Parsons: Thank you. I want to ask you, thirdly, and finally, about lessons learned. At paragraph 376 of your statement you cite the Welsh Government’s internal review into its pandemic response published in September 2020, and that review described some of the difficulties in sourcing and distributing PPE to the social care sector, particularly given partners focused on health rather than social care.

Can we have up on the screen, please, INQ000410950, page 13.

Mr Slade, this is another statement from Dr Chris Llewelyn, prepared for an earlier module in fact, Module 2B which is Decision Making and Political Governance. He says this, in relation to lessons learned, paragraph 53:

“In the view of the [Welsh Local Government Association] the key lesson learnt should be that we need collective and inclusive planning, led by the Welsh Government, with a whole-systems approach engaging all partners who have a role to play. Local government is concerned that this learning is being lost, and that we might revert to the situation of inadequate planning and readiness for the next national emergency …”

And in oral evidence, Dr Llewelyn reported that there was no appetite for a whole-systems approach.

Insofar as supply and distribution of PPE is concerned, do you agree that the Welsh Government approach lacked, and I quote “collective and inclusive planning”? And did not demonstrate “a whole-systems approach”?

Mr Andrew Slade: I don’t know, is the short answer to that question in relation to work that was led by other parts of Welsh Government. All I can say is that I think a collective and inclusive approach is the right way to go, drawing on the infrastructure and the learning that we have, and I believe all of that will be tested in a national UK pandemic exercise later this year. So we’ll find out how much of that learning has stuck, and how our systems are performing.

Ms Parsons: And in the meantime, Mr Slade, do you share his concerns that there is no appetite for a whole-systems approach?

Mr Andrew Slade: No, I don’t. I’m not quite sure what point that – is being made there, if I’m honest.

Ms Parsons: Well, he explains that it is about not involving the local authority and not involving directors of public health at a health board level. That’s what he’s talking about when he says “whole-systems approach”.

Mr Andrew Slade: Well, if I can make the distinction, the key thing here is to make sure that all relevant parties are involved. We do have now well-established civil contingencies arrangements across Wales which involve action at the strategic and at the local level. The local government are heavily involved in those resilience fora, and a lot of planning is done working very closely with local government. And, I have to say, having worked in different bits of the system across the UK over three or more decades, relations between Welsh Government and local government are strong. The relationship between central government in the Welsh context and local authorities is as strong as any I have seen in other bits of the system.

Ms Parsons: So in short, then, Mr Slade, you don’t agree with Dr Llewelyn on that point?

Mr Andrew Slade: We may be making the same point in slightly different ways, I think is perhaps what I’m saying.

Ms Parsons: I’ll leave it there. Thank you.

Thank you, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: Thank you, Ms Parsons.

You referred there to the UK-wide national exercise, Mr Slade. As you may know, in my Module 1 report I refer to the fact that lessons weren’t learned from previous exercises. So you and I both will be looking to see whether any lessons have been learned as a result of all the terrible things that have happened.

Anyway, we’ll have to wait and see what that produces.

Thank you very much indeed for your help to the Inquiry, and thank you for being one of the most effective witnesses when it comes to answering questions focused, in a focused way, and without speaking too quickly. As you may also know, we’ve had a number of witnesses who speak as quickly as I do. So thank you very much indeed for your help.

The Witness: Thank you, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: I shall adjourn now. I’ve been asked to give a slightly longer lunch because an issue has arisen overnight so I shall return at 1.45. Thank you.

(12.30 pm)

(The Short Adjournment)

(1.45 pm)

Lady Hallett: Ms Shehadeh.

Ms Shehadeh: My Lady, our next witness is Jonathan Irvine. Please can he be sworn or affirmed.

Mr Jonathan Irvine

MR JONATHAN IRVINE (sworn).

Questions From Counsel to the Inquiry

Ms Shehadeh: Can you state your full name for the record, please?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes, my full name is Jonathan Paul Irvine.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. You have provided two witness statements to the Inquiry. I am going to read out their document reference numbers. They are INQ000536425, and INQ000575089. Are the contents of these statements true to the best of your knowledge and belief?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes, they are.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. In a moment we’re going to be exploring the role of NWSSP. Before we get on to that, if we can address your professional background. Is it right that you are the director of Procurement Services at NWSSP?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes, that’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: And you took up this role in 2019, so that means you were in post during the pandemic; is that right?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: That’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: Can you give us a brief overview of your own professional background?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Of course. I’ve been just over 36 years in NHS procurement. I started and spent the majority of my career working in NHS procurement for health and social care in Northern Ireland, most of that time working for BSO Procurement and Logistics Services. I ended up working there at a senior level.

In the last number of years I’ve worked in Great Britain at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust at a senior level in procurement before moving to my present role and taking up post at the end of September 2019.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. Now, some of our previous witnesses have touched upon what NWSSP is. Can you explain to us in simple terms what it is and what it does?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes. So NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership, or NWSSP, is an organisation that isn’t a statutory body in its own right but it is an integral part of the NHS in Wales, and as such, it is hosted by Velindre University NHS Trust as the statutory hosting body. We’ve been in operation since approximately 2011 and we have 2,400 staff employed and a further 3,600 staff under what’s called single lead employers, which is trained doctors coming into the system who nominally work for NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership at the outset.

We operate through a Shared Services Committee, and that committee has representatives from each of the NHS Wales organisation – health organisations including health boards, trusts, and other NHS organisations. So what we do and how we operate is directed through that committee.

My managing director is the accountable officer for the Shared Services organisation, and is accountable to the NHS Chief Executive in Wales, Judith Paget, and he has also dual accountability into the Velindre Trust Board for issues, for any issues that fall within their remit.

And then within our own Shared Services organisation we have a senior leadership group that comprises all of the divisions within Shared Services, so while this Inquiry’s obvious focus is on procurement, Shared Services as an organisation provides shared services across a range of common areas of operation in support of NHS Wales ranging from audit services, medical examiner services, employment services, and many other services as well, all of which are listed in my witness statement.

Counsel Inquiry: Yes, thank you.

I wonder if we could take a look at the organogram which provides a further explanation, if we have it on screen, I’m very grateful.

So we can see there what seems to be a slightly complex web of arrows, but Shared Services Partnership, right at the bottom in the middle there, helpfully highlighted, I’m very grateful. That is where NWSSP falls, and as you’ve described, just above it there is the Velindre NHS Trust which you described as hosting NWSSP, and then we see an arrow coming down from Welsh Government. Does that denote accountability, as between Velindre NHS Trust and the Welsh Government?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yeah, so there is accountability directly into Welsh Government, so – for some of our activities that, you know, fall outside of Velindre NHS Trust itself. But all of our work is accountable through the Shared Services Partnership committee itself that I have described.

I think it is important to point out that this organisation chart isn’t an NWSSP creation; it’s a chart that has been provided by another Welsh Government organisation, and so there are some nuances within it in terms of the arrows, which maybe aren’t just a hundred per cent accurate.

Counsel Inquiry: So we have an arrow there that joins up Shared Services Partnership and local health boards. It’s in orange, which, according to that key, would refer to funding.

Would you like to put that into context?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes. So as being hosted by Velindre NHS Trust, NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership receives funding obviously through the allocation that Velindre Trust itself receives from Welsh Government. We also receive some funding directly from Welsh Government and have done in the past, as, in particular, you know, PPE, for example, but that goes through the Velindre Trust ledger.

In terms of the funding relationships with local health boards, in respect of funding going out of Shared Services to the health boards, that is in respect of any surplus on our operational budget that we may end up with at year end, financial year end. We always break even, so any surplus that we have is distributed back to the health boards. However, what is missing from the chart is an arrow coming back from the health boards, a funding arrow, into Shared Services Partnership, which would cover specific health board requirements, individual health board requirements, often for specific services that we provide on a health board or trust-by-trust basis to them.

Counsel Inquiry: There we are. Someone has added that in –

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: – very helpfully. Thank you very much. I don’t think we need this diagram any more, so that can come off the screen.

You’ve mentioned there that you break even. Is the idea that NWSSP sources services, but we’re concentrating on physical items, in particular PPE, and provides them on to health boards and trusts but doesn’t make a profit?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: That’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: And can you just clarify whether those items are simply transferred free of charge or whether they’re effectively bought by NHS trusts from NWSSP and health boards?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: They would be bought. In terms of our stock, they would be bought at the price, at the stock price.

Counsel Inquiry: So bought at the same price at which NWSSP bought them in the first place?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Understood. NWSSP also is responsible for distribution and warehousing and logistics of those items; is that correct?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: That’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: You’ve explained how NWSSP is run. In terms of provision for the NHS in Wales, is it correct that NHS bodies, organisations, health boards, are free to buy or procure their own items outside of the offering of NWSSP?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: No. The arrangement that was put in place whenever Shared Services was established, and Procurement Services was obviously brought in in its entirety over a period of a few years into Shared Services, the expectation of Welsh Government and indeed the NHS in Wales is that all procurement activity comes through my teams within Shared Services’ Procurement Services division.

Counsel Inquiry: So at the time that the pandemic hit our shores, NWSSP was already set up to be supplying the NHS in Wales?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes. The only exceptions to that might be in the areas of continuing health care where health boards would potentially procure, in some cases, their own contractual arrangements with healthcare services providers, but apart from that, we influenced or managed the vast majority of expenditure within NHS Wales.

Counsel Inquiry: And to be clear, does that exclude community health, GP surgeries, and so on? Did they, prior to the pandemic, fall outside of the remit for –

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes, for the most part. There was some limited work – there was some limited work that we did on behalf of GPs such as my health courier services teams would be involved in the transport of blood tests or transfer of medical records, but it was a limited service, as pre-pandemic.

Counsel Inquiry: And the remit of NWSSP was widened during the pandemic to provide PPE for the social care sector. Similarly, before the pandemic, NWSSP was not sourcing equipment, supplies, services for the care sector; is that correct?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: That’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: Now, in terms of pandemic preparations, we’ll come on to the PIPP stockpile in a moment, but NWSSP had in place a pandemic plan, didn’t it?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: All right. Could we display, please, INQ000506695. Thank you very much. We have it there on screen. It’s dated 2016. The basic point, I suppose, is that your organisation had anticipated that its business-as-usual activity would be disrupted in the event of a pandemic, hadn’t it?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And can I ask that we go to page 14, please. Thank you very much. We see there, at paragraph 6.5.2, middle of the page and onwards, that the plan anticipated that some of the impacts would be complaints or queries, change in product/service demand for key items – you may think that’s an understatement, looking back at your experience – both increases and decreases, demand for alternatives, price increases, and you had anticipated or your predecessor had anticipated that pharmaceuticals, oxygen, food, aprons, cleaning materials, gas and so on, might be impacted.

If we go over the page to page 15, that list goes on, we see it there, including gowns, disposable sterile gowns, masks and consumable medical items.

So it was anticipated that there would be shortages, spikes in demand, and so on.

