The Times - UK (2020-08-06)

8 2GM Thursday August 6 2020 | the times

News

secretary, launched the app on May 4

he said it would save lives and get the

country back to work, but the techno-

logy was beset by problems.

Trials showed that the NHS software

was able to identify only 75 per cent of

nearby Android handsets and only

4 per cent of iPhones. In contrast soft-

ware created by Apple and Google

logged 99 per cent of both Android

mobiles and iPhones, but ministers

decided not to adopt that technology

A stegosaurus was

suitably masked at

the Natural History

Museum in London,

which reopened its

doors yesterday after

five months

Ministers wasted at least £150 million
buying masks with the wrong kind of
straps from a little-known family invest-
ment company, The Times can reveal.
Health officials signed a £252 million
contract to buy masks for frontline
healthcare staff from Ayanda Capital in
April in a deal brokered by a govern-
ment adviser who also advises the com-
pany’s board.
The contract included 50 million
high-strength “FFP2” medical masks
costing an estimated £150 million to
£180 million and amounting to the en-
tire health system’s expected consump-
tion for a year, as well as 150 million
cheaper “IIR” masks.
Officials have admitted that the
43.5 million Chinese-made FFP
masks delivered so far did not meet

Ministers will launch a scaled back ver-
sion of the coronavirus app this month
after accepting that it was not accurate
enough to be used for contact tracing.
A version that tells people about in-
fection levels in their area and allows
them to use personal information to
calculate a risk score will be trialled.
The app was originally developed as
an automated form of contact tracing,
but is likely to begin instead as an
individualised information and advice
service informing people about their
personal exposure to coronavirus.
The functions being explored
include alerting users when they have
been in contact with more people than
usual.
While Bluetooth signalling showing

nal stated aim of the app, it is now being

downplayed by a business plan that re-

fers to the technology as an “app that

supports the end-to-end NHS Test and

Trace service”.

When Matt Hancock, the health

Ministers waste £150m buying

unusable masks from banker

standards and could not be used in the

NHS, legal documents reveal. The

masks have elastic ear loops instead of

straps that tie around the back of the

head, leading to concerns that they

cannot be fixed securely.

Ayanda Capital, based in London,

specialises in “currency trading, off-

shore property, private equity and trade

financing” and has no history of PPE

procurement or government contracts.

The deal was brokered by an adviser to

its board, Andrew Mills, who is also an

adviser to Liz Truss and the Depart-

ment for International Trade.

Ayanda is run by Tim Horlick, a

former investment banker. It is owned

by the Horlick family via a holding

company registered in a tax haven.

The investment company blamed

the government for the problems with

the masks, saying that Ayanda had only

ever suggested supplying masks with

ear loops and insisting that this had

been approved by government officials

before the contract was signed.

Mr Horlick said that at a “late stage in

our contract” the government had

asked to switch the small number of

FFP2 masks not then delivered “to

headbands from early loop design [and]

we are working with [the Department

of Health and Social Care] to try to

assist them with this matter”.

The government’s admission that

tens of millions of masks were unusable

came in response to a legal case brought

by the Good Law Project, which is seek-

ing a judicial review of the process by

which three PPE contracts were award-

ed at the height of the pandemic.

Officials have not disclosed the exact

price paid for the FFP2 masks but said

that IIR masks were selling for 59p to

64p at the time of the contract and

Ayanda offered an “extremely competi-

tive price”. If the government had paid

64p for the cheaper IIR masks, that

would have amounted to £96 million of

the £252 million contract, with the

remainder paying for FFP2 masks.

Jolyon Maugham, QC, who set up the

Good Law Project, said that he was

“staggered” by the “extraordinary

waste [and] basic incompetence”.

Sir Ed Davey, acting leader of the

Liberal Democrats, said: “The govern-

ment management of PPE in the early

months of the crisis was an almost

unmitigated disaster.”

The deal with Ayanda is the largest

individual PPE contract disclosed by

the government and came amid pur-

chases of £5.5 billion.

Although officials cited the urgency

of the pandemic as the reason for not

requiring normal tendering processes,

PPE delivered under several large

contracts is yet to be deployed to the

NHS, legal documents show.

