A pest control supplies firm has disclosed it made a profit of more than £9m for supplying personal protective equipment (PPE) during the pandemic after it was put into the government’s controversial VIP procurement lane.
Crisp Websites, which trades as PestFix, had assets of just over £18,000 and 16 employees before the pandemic, but won contracts worth £344m. In its latest accounts, the firm says it “does not intend to return to the PPE market”.
The accounts to 31 March 2022, published earlier this month, disclosed the profits for its now discontinued PPE operations was £9,044,712.
The Chichester-based firm was among a range of businesses with limited or no experience in PPE supplies which picked up major contracts during the pandemic. PestFix has previously said it answered a “call to arms” during the country’s “hour of greatest need”.
A National Audit Office (NAO) report in November 2020 reported that the PestFix bid for work was processed through the high-priority lane, also known as a VIP lane, but officials said this was because of an initial mistake by the government.
It emerged in court proceedings challenging the government’s awarding of a PPE contract after Joe England, a PestFix director, contacted Steve Oldfield, then the chief commercial officer at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), saying he was a friend of Oldfield’s father-in-law, and they had both met at his 80th birthday party.
Oldfield passed on England’s email to Andy Flockhart, a Deloitte consultant who was seconded to the PPE team. Flockhart then sent an email: “One for the VIP list please.”
In a judgment handed down in January last year, Mrs Justice O’Farrell found the use of the VIP lane was unlawful, but due diligence was carried out in respect of PestFix, and it was highly likely that if the lane had not been used the outcome would not have been substantially different.
PestFix said it had been “completely vindicated” by the case, but at the time was in dispute with the DHSC over its assertion that certain goods it supplied could not be used in the NHS. It said a “full and final settlement” had been agreed with the department in August 2022, and a provision of £71.6m has been made in the accounts to settle the case.
A report published in March last year by the NAO found the DHSC had awarded nearly 10,000 contracts for PPE worth £13.1bn. It reported the department was storing 3.6bn PPE items which were considered unsuitable for frontline services, accounting for about 11% of all PPE it received.
PestFix last week declined to comment.