Can we go to page 11, please, of the same document. We see here that part of the plan was to put in place the control centre team and they would cascade, effectively, plans and instructions on to the rest of the team.

There were plans in place, but ultimately, NWSSP was going to await direction from Welsh Government, wasn’t it?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes, that’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: And the plans themselves really refer to communications, to workstreams, to ways of working, as opposed to change in supply chains, concrete plans of what would be done, what items would be sourced, and so on?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes, that’s correct. And in the context of the Covid pandemic it’s important to point out that obviously this is a flu response plan. It was in 2016. And it was probably, although I cannot speak for my predecessor, but it was probably put in place as a necessary document to support our experiences with swine flu and SARS earlier in the 2000s.

So I think it needs to be looked at in that context as opposed to, you know, what happened completely during the Covid pandemic.

Counsel Inquiry: Certainly. I think we can put that document away now.

NWSSP obviously took over the role of replenishing the stockpile of carrying out emergency procurement. In terms of pandemic preparedness planning now, is NWSSP working on more detailed plans that take into account concrete steps of what you might do in the event of supply chain disruption?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes, absolutely. And through my witness statements there’s references to the development of our planning since the onset of the Covid pandemic through the PPE winter plan and longer-term plan, and that isn’t an independent NWSSP planning process. It’s very much contingent and in collaboration with Welsh Government, and what their requirements are in terms of things such as stockholding and the product range and product types that we need to stock and, indeed, wider UK pandemic planning and how that impacts on Wales, and then on the NHS, in Wales and our own plans.

Counsel Inquiry: In total there were some 35 contracts awarded, 33 of which were performed; is that right?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Correct, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And can I just ask you, looking back, did supply chains for items such as masks and gowns and aprons, PPE that was used in the pandemic, did they need to be more diverse than they were in order to withstand the demands of the pandemic?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: I think the availability of PPE was very much nuanced in relation to the particular PPE product that you were referring to. We took our direction in NWSSP as a procurement organisation from the specifications and the types of PPE products that we were asked to procure. But you are correct, the ability of the supply market globally, never mind domestically, to provide products, suitably certified products, of the right quality, meeting all of the regulatory requirements, was very limited. So, globally, buyers across the world were chasing a very small number of manufacturers who could provide such good-quality product, particularly early in the pandemic.

And then, as we’ve heard in the Inquiry already on a number of occasions, some products, such as the FFP3 respirator mask, was very much determined by the fit with the user. So the diversity of masks was only a function of how well it could fit individual members of staff who would be wearing it.

So I think those would be the factors that would impact on diversity, but yes, straight answer to your question, if there was more – a wider range of suppliers globally who could provide those suitably certified products, then obviously it would have been a less challenging proposition to acquire them.

Counsel Inquiry: And what about suppliers based in Wales? Would a combination of Wales-based suppliers and suppliers based abroad have provided greater resilience, do you think?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes. And on that point, there – you know, there is a positive story coming out of Wales. So Wales did procure PPE from locally based manufacturers who were repurposing their manufacturing to provide PPE such as visors, and while I know it’s not a product as part of the Inquiry’s reference to PPE, but hand sanitiser is another product that was used widely in the pandemic that was produced in large quantities by companies here – companies in Wales, and I think having a mix of domestic and international sources is helpful.

I think one thing to bear in mind, respectfully bear in mind, is that while there might be a local or UK manufacturing facility or opportunity for PPE, you have to be mindful of what the restrictions on that might be in terms of the availability of the raw materials, which themselves may have to come from offshore. So while we may be able to manufacture, the availability of the raw materials to get to the finished product might still be challenging.

Counsel Inquiry: Yes, so you can’t entirely avoid the consequences of global supply chains collapsing?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: I don’t believe so.

Counsel Inquiry: I’m going to move on to ask you about the PIPP stockpile. Now, is it correct that the procurement of items in the PIPP stockpile was carried out by Welsh Government as opposed to by NWSSP?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes, that’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: Is it also correct that NWSSP, however, was responsible for managing and storing the PIPP stockpile?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes, we were responsible for that.

Counsel Inquiry: You explain in your witness statement that initially the stockpile was kept at an RAF facility?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: But it was then moved to a Pickston Bro Tathan site?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And you say that had 3,200 pallet spaces, and you say it had minimal floor space.

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Did that minimal floor space cause issues when the time came to distributing the items in the stockpile?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: No, the facility itself was dedicated to the wider emergency planning stockpile, and the PIPP stockpile itself was obviously wider than PPE including medicines and medical consumable products. So while it was a smaller space, it was purposefully there specifically for that reason. So it didn’t cause any particular problems.

Counsel Inquiry: Just a few points to clarify your last answer, if I may. So it was a smaller space. Is your evidence that that smaller space didn’t make it harder to physically access the stock?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: No, it didn’t.

Counsel Inquiry: When you say it was part of the wider emergency planning, are you referring to preparations for the UK exiting the European Union?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: No. So the PIPP stockpile, I know the Inquiry certainly seems to focus on the PPE element of that, which is a significant part of the PIPP stockpile, but the PIPP stockpile in its widest sense includes other products, such as medicines and medical consumables that are perceived to be – would be required in the event of a pandemic. So all of those products under the definition of PIPP were kept in that same place.

In terms of the Brexit stockpile, we, through the acquisition by Welsh Government of our main – what is now our national distribution centre warehouse in Newport, our Brexit stockpile was put together and held at that location.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. That is very helpful.

Now, in terms of management of the items in the stockpile, we’ve discussed that that fell within the remit of NWSSP. You’ve described in your witness statement at paragraph 50 that:

“The … stockpile was administered and managed as per our NHS Wales [business-as-usual] stock via [an] Oracle Financial Management System”, in a temperature controlled environment, and you’ve explained how expired stock was managed and disposed of.

I suppose in brief terms, was the reality that NWSSP would monitor the expiry dates of stock but ultimately it would be Welsh Government that gave the instructions as to whether that stock was to be disposed of.

Mr Jonathan Irvine: That’s correct, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And what about cycling out or into the NHS prior to expiry; is that something NWSSP did?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: No. No, and I think it’s important, again, to point out that the majority of the PPE in the PIPP stockpile would not have been considered routine use or business-as-usual products for the NHS, and were very much products that would be used in a pandemic scenario, so there wouldn’t have been the opportunity to cycle out products in the way that you’ve described.

Counsel Inquiry: And in terms of the contents of the stockpile, Welsh Government would take decisions on the range of products and the volumes –

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Correct.

Counsel Inquiry: – contained within it?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: All right. Can we display, please, INQ000300270. Thank you very much.

So this is a spreadsheet that sets out the items within the stockpile. Column K indicates stock that has expired, and at rows 23, 24 and 25 we can see FFP3 face mask respirators listed there.

We can see highlighted in red there three zeros in relation to in-date stock, and the rest of the stock out of date with the exception of “additional from NHS England” which was in-date.

So I’d like to ask you a few questions about that, please. As per your previous answer, this doesn’t only display PPE but we’re focusing on those FFP3 masks just for the moment.

Did it come as a surprise to NWSSP that the majority of the FFP3 masks held in the PIPP stockpile had expired by early 2020?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: I wouldn’t say it came as a surprise, because obviously we held the stock and we worked – you know, I have to say we worked closely with the Welsh Government representatives who came out to inspect the stock on a regular basis. So there would have been an awareness that the date life had expired on those products at that time, which then prompted the action that followed in terms of further testing.

Counsel Inquiry: Can you help us understand why that stock wasn’t immediately replenished?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: That, you know, I’m not trying to be evasive – that would have been a decision that Welsh Government would have had to have taken and it would have been a matter for them to have answered. We simply held the stock, provided them with the details of what was there and obviously a record of what the date lifes were, and they, having had that information, had the responsibility to take decisions as to the necessary actions to take.

Counsel Inquiry: How far in advance would NWSSP have briefed Welsh Government in relation to looming expiry dates?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: I can’t answer that question with any certainty, apart from going back to my previous response, which is that there was a regular review of our PIPP stockpile with Welsh Government representative colleagues. So they would have been aware, through those visits and through that information being provided, of those details that you see.

Counsel Inquiry: And then we see at row 25 that additional FFP3 – it simply says in brackets “additional from NHS England” and then we read across there are 59,600 in-date.

Can you help us with whether that was stock that was in fact held or whether that was expected to be provided in due course by NHS England?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: That is in-date stock that was actually held, so that was physically there.

Counsel Inquiry: That was physically there –

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – and ready to deploy?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you very much. We can remove that document now.

You’ve explained at your paragraph 52, page 12 of your witness statement, which is INQ000536425, you’ve explained the re-testing process and the process for extending the shelf life of expired stock. So what we just looked at on the screen, in terms of the red items, that wasn’t the end of the story, was it?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: No, no.

Counsel Inquiry: There we are. Thank you very much. That’s on the screen.

These items are, in fact, re-tested at a UK level on three separate occasions, and approved through Public Health Wales, Business Service Authority, and Public Health England respectively. The third occasion for re-testing was during the start of the pandemic, and it wasn’t possible to re-label the expiry dates on every occasion, was it?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: No. So there was three tests undertaken, as you quite rightly point out. The first two tests, that extended the date life on two occasions. On each of those two occasions the products were over-labelled with the new, approved expiry date that had been approved subject to that, on the basis of that testing.

On the third occasion, there simply wasn’t time to do the labelling again. If – you know, it’s a very labour-intensive process for our team to do that, and at that point, which was late into March 2020, we had received the test certificate to say that the FFP3s were suitable for use and that was through INSPEC. It was the testing house that Public Health England, now UKHSA, had used. So it was clear that that had been done. So NWSSP put together a frequently asked questions or FAQ guidance form that went into the box with the FFP3 masks to explain why staff, when they opened it, would see the dates, expiry date didn’t match the actual dates of that particular day, in an attempt to allay some of the anticipated concerns that would be raised by staff.

Counsel Inquiry: And while these item were re-tested and their shelf life extended, did that result in delays in distribution to the front line?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: No. We moved swiftly in terms of the re-testing to over-label, and the decision then to release the FFP3 masks from the PIPP stockpile was then given to us by Welsh Government so that by that point in time, we had the masks, the FFP3s were ready to go, either – with the FAQ guidance that was then in place.

Counsel Inquiry: You say you moved swiftly. Can you tell us roughly how long it took for the shelf life extension testing and the test certificates to be completed? How long did that process take?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: The testing itself, I can’t comment on, because that was outside of Wales. In terms of getting the FAQ guidance into the box and getting the FFP3 masks out once we were instructed to release them by Welsh Government emergency planning coordinator, that was simply a matter of several days. And as you can see there, we commenced on 25 March 2020 to go and release that into the NHS in Wales.

Counsel Inquiry: So days as opposed to weeks?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Oh, yes. Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: But you’re not able to be any more specific than that?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Unfortunately not, sorry.

