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22 Mar, 13 tweets, 7 min read
BREAKING: Firm awarded £16.2m across multiple Covid-19 contracts has extensive links to the Conservatives.

Softcat Plc not only boasts a Tory-donating director, but life-peer and mega-donor Lord Nash holds shares in them.

THREAD by @allthecitizens / @BylineTimes
Softcat Plc are an IT Infrastructure / Services Company awarded £16.2m since Feb 2020 over 11 different Covid-related agreements. These range from work in the health service to supporting the Student Loans Company & DWP. They’ve won 800+ awards since 2014.
softcat.com/public-sector
One of its ex-directors, John Nash, a Conservative life-peer appointed as a non-executive director of the Cabinet Office last year, and former minister for education under Cameron and May, sat on the board of the company between 2002-2013.
gov.uk/government/new…
Nash and his wife have between them donated nearly £667k to the Conservatives since 2006, including £125k to Shaun Bailey in 2018, £3,250 to Michael Gove in 2016, and to MPs David Ruffley, Andrew Lansley, Philippa Stroud, Nick Herbert, and to the central Tory Party up to 2020.
Nash’s involvement with Softcat is ongoing. He currently holds shares worth 3.64% in the company, and has held a stake in it since 2010 through the JAS Nash Settlement Fund, as well reportedly via two trustees, Gilbert Chalk and John Putt.
sharesmagazine.co.uk/news/market/LS…
Chalk and Putt took over management of the shares just prior to the company going public in 2015, with Nash remaining the ultimate beneficiary.
Earlier this year it was reported that Softcat saw its share value increased to a “near all-time high”, boosting the annual dividend by over 1/10th, meaning Nash may have potentially earned millions from the cumulative public awards they've won.
investorschronicle.co.uk/shares/2020/01…
It doesn’t stop there. There’s also Vin Murria.
One of Softcat’s non-exec directors, businesswoman Vin has a number of links to Conservative parliamentarians, and has donated £125,000 to the Tories since 2019 through another of her companies, VM.AV Corporate Services Ltd.
She's also non-exec director of Bunzl, which won Covid contracts worth £23m. Both Bunzl and the Government drew criticism this month when a £22m contract was finally published and found to have been awarded without tender.
goodlawproject.org/news/mislead-p…
There’s no assertion awards won by Softcat were done so illegally or improperly, or that they aren't able to fulfil them, but as @allthecitizens / @BylineTimes have documented repeatedly, the worrying trend of Tory-adjacent firms receiving contracts is concerning, and ongoing…
With special thanks to @DamianHastie.

See below for the full write-up in @BylineTimes:

Does this story concern you? Can you help
@allthecitizens reveal more concerning Covid-19 contracts lacking possible due diligence and oversight? If so, please see the thread below to find out how you can help contribute and hold power to account:

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More from @allthecitizens

The Citizens Profile picture
19 Mar
Must-do weekend reading for the sensible Citizen. During the pandemic, @allthecitizens have been exposing government’s mishandling of the crisis, uncovering contracts given to Tory donors, overspending on consultancies, and unlawfully late agreements. Our biggest reports to date:
The Crony Ratio: 8 Conservative donors who collectively were awarded £881m in contracts for a variety of services, who between them have donated £8.2 million to the Tory party since 2001. We chart the golden line of cronyism:
CH&L: A £14.4m contract awarded to CH&L, owned by Frances Stanley, friend of Matt Hancock. Her husband donated £5,000 to Hancock in 2019, and CH&L are based in Hancock’s Newmarket constituency, where he and Stanley sat on a Racehorses committee together:
Read 12 tweets
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16 Mar
BREAKING: Previously unreported links emerge between two UK companies involved in separate concerning PPE contract wins. It appears the directors have known each other for some time. THREAD:
Fashion designer Karen Brost is the director of Luxe Lifestyle. In April 2020, Luxe was awarded £25 million to supply medical garments to the NHS despite having no assets, turnover, or notable history of having traded in PPE.
bylinetimes.com/2020/07/02/lif…
Brost is married to Tim Whyte, an investment banker who, as reported by the i at the time, has “extensive contacts” in China with state-owned companies.

But these aren’t the only contacts he has.
inews.co.uk/news/health/pe…
Read 10 tweets
The Citizens Profile picture
8 Mar
Continuing our investigation into the expanding reach of US data analytics giant Palantir into UK public institutions, @allthecitizens have mapped £91m+ awarded to them across government. Below we outline the work they’re doing for the Cabinet Office:
The Cabinet Office are the 3rd highest UK gov awarders of contracts to Palantir, with £22m+ given since 2015. The oldest is a joint contract with Global Digital Services (GDS): £734,834 spent on an “Enterprise Analytical Platform and Intelligence Service”. contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/c731846…
In 2016, the Cabinet Office also listed 4 separate G-Cloud spends on Palantir totalling some £1.4 million.
Read 12 tweets
The Citizens Profile picture
5 Mar
BREAKING: Latest Tory donor list reveals more backers linked to Covid19 contract wins days after:

Globus Shetland owner donated £10k- then won £94m
Efficio’s parent co. director donated £50k- then won £1.45m
Also- P14 Medical owner donated £7.5k after £276m win

@bylinetimes
18 days after donating £10k to the Tories, Globus Shetland Ltd was awarded £94m Covid19 contract in Sep’20.

CEO Haraldur Agustsson is a member of Tory-donor Leader’s Group and his companies have donated over £425k to the party.
Agustsson’s other company, Alpha Solway, has also won 6 Covid19 contracts, totalling nearly £11m.
Read 12 tweets
The Citizens Profile picture
3 Mar
BREAKING: Over half a billion pounds (£510m) in Covid19 contracts were awarded to 35 management consultancy companies, @allthecitizens has found. £490m was won by just 10 firms. Thread:
Only 21% (29) of these contracts were published within the 30 day legal time limit, and just 5% (8/148) were awarded through competitive tender - the rest were either fast tracked or awarded through previous framework agreements.
The Ministry of Housing Community and Local Government, the Ministry of Defence, and the Department of Health and Social Care were the three biggest ministries that farmed out consultancy services.
Read 16 tweets
The Citizens Profile picture
2 Mar
BREAKING: At least 1,250 UK gov contracts issued under Covid19 were not published on time, @allthecitizens have found - meaning 75% of the 1,670 now-public pandemic-response contracts were published unlawfully late. THREAD:
The finding comes after the High Court ruling that Matt Hancock broke the law when failing to publish details of contracts on time. He and other ministers played down the problem, saying they were only published ‘a fortnight late’. This is largely untrue.
theguardian.com/society/2021/f…
After a judge ruled the Health Secretary had breached transparency legislation in how “vast quantities” of public money was spent, @allthecitizens examined almost 1700 contracts, finding an average delay between starting and publication of 93 days.
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…
Read 22 tweets

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