The other masks supplied by Ayanda

are still awaiting further testing, while

isolation suits delivered under a

£32 million contract with a family-run

pest control supplies company called

Pestfix are also awaiting testing. So, too,

are gowns procured from Clandeboye

Agencies, a confectionery wholesaler

based in Northern Ireland, which was

given a £108 million contract.

A spokesman for the Department of

Health and Social Care said that they

were unable to comment because of

ongoing legal proceedings.

Leading article, page 27

Billy Kenber Investigations Reporter

News Coronavirus

Failed tracing app repackaged

that phones have been near each other

is not yet trusted as a basis for instruct-

ing people to self-isolate for two weeks,

officials hope that giving people data on

how many close contacts they have

could encourage them to stick to social

distancing guidance.

These new functions are due to be

tested in trials in coming weeks with the

hope of having an app available nation-

wide in time for winter. NHS Test and

Trace is planning to launch an app with

whichever functions prove effective, in

the hope of being able to add automat-

ed contact tracing later.

The service has previously an-

nounced plans to allow people to book

coronavirus tests through the app and

use it to scan Quick Response codes at

pubs and restaurants so patrons can be

alerted if other customers test positive.

Although contact tracing was the origi-

Chris Smyth Whitehall Editor
Oliver Wright Policy Editor

Take-up around the world

Italy

The country’s homegrown

contact-tracing app has

been downloaded by

4.6 million people and has

helped to halt two Covid-

clusters, according to Paola

Pisano, the technology

minister (Tom Kington

writes). She said that 63

users of the app, which is

known as Immuni and was

made by an Italian company,

had been diagnosed with

the virus, prompting the

sending of an alert to more

than 100 other users who

had been close to them.

China

With the help of the tech

giants, cities have

introduced a smartphone

app to track people’s

locations and assess

possible exposure to the

virus (Didi Tang writes). The

app also stores a user’s test

results, linked to their ID or

passport number. It uses a

traffic-light system to show

whether someone has been

in contact with a known

carrier. Anyone without a

green code is barred from

offices, shops and parks.

Australia

In April people were urged

to download the

government’s Covidsafe app

to combat the spread of the

virus (Bernard Lagan

writes). Months later the

Behind the story

A

s Boris

Johnson

placed the

country in

lockdown

and hospital wards

began to fill with

coronavirus patients,

officials were

scrambling to buy

protective equipment

(Billy Kenber writes).

The government

appealed to potential

suppliers to apply

through a web portal

that was set up in late

March. More than

24,000 responded

within a fortnight,

among them many

established suppliers

of PPE.

The biggest

contract was awarded

to an obscure

company with no

history in the sector:

Ayanda Capital. The

deal was arranged by

Andrew Mills, 56, who

registered an offer to

supply facemasks and

other PPE on April 11.

He told officials that

he had secured

“exclusive rights to

the full production

capacity of a large

factory in China to

produce masks”,

documents filed in a

legal case show.

Mr Mills, who once

ran a technology

company, was

working on behalf of

Tim Horlick, a former

investment banker

and the chief

executive of Ayanda, a

family investment

company. Since

October 2017, Mr

Mills has served as an

adviser to the Board

of Trade in the

Department for

International Trade.

He made the initial

approach to the

government in the

name of Prospermill,

a small company he

had set up the

previous year which

has not yet filed any

accounts. It took

more than a fortnight

for a deal to be struck

under which the

government would

spend £252 million on

masks for NHS

workers. Late in the

process, officials say

in legal filings, Mr

Mills asked to switch

the counterparty for

the contract to

Ayanda, saying that

the company had an

established

infrastructure for

international banking.

He said that he had

been finalising his

appointment as an

adviser to Ayanda

when he made the

offer but “informed

the [health

department] of the

intention to contract

through Ayanda as

soon as I was in a

position to do so”.

Mr Horlick said he

did not believe that

Mr Mills’s role as a

government adviser

“had any influence

whatsoever” on

winning the contract.

Mr Mills also said his

position had no effect

on the awarding of

the contract.