Counsel Inquiry: All right. In terms of distribution of the items in the stockpile, were there any challenges that NWSSP encountered?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: In what context, sorry?

Counsel Inquiry: Were there any difficulties in getting PIPP stock to the front line in Wales?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: No. No, we were able to – once we were instructed by Welsh Government to release the PIPP stock, then we were able to take that directly from the PIPP stockpile location to the relevant hospital sites.

Counsel Inquiry: You address, at paragraphs 142 to 147, warehouse capacity.

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: We’ve talked about the PIPP stock but obviously NWSSP had to scale up its buying activities. The customer base, if I can describe it in that way, also increased from NHS trusts and health boards to include, as we’ve discussed, the social care sector.

What did NWSSP do in order to manage those vastly increased volumes of items that were going through its processes?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Okay. So just to add to the scaling up, also – at the end of March we were also asked to supply PPE to the primary care contractors, so GPs, dentists, pharmacists, as well as social care.

Counsel Inquiry: Yes.

Mr Jonathan Irvine: So there was a couple of things that we were able to do quickly to scale up. We were able to release some of the Brexit stockpile that had been put in place as a contingency on the transit out of the EU for those products that formed part of the PPE range, such as nitrile examination gloves, so we already had in place a buffer stock at our Newport warehouse facility.

Then, moving on to that facility itself, it provided us with an enormous space in which to bring in larger volumes of products centrally for Wales, and then distribute them on from there either directly into hospitals and also, in parallel, feed out to our two other regional warehouses, one in the north of Wales and one in the south as well.

So it allowed us a really good staging point and distribution point for the volume of products that we ended up supplying to NHS, social care, and primary care contractors.

Counsel Inquiry: You describe at paragraph 142 that you spread stock across your warehouse network, including in Bridgend, and Denbigh. Is that what you’re describing there?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: That’s correct. So, in particular, it was important to place stock in the north of Wales, because the transit time from south to north is – can be considerable. So it made sense to have a stockpile there as well.

Counsel Inquiry: You say in your statement:

“Additional warehouse capacity from the commercial sector was brought online in North, South-West and South Wales.”

So that was, further to your existing network, you were able to secure commercial warehousing spaces?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: That’s correct, and that was to supplement the warehousing capacity that we had available to us to utilise, given the volumes and the – you know, the bulky nature of PPE. It’s not a small-scale product of stock in terms of floor space or pallet space.

Counsel Inquiry: That’s the warehousing. Can we talk about distribution, please.

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: So the same issues obviously arise: increased volume, a lot of pressure to get items to the frontline quickly. You tell us in your witness statement that in fact initially there were six suppliers engaged who were, in fact, from the food distribution industry, and they were engaged to distributed PPE. They had pre-existing networks. Can you explain why those were selected and how effective the choice of using food distributors was?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Okay, so I just want to clarify, of the six companies that are in the bullet points in paragraph 145, only Castell Howell is a food distributor. Gerry Jones, Owens Group and Delivery Solutions are all recognised warehousing and freight companies. TDW Distribution is another distribution company, and Palletline are, as their name suggests, involved in pallets. So it wasn’t just food distributors, and the three companies that you’ve previously referred to, that we used commercial storage space with, were Gerry Jones, Owens Group and Delivery Solutions. So we contracted that work – that capacity into our network to allow us to store and quickly decant PPE to the relevant locations where necessary.

Counsel Inquiry: Thanks very much.

And how effective was the use of these distributors?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: It was excellent. You know, those six were used in the early days, the very early days. We eventually and swiftly moved to Gerry Jones, Owens, and Delivery Solutions, based on their capacity and their geographical location and our previous work with those organisations. It was invaluable in terms of the support they were able to provide us in storage and, at times, distribution of the PPE.

Counsel Inquiry: There are quite a range of companies that you list in your witness statement. Were there any challenges encountered in working with this many different parties and coordinating the activities of this many different parties in an emergency?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Not particularly. Each individual supplier who we worked with had a clear contractual obligation to deliver a certain product type or types, in certain prescribed volumes, to particular delivery points which would have been within our warehousing network. So while there were a number of suppliers that we had to engage with to meet the demands and in terms of volume and the spread of products that was required, it didn’t cause any particular difficulties, no.

Counsel Inquiry: I’m going to ask you next about sourcing activity and the details of how procurement was carried out during the pandemic. You tell us that NWSSP began sourcing activity for all PPE products during 20 March 2020, and the first items were delivered five days later in fact, 25 March. Why was it that NWSSP started that sourcing activity at that point in March 2020?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: The reason that we had to and we had no choice but to start sourcing was because our stock levels were low in comparison to obviously where we’d have wanted them to be, given the demand that we were experiencing. There was no clear indication from UK central organisations, whether that be NHS England or DHSC, that any replenishment of the PIPP stockpile or any other supplies would be forthcoming. So we had no option but to start to source in the global market ourselves as – on behalf of all of NHS Wales.

Counsel Inquiry: And we see from our exhibits and we’ve heard in our verbal evidence, as well, that there were attempts to set up a Welsh PPE supply chain. There was a call to industry issued by the First Minister and then echoed by Ken Skates. Did that result in NWSSP being approached by a very high number of potential contractors?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes, it did and, you know, it was – all offers were gratefully received and, you know, the intentions of everybody offering help were, I believe, you know, the best of intentions to support the country in a time of crisis. But the consequence was that we were inundated with a large number of offers, particularly in the first few weeks and the first two to three months of the pandemic.

Counsel Inquiry: And is it right that Life Sciences Hub Wales was brought in to conduct triage of those many offers before passing them on to NWSSP?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes, initially NWS, my organisation, we triaged everything that came in through our email portal, but given the scale of the number of offers coming in, the first steps of the triage process which was just the gathering of the information from prospective suppliers that would be required, we agreed with Life Sciences Hub that they would take that particular work on, so really the front door work, and therefore any opportunities that were passed to us had all the necessary information and documentation to allow my staff and the Surgical Materials Testing Laboratory staff and NWSSP to make further, more detailed, professional assessment of what was being offered.

Counsel Inquiry: You’ve mentioned the SMTL, the Surgical Materials Testing Laboratory. Can you explain what their role was and how they fit into NWSSP?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes. So SMTL are an integral part of NWSSP. They’re their own separate division alongside my division and the other elements of SSP that I mentioned at the start. Their role in the triage process was to really triage the technical requirements for the products in relation to the offers that we were receiving, and, I suppose, in sort of very general terms, that was a twofold assessment. First of all, a critical assessment of the documentation and certifications that were being presented to us with cross-referencing and checking against established databases and notified body laboratories within Europe. And also, where required, they didn’t – undertook some physical testing of the products themselves to determine their capacity and capability to meet the requirements laid down in regulation. And they did that through the laboratories that they operate.

And that is work that SMTL in normal times undertake for NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership for my teams in relation to assessing products, medical and surgical products that are used routinely in NHS Wales as they come in to us on tenders for national contracts. So they’re very familiar and we’ve always worked very closely with them as a unit.

Counsel Inquiry: In terms of the physical testing of products, during the pandemic, was that done retrospectively once product had been delivered, or was it not done because of the difficulties in supply chains?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: No, any testing that was undertaken was prospective. However, the assessment of certification and all of the necessary documentation was also prospective, as well. So no offers were progressed and no product was brought in unless those elements of the triage process had been passed by SMTL.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

Can we display, please, INQ000512459.

This is a diagram that illustrates the workflow. A “Request received by NWSSP”. Is that a request to enter into a contract or an offer of PPE?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: It would be an offer of PPE that would come in through that particular contact point.

Counsel Inquiry: And then we see in red there:

“If no response from source within 3 days – offer not pursued – CLOSED.”

So that is in relation to the triage team asking for technical specifications, asking about notified bodies and certification and so on, asking really specific questions about the product. If that response is not received within three days, offer not pursued; is that right?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: That’s correct. And the intention behind that was to put the onus back on the offeror as opposed to onto my teams. We were dealing with an inordinate number of requests coming through, so we put the onus back on the potential supplier to prove to us that their product could work and provide us with the necessary information. And if they didn’t do that within, you know, a three-day time period, then we didn’t expedite that further.

Counsel Inquiry: And was there a worry that this, sort of, rather strict approach would result in complaints or in disgruntled potential suppliers?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: No. I would argue probably the opposite, in that three days – you know, I was going to say a day in March, April, May 2020 was like a month now. Actually, what I would probably say is that an hour in March, April, May 2020 is like a month now. So three days was an exceptionally long period of time. We were turning around offers very, very quickly, you know, at lightning speed. So – and there was certainly no feedback or response from companies or prospective suppliers saying we had acted too quickly.

Counsel Inquiry: Then, looking at the diagram again, we can see, assuming the offer is pursued, we go on to the SMTL checks for quality, validation. If there were queries, we see:

“Queries sent to Suppliers for validation (given 24hrs to respond)”

Again, did this very tight turnaround period result in complaints, in pressure on NWSSP?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: No, not at all. And in fact usually, if there were queries returned to suppliers by SMTL, it was about their uncertainty around the validity or genuineness of the offer being made through the documentation that they had seen, for instance. So basically those suppliers who then failed to respond to those observations that were sent back to them was probably an indication that maybe their product wasn’t what they had originally claimed it would be, and there certainly wasn’t any, again, adverse noise coming back to us in that respect.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

Now, Life Sciences Hub assisted with an awful lot of the triage, and they tell us about 75% of offers were considered unsuitable. Does that accord with your recollection?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes, that sounds right.

Counsel Inquiry: And is it also correct that there was no high priority lane or VIP lane administered by NWSSP?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: That’s correct. There was no lane.

Counsel Inquiry: There was a sort of fast track in the form of the Critical Items List. Can you explain to us what the Critical Items List was, and how items on it were prioritised?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Okay. So, yeah, I just want to be very clear on that. It wasn’t a fast track in that they were – you know, it was like we were acting on instructions of outside parties. The Critical Items List was a fast track in respect of these were the items that were critically required by NHS Wales. So if offers came in to supply NHS Wales with PPE products, for instance, then those would be some of the critical items that our team would go: “Right, we want those.”

But the call to industry was – as I suppose it had to be at the time, it wasn’t communicated, “And these are exactly all the types of products that we need.”

So we got quite a few offers through for products that weren’t in short supply or indeed maybe required as part of the pandemic response.

So the Critical Items List was simply a direction to my staff to say, “Here’s the products that we need and here’s the products that we need you to look out for”, and that also fed into the work that CERET also looked at in relation to how they identified those products that they would be seeking to work with industry partners to develop local sources of supply for.

Counsel Inquiry: The Critical Items List was provided to CERET specifically for that purpose, wasn’t it?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: It was. It was to focus their resources and attention on those areas that NHS Wales were, you know, facing potential challenges on.

Counsel Inquiry: In terms of the work of CERET, we shall hear a little more about that later this afternoon, but can we just turn to paragraph 127 at page 31 of your witness statement.

