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29 Mar, 6 tweets, 3 min read
🚨OUR NEW LEGAL CHALLENGE to the British government 🚨

We teamed up with @cori_crider @Foxglovelegal to stop ministers from using self-destructing messages to conduct government business.

bit.ly/39mYId5
Director of the campaigning law group Foxglove @Cori Crider: “It’s not appropriate to conduct government business on disappearing-message platforms".
It's privacy vs public transparency
Public officers accountability is crucial in any democracy
Big tech is making scrutiny even harder
We know that government business is being conducted under a cloak of secrecy enabled by the tech platforms. Would you help us stop it?

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More from @allthecitizens

The Citizens Profile picture
22 Mar
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…
Read 13 tweets
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
The Citizens Profile picture
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

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