So that’s INQ000536425.

This is a paragraph in which you address the impact of the work of CERET as observed by NWSSP. You tell us that:

“Procurement Services did not observe any noticeable impact on the availability of PPE in Wales as a result of the work of CERET and the allocation of grants to manufacturers in order for them to repurpose to the manufacture of PPE. The majority of products supplied by Welsh manufacturers were secured early in the pandemic, prior to the outworkings of the programmes supported by CERET … The time taken for Welsh manufacturers to develop suitably certified PPE products that were urgently required early in the pandemic …”

Well, it took some time to come online, didn’t it?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Now, you have, of course, given us a second witness statement in which you explicitly refer to a company, British Rototherm, which had been assisted by CERET and so what you say in this – in this paragraph has to be seen in light of the fact that, in fact, NWSSP did award a number of contracts to that company which had repurposed its manufacturing; is that correct?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes, that’s correct. So in the production of my second witness statement, and the specific request to provide information around the procurement with British Rototherm for face visors, I did then establish that that company had worked with CERET initially to repurpose their production to produce face visors. That wasn’t apparent to me at the point I wrote the witness statement that’s on screen here, which was my first statement, so that would be a qualification of that.

Counsel Inquiry: And in fact it’s right that a total of £15.5 million worth of contracts were awarded to that company by NWSSP, isn’t it?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes, that’s correct, and just maybe to add, if I could just very quickly, you know, again, I limited my witness statements strictly to the scope of the PPE products as defined in the outline for this module. And so that didn’t include hand sanitiser, for example. Hand sanitiser was produced locally in Wales with, again, the support from CERET at times, but it didn’t feature in my statements simply because it wasn’t one of the prescribed items under the scope for this module.

Counsel Inquiry: Understood. So you did observe an impact in the work of CERET on hand sanitiser – (overspeaking) –

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes, correct.

Counsel Inquiry: – domestically. Thank you, that’s very helpful.

One of the matters that you identify in that paragraph is the time it took for companies to gain regulatory approval. Was the time it took to secure regulatory approval or CE markings or for testing houses to carry out their work, was that a recurring theme that NWSSP had to contend with during the pandemic?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: No. It was only an issue for those manufacturers who were starting to produce PPE where they didn’t have experience of doing so. The manufacturers that we dealt with for PPE manufacturing already had the necessary regulatory requirements in place, and that was established and certified again through the triage process that we’ve spoken about.

So the challenge in relation to getting the – and the time it took to get those regulatory and legislative requirements in place for the product, whatever it happened to be, was a challenge for those manufacturers moving as a new – repurposing to develop those products as opposed to more established manufacturers who had them in place.

Counsel Inquiry: You’ve touched upon the PPE winter plan just briefly. That was in the winter of 2020, and NWSSP and Welsh Government drew up a plan for PPE sourcing and strategy for the foreseeable future, as you were mid-pandemic, if I can put it that way?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And one decision that was taken was to hold a buffer stock that would last 24 weeks; is that correct?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: That’s correct, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And that was then reduced to 16 weeks later on?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: It was reduced initially to 20 weeks and then subsequently to 16 weeks later, yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: You told us in your witness statement, perhaps unsurprisingly:

“I would describe the early stages of the pandemic as very challenging due to the exceptionally high levels of demand for PPE product.”

And NHS organisations were ordering large amount of PPE. Is it right that NHS organisations early on didn’t really know how much PPE product they needed?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes, I would say that was pretty much the position. So, you know, and I’m not being flippant here but, you know, if I could equate it to what I’m sure everybody saw in their own lives at that point in March – February, March, April 2020, you go to the supermarkets, certain shelves would be cleared of certain products, simply for exactly the same reason. The principle is the same. I think there was a general, sort of, maybe “panic” is too strong a word, but there was large volume requests coming through, but I think it was a factor of, you know, concern as to having enough product and not knowing how long this thing was going to last for.

But that’s, sorry, me speculating, I suppose, to some extent.

Counsel Inquiry: Did NWSSP engage in what has been termed by other witnesses as “demand management”? The cancelling down of orders or the encouraging of trusts or health boards to reduce their orders?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: No, I wouldn’t say – I wouldn’t term it that way. Certainly in the initial two, three weeks, maybe four weeks, of, you know, most of March, possibly – I suppose to set the context to that question. We were dealing with a finite amount of stock that was held in the PIPP stockpile, with no, certainly up to the third week in March, I would argue, no real clear line of sight as to how that was going to be replenished or if it was going to be replenished.

Bearing that in mind and bearing in mind what I’d just previously said about potential, sort of, almost panic to get product into the hospitals, we had to make sure that that PIPP stockpile was available to all health boards and trusts across Wales. We couldn’t have a position where one health board came in and took 60 to 70% of the stock leaving others without anything. So in that respect we had to make sure there were sufficient quantities for everybody. So we had to make a determination.

However, I would further qualify that to say that Welsh Government also gave instruction on certain products as to the initial volumes to release to the health boards for products such as type 2R masks and FFP3s, and it wasn’t until we started to bring our own inward supply lines in, towards the end of March and onwards, and then the development of the demand modelling and the history that started to develop about regular patterns of use that then things started to settle down.

Counsel Inquiry: That raises, I suppose, two topics: the first is visibility of stock of PPE across the NHS estate, broadly, across the social care sector in due course –

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Mm-hm.

Counsel Inquiry: – and across NWSSP warehouses, and also data around usage rates, which I think you accept wasn’t available, simply didn’t exist before the pandemic.

Can we turn up, please, INQ000500182.

While that’s coming up on screen, NWSSP received assistance from the military in relation to both of those topics, didn’t it?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: So this is a report dated 11 May prepared by the military, “Improving Visibility and Management – Report 1”. There’s a report 2 as well.

If we take a look at the executive summary there:

“The overall assessment was that NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership and the delivery of PPE within Wales … [had] maintained … regular stock inflow …”

And that while the systems were “fragile”, it could “sustain within the current demand phase”. But it warned:

“If the recommendations proposed in this report are not acted upon, SSP could be capable to continue past the ‘surge peak’ phase we are moving into and crucially, maintain supplies in the event of a return to COVID-19 surge conditions … remain inefficient and costly, inflexible and lack the full visibility of PPE stock levels, consumption, and potential blockages …”

Could we go to page 2 of that document. Thank you very much.

It provides an overview. And at paragraph 6 we see that there was a “lack of confidence” detected, that there was a perception among frontline staff, both within the NHS and social care sector, that there were shortages of PPE:

“This ‘lack of confidence’ has resulted in unsustainable practices of stock hoarding in certain parts of the system and over demand.”

Does that reflect your experience as well?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: I would say so. I think the sentence after that is very telling in terms of why that lack of confidence existed, in terms of, really, a lack of information as to what stock was in the hospitals themselves, and we were developing a clearer idea of how much demand was going through the system but in the very early days, as you’ve rightly said, we were starting really from scratch in that regard. And that’s why our colleagues in the NHS and Wales really didn’t have an understanding of what a day of supply consisted of.

Add into the mix changes to the use of PPE.

Counsel Inquiry: The IPC guidance – (overspeaking) –

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes. And that again, I would suggest, caused further concerns as to what stock would be required and in what volumes at times, within the NHS more generally.

Counsel Inquiry: Can we go to page 7 of that same document, please. “Inaccurate Reports and returns system, DCR recalculations and modelling”.

Effectively what’s identified here is that there was a need to get a common logistics picture, and that there were inaccuracies at the time of writing the report on usage data, effectively.

NWSSP contracted with Deloitte. Is it right that Deloitte developed modelling that gave a picture of stock held locally by health boards and joint equipment stores?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: I would say the – Deloitte’s modelling didn’t provide details of what was physically and actually being held locally and in joint equipment stores, but it provided a forward look into what would likely be required by those areas, as opposed to a realtime picture of what was actually there. And I think that gap in information was one of the problems that resulted in what came out of the military reports recommendations further down the line.

Counsel Inquiry: The second report, which is dated 4 June 2020, recommended a pan-Wales PPE reporting and tracking tool. It suggested a particular piece of software. Is it right that NWSSP introduced the StockWatch system?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: That’s correct, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And is that still in use to this day?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: In certain places it is, but more generally I would say it’s not in use any longer.

Counsel Inquiry: All right. Thinking back to the pandemic, did that then provide an effective overview of stock levels and usage rates during the pandemic?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: It contributed to a more effective overview. It wasn’t the full answer, not because the system itself and the plan to introduce it was in any way flawed; it was the right thing to do. But it didn’t provide a full picture simply because it wasn’t completed. The information wasn’t input into the system at source, either in the hospital or in the joint equipment stores, on a consistent or regular basis. And in some cases, you know, we only got information keyed into that system maybe on a weekly basis, which really meant that, you know, we were still having gaps in understanding how much stock those areas actually required.

Counsel Inquiry: In the future, would it be useful to have an automated system that wasn’t reliant on human input, of updates and stock levels?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes, and within Shared Services and NHS Wales more generally we have, over the last few years, introduced Scan for Safety, which is bar code scanning for medical devices more generally, and that is a system that we will be applying, and do apply on certain products already, to some of the PPE range which takes away the necessity of this sort of more manual intervention.

Counsel Inquiry: I’m going to deal very briefly now with excess PPE. You tell us in your witness statement that in terms of excess stock, at paragraph 230, that:

“NWSSP has written off and written down, in the two years up to April 2022, £12,000,000 of stock due to reevaluation and expiry of shelf life. This represents just over 3% of the value of the total PPE stock purchased …”

So that’s expiring, but that is also writing down because the resale value has gone down; is that right?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes, that’s correct. So in the following paragraph, 231, the actual amount of write-off due to expiring of; that figure was just under £2 million. So of that £12 million, the vast majority of it was written down as in the stock’s fine, it is in date life, but we wrote down the value to the market price as it is, or it was then.

Counsel Inquiry: Yes. And going forward post-2022, the monthly cost of additional commercial storage for PPE is £13,411; is that right?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And is NWSSP continuing to explore ways of disposing of stock that is considered excess, that is beyond the buffer that’s required by Welsh Government?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes, we are. We’ve already implemented, put in place donations over the last period of time to several countries and we’ve also – we are also currently exploring auctioning off some of the PPE as well.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

I’m going to ask you now to address some example contracts, if we can?

In your second witness statement you helpfully go through some example contracts which were entered into during the pandemic in respect of PPE. The first is a contract with Anhui. This was awarded on 6 May 2020 in respect of type IIR face masks. The total cost eventually was £23,400,000.

This was a contract entered into on behalf of all four nations of the UK; is that right?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: That’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: And the stocks secured in fact saw Wales through to February 2021; is that right?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: That’s correct. We further modified that contract to take a further, sort of, a doubling of the initial amount, and we brought the second modification – the second part of that into Wales alone, so the first part supplied the whole of the UK, all four nations, and the second part was then for Wales.

Counsel Inquiry: And as we try and trace it through very quickly from cradle to grave, this was not a supplier that came to your attention through the triage process that we have looked at, with Life Sciences Hub Wales, this came through a sourcing agent called BTB Wales; is that right?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Correct, yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: And BTB Wales had been appointed by NWSSP to do precisely this kind of work; is that correct?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes, but I think it’s important to point out that BTB Wales themselves came to our attention through the same triage process so they didn’t come to us, sort of, outside of that process, and they were – they came in through that same portal.

Counsel Inquiry: Did BTB Wales act as an intermediary or were they simply – did they get a cut of the price or did they simply facilitate the introduction?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: They facilitated but they were much more than that. They had people on the ground in China, Malaysia in particular where we sourced these products from, who inspected the factories, did a lot of the due diligence and the quality control checks, and they were also responsible for the insurance and freight forwarding arrangements.

Counsel Inquiry: So they assisted a great deal in the process of the –

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Correct, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – of securing the item.

Once NWSSP had concluded that it would be a viable contract, the contract had to come before the Financial Governance Group.

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Their role was to scrutinise any proposed deal if it was of particularly high value; is that right?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: That’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: We can see there INQ000540492. It’s a document placed before the FGG, the Finance Governance Group. So basic details about the proposed contract were set out there. The idea was to provide about 95% of the volume to other nations but you’ve explained that there were some variations on that.

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: If we go to page 13 of that document, the group felt that the price was competitive but carried considerable risk and further due diligence was required.

We see there was a further meeting held, 30 April 2020. Were those concerns then addressed?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes, they were. I mean, the risk was perceived initially that there was a risk in dealing with BTBW but the contract wasn’t established with BTBW, the contract was established directly with the manufacturer in the source country. And furthermore the funds and the payments was done through – was transacted through an escrow account which provided security for the funds until we had the assurances that the product met the quality standards at dockside or airport side before it came into the UK, and we had those certifications and those assurances in hand.

And so there was a phased release of funds, which provided assurance and mitigated a substantial amount of any risk.

Counsel Inquiry: And there were also stages of delivery and stages of payment, were there not?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Correct, and because of the volumes here, these were staged deliveries, in some cases over 13 separate deliveries, and then, in terms of the method of delivery, some of this was brought in through sea freight as well, which kept the costs low, as well.

Counsel Inquiry: You’ve rightly pointed out the contract was established with the company, with Anhui, as opposed to BTB Wales. A contract award notice was ultimately published in relation to this contract. Does that contract award notice name Anhui?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: It names BTBW as the contractor, and the contract award notice refers to that work – to the work that BTBW undertook, which was the SGS, or the quality assurance approvals, the insurance, the freight forwarding work, and that part of their work that they were responsible for.

The contract with Anhui itself was signed, and it’s in the evidence, but there was no contract award notice specifically for Anhui because they were based in China, which at that point in time was outside of the EU and outside of the government procurement arrangements, so outside of GPAs. So there was no legal obligation for us to provide a contract award notice for that company.

Counsel Inquiry: If a member of the public wanted to look at the contract award notice, they would see BTB Wales?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Mm.

Counsel Inquiry: In your view, does the failure to name Anhui, in light of everything you’ve said around legal obligations, and I’m not suggesting they weren’t met, does that provide full transparency for the taxpayer?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: I think it does, to the point that in the actual award notice, I believe in the body of the notice itself, which was published, it refers to the payment to BTBW for their work, was in respect of establishing that contract with Anhui. So there was reference to the manufacturer.

I take your point, however, that a member of the public, you know, would not have been able to find a contract award notice for Anhui as such, because of the reasons I’ve stated. So from a transparency point of view, I suppose, that would not have been visible to a member of the public, who wouldn’t have had wider knowledge of that transaction.

Counsel Inquiry: And ultimately, there were no issues identified with the product, and it was distributed across all four nations?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Correct, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: I’m going to very briefly touch upon an example, another example, of what I suppose we might describe as mutual aid.

NWSSP, in April 2020, entered into a contract for the supply of PPE with a company called Continuum (Scotland) Ltd?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: The contract value was just over £21 million.

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Mm-hm.

Counsel Inquiry: The items were received within Wales. At the time the order was placed, there was a real danger of stockout, wasn’t there?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yeah, the position in Wales was more stable in that we had other lines of supply at that point in time already landed, or inbound to us. So while it was still an important contract for us and, you know, the volumes that we brought in were significant, you know, our position had stabilised a bit more than it had been at the start of the pandemic for that product.

Counsel Inquiry: The product was received, supply had stabilised. In due course, NWSSP resold some of this stock to BSO PaLS in Northern Ireland; is that right?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Correct, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: I think they purchased just over £5 million worth of this PPE. BSO PaLS ultimately withdrew those items from use in Northern Ireland. In your witness statement you detail the reasons of which you are aware, which is that the – they were described as providing poor fit.

They were face masks that had a device fitted to ensure a good fit across the bridge of the nose and it wasn’t made of the material that BSO PaLS wanted it to be, but it was sufficient for Wales. This was a matter of preference as opposed to technical regulatory compliance, wasn’t it?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes, so it wasn’t that it was a preference for Wales was the main reason. The type 2R face mask itself was assessed and approved as meeting all of the necessary technical and regulatory requirements for a type 2R face mask. The material that the nose clip is made of in this particular consignment was plastic, and you mould that around the bridge of the nose to provide a closer fit to the face.

As I understand it, Northern Ireland preferred a metal nose clip, but the material of the nose clip, irrespective of whether it was plastic or metal, had no bearing on whether it met the technical and regulatory requirements for a type 2R face mask.

So, to me, it was a matter that Northern Ireland preferred a metal nose clip, and that my understanding of why they, sort of, refused to use the product.

Counsel Inquiry: And finally, was this issue of preference or items that frontline staff were used to using, was that something that cropped up within Wales as well, and something that NWSSP had to contend with? Preferences for brand, for specific features that were not really to do with whether a regulator deemed them to be safe?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: To an extent. I think the core range of PPE products, face masks, gloves, RPE, you know, FFP3 products and gowns, were very clearly and closely prescribed by the UK cell and therefore into Welsh Government specification. However, in Wales we had very much a preference due to the fit requirements for a particular type of FFP3 mask which was manufactured by 3M, and that limited our ability to source alternative masks from other manufacturers. Even though those masks would have met the standards for an FFP3, the fit test pass rate for our staff would have been a lot lower than it would have been for the 3M.

And staff got – and it’s very understandable, isn’t it, really, that staff want to see a 3M mask because they feel assured, they feel confident wearing it, that it protects them, because they know they have been fit tested on it. If you try and change that to another brand of mask during a pandemic where it could have potentially fatal consequences, obviously they’re going to have concerns, so they wanted the mask that they knew would give them the most protection in terms of a fit test outcome. So that’s how I would describe preference, but it was in that context.

Ms Shehadeh: Thank you.

My Lady, those are my questions for this witness.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much, Ms Shehadeh.

Mr Irvine, we take a break every so often. You have 15 minutes more of questions. I can either take the break now if you are happy to come back after a 15-minute break, or if you need to get away, let me know, and we’ll carry on with the questions.

The Witness: I’m happy either way, so it’s up to you, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: Okay, in which case, probably for the stenographer’s benefit, we’ll take the break, 15 minutes, and then we shall come back and finish you.

The Witness: Thank you.

Lady Hallett: That’s okay. Thank you.

Twenty past, thank you.

(3.06 pm)

(A short break)

(3.20 pm)

Lady Hallett: Can you see and hear me?

Ms Shehadeh: Yes. Thank you, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: Thank you. I think Mr Dayle is next, isn’t he? Thank you. Mr Dayle.

Questions From Mr Dayle

Mr Dayle: Thank you, my Lady.

Mr Irvine, I ask questions on behalf of FEMHO, the Federation of Ethnic Minority Healthcare Organisations, and I have three short topics.

Firstly, paragraph 24 of your statement details the rapid initiation of sourcing activities for PPE during March 2020, including new and existing types of PPE like fluid resistant, thumb loop gowns, and FFP3 masks. Given the diverse needs of healthcare workers, particularly black and ethnic minority groups, how did Procurement Services ensure that these products met varied fit and functionality requirements?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: So Procurement Services procured the range, the prescribed range of PPE products to the specifications and the design requirements that had been laid down by UK Government, IPC, and through Welsh Government, as to what we were to buy. So we had very really very limited latitude in terms of deviating from those prescribed specifications. However, when we look at products such as nitrile examination gloves, for example, we did actively source extra-small sizes of those gloves to meet the specific ethnic needs of a percentage of our nursing population who needed an extra-small glove at the time.

The FFP3 mask itself by design is designed to be adjustable, top and bottom, through strap adjustment. So that in itself was an adjustable mask and we’ve already had discussions about how we tried to ensure we got a mask that met the fit test needs for the vast majority of our staff. So that was the context in which we were working, and those were the actions that we took in that regard.

Mr Dayle: Very well. Secondly, could you clarify how feedback from healthcare workers, especially those from black and ethnic minority groups, regarding fit issues, was integrated into the procurement process to adapt and improve the PPE supplied during the pandemic?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: So any issues that were raised like that would have been fed back in through Welsh Government, because going back – and apologies for repeating – but going back to my previous answer, we, as in Shared Services, as the procuring organisation did not have the latitude to procure alternative variations to the prescribed specification. So it was up to Welsh Government and other policymakers to look at those areas of feedback and make a determination as to whether or not they needed to add to the existing range of products that were established as PPE core lines, or to instruct Shared Services to source and stock an alternative product, a range of products to meet those requirements.

Mr Dayle: Very well. And thirdly and finally, paragraph 29 of your statement, you mention the implementation of new governance measures during the pandemic, including the triage process and the establishment of the Finance Governance Group, or FGG. How did these changes ensure compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty, particularly in terms of addressing the diverse needs of healthcare workers in PPE procurement?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: So all of the requirements for the manufacturing specification design, and all of the different components for a PPE product to keep staff safe were determined by policy leads, UK central government, IPC, cells, and they translated into instructions to ourselves and Procurement Services and procurement colleagues around the UK as to “This is the type of product that you have to purchase”. So in that regard, with respect, I think the question would be better answered by those colleagues who designed those specifications and determined what it was that we were asked to buy because, as I said, our latitude in that respect was rather limited.

Mr Dayle: Very well. Thank you.

Thank you, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: Thank you, Mr Dayle.

Now, Ms Parsons, should you be [microphone muted] unless they’ve moved in my absence?

Questions From Ms Parsons

Ms Parsons: I’m here. Thank you, my Lady.

Good afternoon, Mr Irvine.

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Good afternoon.

Ms Parsons: I ask questions on behalf of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru. I’m going to ask you about two topics. The first topic is supply of PPE to care homes in Wales. We know that on 19 March 2020, the Welsh Government expanded the remit of your organisation, Shared Services, such that it distributed to the social care sector as well. We understand that Shared Services did that by distributing to Local Authority Joint Equipment Stores; is that correct?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: That’s correct, yes.

Ms Parsons: For onward distribution by the local authorities?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes.

Ms Parsons: Care Forum Wales which, as you know, is the main professional representative body for care providers in Wales, they’ve provided a witness statement for this Inquiry. I’m going to ask that you be shown a small passage within it.

Please can we have up on the screen INQ000521963 at page 4.

Paragraph 17 of the statement says this:

“PPE was initially distributed in proportion to the size of the distributing local authority, rather than the size of the care homes within the authority. A new stock management system was introduced in November 2020 that enabled supply to respond to demand rather than allocation.”

Now, at paragraph 76 of your statement, Mr Irvine, you described Shared Services’ inventory management system, called StockWatch, and indeed, you describe some alterations to it in November 2020.

First question is this: when Care Forum Wales were talking there about a new stock management system, do you think it’s likely it was talking about StockWatch?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: Yes, I do. Yes.

Ms Parsons: Why did it take until November 2020, that is some eight months after the Welsh Government’s announcement of the expansion of Shared Services to the social care sector, why did it take until November 2020 to introduce the new stock management system?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: I believe the stock management system StockWatch was introduced earlier than November 2020. The date of November 2020 is significant because that is when we switched to the joint equipment stores keying in or inputting their own data to that system, because prior to that time, my staff had to consistently chase and expedite joint equipment store staff to do that work and to provide us with the information for us to input on their behalf. Which, given where we were in the pandemic, was putting additional pressure on my resources.

So I don’t – I wouldn’t say it was in November 2020 when the system was introduced. November 2020, as it states in my system (sic), was the date in which it switched to direct user input, so the joint equipment stores employees input the data themselves into that system. That then helped to inform my warehouse staff as to what their requirements were. Up until that point, we were relying on those staff to send my staff that information so we could key it into the system themselves. So, you know, that couldn’t continue. So we put the responsibility back to the joint equipment stores to do that.

Ms Parsons: Thank you, Mr Irvine.

Can I ask you the question, then, on the basis that it refers to the change in system in November 2020 that you’ve described, why did it take that long to implement what, with respect, would seem to be a fairly obvious change?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: I think it’s because the military reports highlighted the need for a stock management system, both at joint equipment store and in hospital levels for management of the stock and visibility of the stock at that point.

Why it took that long was because we were consistently, and through the PPE Executive Leads Group, and the Welsh Government groups, raising the issue that we had gaps in the information from joint equipment stores coming to us. To be fair, some joint equipment stores did provide us with regular information on what their requirements were. Others didn’t. My staff were consistently trying to plug the gap for the local authorities in that regard.

So it wasn’t about a delay in implementing the system; it was about we got to the point where we couldn’t – as I said a minute ago, we couldn’t continue to provide that sort of level of input into this process.

Ms Parsons: If I may say, Mr Irvine, I detect an element of frustration in your answer about the lack of input from those at local authority level. Is that fair?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: I don’t think it’s fair to call it frustration. I think what it did, it added to the pressure on the system in that if we didn’t have the data coming through from the joint equipment store then it was more difficult for us to accurately determine what their requirements were.

So any frustration, if you want to use that word – your word, not mine – would be that we weren’t able necessarily to understand that we were filling their full requirements. I believed we were, but we didn’t have that information, so it did prove challenging at the time.

Ms Parsons: Thank you, Mr Irvine.

Before we move on from this, you’ve suggested that there were gaps in your understanding at a local level. That was your evidence today. Does that mean, then, in effect that some health boards and some local authorities did not have enough PPE because you did not have a sufficiently clear picture of what their stock level was?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: No, I think it’s actually the opposite. What we found on a number of occasions were that we were being told that “Well, we don’t have enough of a particular product”, only to be able to provide the evidence very quickly that we had made a delivery of that product to that particular joint equipment store the day before, or even the same day at times. So the issue about the accuracy of the data was that we believed that we had more than enough PPE in the joint equipment stores, but that the joint equipment stores weren’t necessarily or, indeed, the local authorities, more generally, weren’t aware potentially of what was actually there.

Ms Parsons: So plenty of stock, they just didn’t know about it?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: On some occasions I believe that’s the case, yes.

Ms Parsons: I’ll move on to my second topic, which is lessons learned. You set out lessons learned in five paragraphs at the end of your witness statement, paragraphs 225 to 229. We don’t need to turn them up. But I want to ask you about the reference you make to the Audit Wales report. You say the report recognised that “we overcame early challenges in relation to the provision of PPE without running out of stock at a national level.”

What about overcoming challenges at a local level, Mr Irvine? We know that problems persisted, members of the group I represent witnessed shortages well into the pandemic and into 2021. They probably won’t recognise the description that you’ve offered of “plenty of supplies”. Can you help? Do you accept that there were shortages that persisted? And if so, what lessons can be learned from localised shortages?

Mr Jonathan Irvine: The first point to make is that I absolutely accept what your colleagues are telling you and what I’ve heard more widely in the NHS. So I have no reason to dispute the lived experience of people in care homes, carers, staff in wards at the time. I think the more important issue here is to understand what the responsibilities of my organisation are and where they started and where they ended.

And when you talk about a national position, in our warehouses we did not run out of stock on the shelf. We continued to supply day and daily to the NHS, to social care and to primary care, to the point of delivery in those particular areas.

What happened to the product after it was delivered and how it was managed and distributed onwards, and that issue has been referenced in at least two of the military reports about problems for the onward management and distribution, is the responsibility of those organisations themselves, whether they’re the hospitals within the health boards, or whether it’s the local authorities. So I don’t dispute the lived experiences but my own lived experience of this was that at a national level, we continued to have a flow of stock through the system at all times, and I’ve just tried to explain where we bridged into those areas and where we dropped the product into.

So that’s all I can comment on in that respect.

Ms Parsons: Thank you very much, Mr Irvine.

Thank you, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: Thank you, Ms Parsons.

Thank you very much indeed, Mr Irvine. That concludes our questions for you. I’m sorry we had to keep you until after the break. I am sorry because I think we’ve still got a colleague of yours waiting in the wings, so at least you didn’t get the last slot of the day. Thank you very much for your help with the Inquiry.

The Witness: Thank you.

Lady Hallett: Thank you.

Ms Shehadeh: My Lady, our next witness is Richard Davis.

My Lady, please can be witness be sworn or affirmed.

Lady Hallett: Thank you.

Mr Richard Davis

MR RICHARD DAVIS (sworn).

Questions From Counsel to the Inquiry

Lady Hallett: Mr Davis, I’m sorry we kept you waiting so long. Last witness of the day.

The Witness: Not at all, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: Ms Shehadeh.

Ms Shehadeh: Can you state your full name for the record, please.

Mr Richard Davis: Richard Davis.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. You have provided the Inquiry with a witness statement. The document reference number for that is INQ000527722. And it is dated 10 December 2024. Is that witness statement true to the best of your knowledge and belief?

Mr Richard Davis: It is.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

Now, by way of professional background, if I could just ask you to set that out, you joined Welsh Government in 2012; is that correct?

Mr Richard Davis: Correct.

Counsel Inquiry: And that was after a 30-year career in the British Army –

Mr Richard Davis: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – is that right? You were in fact awarded an MBE in 1997 and you were also awarded an OBE after commanding an inventory battalion from 2003 to 2006; is that right?

Mr Richard Davis: That’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: You attained the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Mr Richard Davis: I did.

Counsel Inquiry: And you have served as a senior civil servant for a number of years and you set out the details of your service at paragraph 6 of your witness statement.

What was your role during the pandemic?

Mr Richard Davis: My role was the lead government official within a group called the Critical Equipment Requirement Engineering Team, known locally as CERET.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. And CERET was in fact run or chaired by your colleague James Davies; is that correct?

Mr Richard Davis: Yes, that’s correct.

Counsel Inquiry: But you continued to have a leading role within that organisation?

Mr Richard Davis: I was the senior civil servant within that group.

Counsel Inquiry: And what is your role now?

Mr Richard Davis: So I have semi-retired, and I left the CERET role, worked for a number of years supporting the Tata transition, and now I’m looking at a number of projects within Welsh Government including a thing called the National Manufacturing Institute.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you for setting that out.

You address in your witness statement that the workings of CERET. Before we come on to that, you’ve also very helpfully provided an overview of two organisations that were part of CERET: Industry Wales and Life Sciences Hub. We’ll briefly touch on that, if that’s all right.

Industry Wales is the trading name of the Sector Development Wales Partnership Limited, which is a company established by Welsh ministers as at 29 January 2013; is that right?

Mr Richard Davis: Correct.

Counsel Inquiry: And its role is to advise Welsh ministers about the Welsh manufacturing sector to support engineering, technology and manufacturing businesses in Wales and to support the Aerospace Wales Forum, Net Zero Industry Wales, technology, amongst other things. A list of responsibilities.

You describe that Industry Wales played a leading role within CERET. What was Industry Wales’s part to play within CERET?

Mr Richard Davis: Okay. Just to go back, in terms of concept, the situation at the time, we only had the three forums. You’ve mentioned Net Zero Industry Wales. During the pandemic we only had support to the automotive, aerospace and Technology Connected. Net Zero Industry Wales came on a little bit later.

The key for Industry Wales was in fact an individual, was James Davies, and James Davies, who I would refer to and continue to refer to as a captain of industry, he was the chief executive of Industry Wales, having completed a significant period with the Japanese – a Japanese automotive component company. He came in to us and he was recruited specifically by Welsh Government to give that unfettered advice to the minister, and support the manufacturing base.

So James led CERET, led Industry Wales, and I acted in support of him.

Counsel Inquiry: And on occasions when he was unable to chair meetings, for example, you would perform that role?

Mr Richard Davis: Yes, I did. Yes, I did. And vice versa.

Counsel Inquiry: And vice versa?

Mr Richard Davis: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: Life Sciences Hub provide support and guidance to develop life sciences, innovations and bring them to the frontline for use in the health and social care sector in Wales, is that an accurate description?

Mr Richard Davis: Yes, it is. The way to describe them would be as a front door for that vital sector, and if a company was interested in life sciences, the Life Sciences Hub would look after them and show them what was available within Wales. And they still do, very well.

Counsel Inquiry: Turning, then, to CERET, which is the key focus of your witness statement. You tell us at paragraph 56 that you received a verbal confirmation from the minister for economy to bring the industry and NHS Shared Services Partnership together to support their supply chain and that you acted immediately. And the first formally recorded meeting minutes of CERET are dated 20 March 2020.

Are you telling us there that you played a key part in, in fact, setting CERET up?

Mr Richard Davis: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Yes. And you say – you describe CERET as being most active between that date, March 2020, and June 2020. And it was wound down, then, in the autumn of 2021; is that right?

Mr Richard Davis: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And its final meeting took place on 29 June 2021.

When CERET was first set up, what was its initial focus?

Mr Richard Davis: So we had a very – because of James Davies and because of my colleagues, we had a very good understanding of the manufacturing base in Wales.

And the Welsh manufacturing base is supply chain. We had no original equipment manufacturers, it’s all supply chain, supporting larger companies.

What was very clear was that manufacturing base wanted to help. They wanted to do what they could for Wales, for the rest of the UK, and were prepared to virtually do anything, and they came to us saying, “What can we do?”

Counsel Inquiry: Sorry, just pausing there. When you say, “They came to us”, are you referring there to Industry Wales or are you referring to CERET?

Mr Richard Davis: So in terms of initially, we put out a– we had a – we were talking in mid-March and getting to know the situation as the tempo increased. We then had the Ventilator Challenge coming out from the UK Government, and then we had a whole series of calls to action from James Davies, from the Life Sciences Hub, and from the First Minister, saying, “What can you do for us? Can we find a local answer to a local problem?”

Counsel Inquiry: Right. And those approaches from local manufacturers who you describe as offering their services and wanting to do whatever they could, those were in response to those calls to action, or did they predate those calls to action?

Mr Richard Davis: Some predate them. Some predated them. I took phone calls from some, some of the larger companies, particularly GE Aviation or Airbus, saying, “What can we do?” But on the whole, they came to us via the triage system which I’ll explain later.

Counsel Inquiry: The terms of reference for CERET were not settled until November 2020. Why was that?

Mr Richard Davis: We had some draft terms of reference which we wrote in April and May. To be absolutely honest, I didn’t realise that they were not formalised until the thing was almost over, until the November.

Counsel Inquiry: Can we have them up on screen, please, they are at INQ000 – there we are. Thank you ever so much.

“Terms of Reference, Governance Arrangements and Lessons Learned”.

So by the time the formal terms of reference were settled, you were in a position to draw together some lessons learned –

Mr Richard Davis: Yes, we were.

Counsel Inquiry: – based on your experience in the pandemic.

We see there on page 1 the four procurement routes. Route 1: existing supplier base, straightforward procurement. Route 2: existing supplier base, some minor restrictions on supply. Route 3: supply limitations, requires manufacturers to adapt processes. And Route 4: supply does not exist.

You tell us in your witness statement that the focus of CERET was on routes 3 and 4. When CERET was first set up, was it set up with a view to assisting with routes 3 and 4 or was it set up with a different purpose in mind?

Mr Richard Davis: It was set up to support the Shared Services Partnership and support the Emergency Coordination Centre. So those four routes became clear as it developed, as we developed the sort of modus operandi of how we worked.

Counsel Inquiry: Right. And can you explain the interplay between the work of CERET and the Ventilator Challenge UK?

Mr Richard Davis: So the Ventilator Challenge was initiated by a gentleman called Dick Elsy from Innovate UK. We worked very closely, or James in particular worked very closely with Mr Elsy. And the Ventilator Challenge, so, it initially started to gain momentum with the manufacturers in Wales, or the manufacturers across the whole of the UK, but it became very clear that we could do much more. And we stepped back from supporting the Innovate UK momentum by looking at what we could do ourselves and support the Shared Services Partnership. That’s where the discussion started with other suppliers, what else was needed from the Shared Services Partnership.

Counsel Inquiry: And we’ve heard from NWSSP this afternoon that CERET would be provided with something called the Critical Equipment List?

Mr Richard Davis: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And was that the basis of the work that CERET then went on to do?

Mr Richard Davis: So the context of this was we initially set up to see what we could do for the Ventilator Challenge. We weren’t needed, but it was very clear that we were needed internally in support of the Shared Services Partnership, and as a – that really started the calls to arms, the emails out to all the companies, “Gentlemen – ladies and gentlemen, can you help us? What can you do to support us?”

And in terms of the Ventilator Challenge, that went really back to the UK Government and we stayed with routes 3 and 4 for the Shared Services Partnership.

Counsel Inquiry: In terms of assisting NWSSP, we’ve heard about the triage role performed by Life Sciences Hub. In terms of the wider work of CERET, assisting manufacturers in switching their facilities to PPE production, what was the split of work between assisting NWSSP with triage and technical assessment, and that, I suppose, outward-facing role of helping companies who wanted to take part in the PPE effort, if I can call it that?

Mr Richard Davis: No, absolutely. So in terms of the demand, the pure demand came from the Shared Services Partnership. They had that Critical Equipment List and we were trying to help them fill any demand or any deltas that existed. To do that, we had two initial points of entry for companies. One was Business Wales and the other one was the Life Sciences Hub. In very simple terms, the life science companies tended to go to the Life Sciences Hub. Anybody else from any other sectors would go to Business Wales saying, “I’m Dickie Davis Limited, I’d like to help you with the procurement of glasses, what can I do?”

That then came through the funnel, and it became very clear very quickly that the Shared Services Partnership could not quote – could not deal with the sheer number of people coming through. Life Sciences Hub came forward and said, “We can help you with the triage.”

Life Sciences Hub were integral to CERET, Shared Services Partnership were integral to CERET, et cetera, my own team was obviously integral, and as we came down the filter, was Dickie Davis Limited what he says he is on the tin, do they make widgets? We then put them through Creditsafe. If they needed certification, if they said that I can produce a widget but it wasn’t – you know, I produced this, this is a prototype, we then put them to the Surgical Materials Testing Laboratory. If they were who they say they were and they were producing what they said they would, and it was certified straight onto Shared Services Partnership, if they needed some further help from us, we used, passed it on to our regional colleagues or our innovation colleagues who could bring market intelligence finance, equipment to support them changing their supply process to support the NHS.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

Now in terms of budget, CERET – well, you had a delegated authority to utilise the budget of up to £5 million –

Mr Richard Davis: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – is that right? And there was additional funding to support CERET, and that came from a £6 million Welsh Government innovation fund.

Mr Richard Davis: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: You show us at paragraph 49 at page 15 of your witness statement how that funding was ultimately spent.

That’s INQ000527722. Page 15. There we are.

So some was spent on continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) devices, and we’ll come back to that in a moment.

Mr Richard Davis: Thank you.

Counsel Inquiry: Some for supporting volunteers making scrubs, funding for transport to deliver materials, some were spent on creating a “back to work” video, reminding people to wear masks, to adhere to social distancing and so on. And £100,000 was given to Industry Wales to reimburse Industry Wales for its purchases of CPAP devices and oximeters.

The innovation work that was done, you describe at paragraph 152 of your statement a number of initiatives in which CERET was involved. One example you give is the repurposing of technology used in financial services as a Covid-19 symptom tracker. And in this example, the role of CERET was effectively to bring together two companies so that they could develop a new product. Is that, in very simple terms, what was –

Mr Richard Davis: Yes, absolutely.

Counsel Inquiry: You also talk about clear masks. There was a need for these so that those with hearing impairments would be able to see the faces, the facial expressions, of care and healthcare staff. Some work was done on this. It was ultimately taken forward by UK Government. So was it right that CERET had to pause its work in this regard?

Mr Richard Davis: Yes. I go back to my earlier statement. My driving force was the Shared Services Partnership. They would turn to me and say they wanted gowns or visors or masks or whatever. I was working to their demand.

Counsel Inquiry: Now, in terms of the success of CERET, you’re not able to tell us, are you, how many contracts NWSSP awarded to companies that had received assistance and support from CERET?

Mr Richard Davis: No.

Counsel Inquiry: Would it have been helpful to have access to that kind of information?

Mr Richard Davis: No. And I say that because I was supporting, helping, guiding the Welsh manufacturing base to support the NHS and the Emergency Coordination Centre. They were the people who were saying that we needed that particular equipment, the visors, the masks, whatever it happened to be. So, you know, it didn’t really matter what the equipment was or what the issue was, we were there to support them.

Counsel Inquiry: So your measure of success was if NWSSP said they needed more help, that help was provided once they were satisfied you felt the job was done?

Mr Richard Davis: My measure of success is the fact that we never ran out of vital, critical equipment. And also, on a personal level, the companies proud of what they achieved: the Royal Mint producing the visors, Penderyn Whisky producing hand sanitisers, et cetera. But in terms of my personal measure of success, it’s: did we ever run out of equipment? And the answer was no.

Counsel Inquiry: It’s very hard to quantify or trace back how much of the credit for Wales not running out of equipment is due to the work of CERET, isn’t it?

Mr Richard Davis: Very hard. Very hard. Almost impossible.

Counsel Inquiry: This may be a difficult question for you to answer, but should CERET or an equivalent be set up again in the event of a future pandemic?

Mr Richard Davis: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Why?

Mr Richard Davis: Because you’ve got an ability to talk to the manufacturers. You’ve got an awareness of what is being made, produced or could be made. You’ve got an awareness of the quality of manufacturing in Wales. Can we use those companies? Can we use those facilities? Can we use those HE or FE facilities for innovation to support whatever the demand of a pandemic? So yes, I would absolutely suggest that a similar grouping should be set up.

Counsel Inquiry: NWSSP have told us that they did not observe any noticeable impact on the availability of PPE in Wales as a result of the work of CERET and the allocation of grants to manufacture in order for them to repurpose or manufacture PPE. A reason that is given is the time that it took for new items to gain regulatory approval, for example, and the fact that the majority of buying activity took place early on in the pandemic. That is the view of NWSSP. It has been caveated by acknowledging that British Rototherm, which did receive assistance from CERET –

Mr Richard Davis: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – subsequently received several contract awards worth a total of £15.5 million. That is a notable success there.

Mr Richard Davis: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And also, that the production of – domestic production of hand sanitiser was something, although not strictly PPE, that was a success story –

Mr Richard Davis: Oh good, okay.

Counsel Inquiry: – coming out of CERET. In light of that comment from Procurement Services, how do you think domestic manufacturers in Wales can quickly, swiftly, switch their capabilities to PPE during a pandemic?

Mr Richard Davis: How could they?

Counsel Inquiry: If, indeed, you think they can.

Mr Richard Davis: The strategic answer to that is manufacturing is in our DNA. We have got a significant number of highly skilled engineering companies with a lot of innovators at the universities, at the colleges, etc, etc.

I think, as long as we have an awareness of what the manufacturing processes are, and what is required, and there is a willingness to change their processes and there may be some form of remuneration required for them to change, it could be done again, and I’m sure it would be.

Counsel Inquiry: I suppose the slight challenge to your evidence would be: well, an awful lot of work went into supporting Welsh manufacturers, encouraging them to switch their capabilities to supplying PPE. NWSSP has said, with some notable exceptions, it didn’t bear fruit in time.

Mr Richard Davis: Mm.

Counsel Inquiry: Was it worth doing?

Mr Richard Davis: I mean, I read that statement, and if I’m absolutely honest, I was very disappointed and rather saddened to read that statement. Mainly because I had colleagues from the Shared Services Partnership with me throughout the period, and they also sat next to me when we won an award for the collaboration and the timeliness between the two of us. So I was a little surprised. I’m glad that they’ve put the caveat about Rototherm. There are a number of other companies, and I’m very glad for the likes of Gower Gin and GE, and BCB, et cetera, that their work has been acknowledged.

Counsel Inquiry: You mentioned the award. You’re quite right to raise that. That award was in relation to ways of working, collaboration, good communication, that sort of thing.

Mr Richard Davis: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Have I understood that correctly?

Mr Richard Davis: Yes, you have, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And in the time remaining I’m going to turn to Micronel and the spend on CPAP components, if I may.

CERET did carry out some early work early in the pandemic in an attempt to ensure that Wales had critical equipment available. I suppose cutting to the chase, CERET placed an order for 10,000 component parts that were intended to be used in the building of CPAP machines; is that right?

Mr Richard Davis: Correct.

Counsel Inquiry: At paragraph 128 of your statement, you say CERET made a risk-based decision to commit to purchasing 10,000 component parts before the exact forecast demand was known, in view of global demand. So is it correct that you didn’t, at the time of committing to that purchase – I say you, CERET – didn’t have a definitive decision from the NHS as to the numbers of CPAP machines or ventilators that they thought were needed?

Mr Richard Davis: So it was – I made that decision. And yes, that is correct. We did not have a demand. So this is the mid-March, beginning of the third week, UK Ventilator Challenge going on. This is that timescale, with the extraordinary pace and tempo that you’re only too aware of. But it was I that took that decision to go for the 10,000.

Counsel Inquiry: And 10,000, why that number?

Mr Richard Davis: So the background to this was we had seen the demand from the UK Ventilator Challenge. We had a significant number of very senior clinicians in Wales saying that the CPAP device, the non-invasive ventilator, was going to be the ventilator of choice, because you could take it from home to the hospital and then back to home – we had significant discussions between our innovation colleagues and the Cabinet – the UK Cabinet Office about numbers, and there was discussions of 15 to 30,000 ventilators being needed. We needed a high number. I said 10,000. 10,000 blowers and circuit boards, to make those things –

Counsel Inquiry: Component parts?

Mr Richard Davis: Component parts.

Counsel Inquiry: Yes.

Mr Richard Davis: Correct.

Counsel Inquiry: Subsequently, you revised that position and reached the conclusion that in fact you only needed 2,000 of those components.

Mr Richard Davis: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Several steps were explored to mitigate the financial loss. Ultimately, the cost of those parts was written off, I think, to the tune of just over £500,000 –

Mr Richard Davis: 565,000. Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Was this the only write-off for which CERET was responsible?

Mr Richard Davis: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Looking back, how could this, this situation have been avoided? Or indeed, do you take the view that it was unavoidable at the time in the circumstances?

Mr Richard Davis: Would I make the same decision again, knowing what I know now? Clearly not. But would I make the same decision knowing what I knew then? Yes, I would. Because the numbers – it was that extraordinary period where the fatality numbers were going up by the hour. We were trying desperately to get a ventilator system that worked and could be relied upon. We had had – there was a local company that had designed this. We had the ability to make this via – either with this company called CR Clarke, or with Panasonic, that were certified, and I took that risk-based decision.

In hindsight, thank god it wasn’t necessary – or they weren’t necessary.

Counsel Inquiry: I’d just like to turn to lessons learned, recommendations and reflections now. You offer some personal reflections in your witness statement. You’ve reflected on, I think you’ve told us already, the closeness of teams, and you say that was extremely valuable. You reflected on trust and good teamwork.

You also speak to the importance of arm’s length bodies and I’d like you to just clarify what you mean by this:

“Governments need arms-length bodies and vice versa to ensure truth is brought to power based on sound information and intelligence.”

What do you mean by that, in very concrete terms?

Mr Richard Davis: Ministers need to hear what is really going in. And it takes a certain civil servant and a certain experienced individual to be able to tell ministers that “That is not right” or “This is the way things are actually happening.”

Arm’s length bodies, and in particular James Davies, was very, very good at saying – giving an unfettered view. They could say what they wanted to say to the ministers. And in my experience of dealing with a number of economy ministers, they appreciate actually hearing it. And same for the Life Sciences Hub too.

Ms Shehadeh: Thank you for answering my questions.

My Lady, those are my questions for this witness.

Lady Hallett: Thank you, Ms Shehadeh. I think it’s now Mr Dayle.

Questions From Mr Dayle

Mr Dayle: Thank you, my Lady.

Mr Davis, I ask questions on behalf of FEMHO, the Federation of Ethnic Minority Healthcare Organisations, and I have just one short topic.

Paragraph 27 of your witness statement outlines CERET’s structured approach to procurement during the pandemic, particularly focusing on developing and delivering solutions under routes 3 and 4, which involved adapting processes where supply limitations existed or created new supply routes where none existed.

Could you clarify, please, how equality considerations, particularly for black and ethnic minority healthcare workers, were factored into these innovative procurement strategies to ensure that PPE and clinical equipment procured met diverse needs?

Mr Richard Davis: The answer is no, sir, I can’t. Because my direction was from the Shared Services Partnership. So they would say to me “I am short of gloves”, or visors or whatever it happens to be, and I would then use my team to go and find them. So they – that – your question was not within my – clearly I was aware of the moral responsibility and the legal responsibility without any doubt at all, but I was doing what I was required to do by the Shared Services Partnership.

Mr Dayle: Very well, thank you.

Thank you, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: Thank you, Mr Dayle.

Ms Parsons.

Questions From Ms Parsons

Ms Parsons: Thank you, my Lady.

Good afternoon, Mr Davis.

Mr Richard Davis: Good afternoon.

Ms Parsons: I ask questions on behalf on the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru. Two short topics. The first topic is the procurement of ventilators and CPAPs.

Mr Richard Davis: Yes.

Ms Parsons: Insofar as ventilators are concerned, we understand that CERET was originally set up in response to the Ventilator Challenge, but that it ended up supporting NHS Wales with key healthcare resources such as PPE?

Mr Richard Davis: Yes.

Ms Parsons: Given CERET’s expertise and in particular manufacturing expertise, do you think it was a missed opportunity not to use CERET for the purpose for which it was set up, namely ventilators for Wales and the UK more widely?

Mr Richard Davis: No, I don’t.

Ms Parsons: Is that simply because they weren’t needed or for some other reason?

Mr Richard Davis: Because the Shared Services Partnership had the demand. I could then, with route 3 or route 4, I could use my understanding of the manufacturing base to support their demand. That – we initially looked at the CPAP, then it became clear it was PPE, and other innovation products. So it was – the initial question had passed by then.

Ms Parsons: Thank you. You’ve touched on CPAPs and I want to ask you about that now.

Could we have up on the screen, please, INQ000509323.

It’s an email chain, Mr Davis, between James Davies and yourself, amongst others.

Mr Richard Davis: Yes.

Ms Parsons: Could we go, please, to page 7 of that chain. So it’s the penultimate email.

Get that up on the screen, if we can. Yes.

This is an email, as you’ll see, Mr Davis, from Rhys Thomas, that’s Dr Rhys Thomas –

Mr Richard Davis: Yes.

Ms Parsons: – to your colleague James Davies. And as you will see, he describes positive results of a prototype CPAP trial developed by himself in March 2020.

I’m just going to read out the two paragraphs in bold:

“I believe we have a proof of concept but this also supports our strategy in that CPAP should be the mainstay of treatment for these patients, not an ITU ventilator. Covid patients have a complete failure of oxygenation but usually have very compliant lungs. I have never seen this pattern before, but CPAP is the ideal tool for improving oxygenation.”

The next paragraph:

“This has number of advantages in that you don’t need specialist staff, no ITU ventilators and it reduces contamination in the room as it filters the air as it works (it has a 3x viral filters 99.9% effective, better than any face mask). This is quite important as the staff currently don’t have PPE.”

Mr Davis, the Inquiry has heard evidence over the course of this module that CPAPs were cheaper than ventilators, and this email clearly envisages CPAP as an important piece of equipment. Could you or should you have done more to secure CPAPs or were you simply following orders, as it were, and told that they weren’t needed?

Mr Richard Davis: So, first of all, I am not a clinician in any shape or form, and the advisers, the Welsh NHS advisers have, via the Shared Services Partnership, had said that we don’t need the CPAP device to the quantity that we initially thought. So I am going to run with what Shared Services Partnership told me.

Ms Parsons: Thank you.

Next and final topic, please, and it’s about your lessons learned. You’ve in fact already been asked about it but can I ask that you consider again paragraph 158 of your statement:

“Governments need arms length bodies and vice versa to ensure [that] truth is bought to power based on sound information and intelligence.”

We know what truth being brought to power means, typically saying something uncomfortable to those in authority. Can you help us with examples of what you had in mind? What was so uncomfortable that ministers needed to hear whilst you were at CERET?

Mr Richard Davis: No. I’m – I think that is out of the scope of my role as CERET. My view is that we need to tell ministers as much detail as we possibly can about either good news or bad news. But in terms of the CERET and your specific question, I think that’s not for me to answer.

Ms Parsons: Well, I’m just asking you about your lessons learnt.

Mr Richard Davis: So in terms of my lessons learnt –

Ms Parsons: On truth being brought to power, forgive me, they’re your words not mine, Mr Davis. So what does that mean, then, in context?

Mr Richard Davis: So it is very, very important – sorry, I have confused my answer slightly.

It is very, very important that we tell honestly and openly and quickly those points that are concerning, you know, in terms of production or demand, we tell the ministers what is really going on. And if they are not listening, or they haven’t been given the opportunity to listen, find other ways of telling them, and that’s where the arm’s length bodies come in as so important.

Ms Parsons: Thank you.

And just the last few words of your lessons learned, truth needs to be “brought to power based on sound information and intelligence”.

What does that look like? Did you have access to that sound information and intelligence? Or is your point that you didn’t have it and you should have done?

Mr Richard Davis: No. Sorry, I now understand your question. That intelligence was coming to us from the Shared Services Partnership in terms of the demand.

Ms Parsons: Thank you very much, Mr Davis. Those are my questions.

Thank you, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much, Ms Parsons.

That completes the questions we have for you, Mr Davis. Whatever conclusions I reach, I’ve got no doubt that the work you and your colleagues did had to be worthwhile and had to be worth a go, and I suspect I may well find did prove some degree of success, whatever your other colleagues may have said, to your disappointment.

I’m tempted to ask you what it is like to work for a government as opposed to serving in the army, but I’d better not go there either as I don’t want to embarrass you. So thank you very much for your help and we shall adjourn now until 10.00 tomorrow.

The Witness: Thank you, my Lady.

(4.17 pm)

(The hearing adjourned until 10.00 am the following day)