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Dominic Cummings was instrumental in the process of awarding a no-bid government contract to a company run by his “friends,” according to court documents that raise questions about whether the Cabinet Office may have misled the public.
The documents reveal the central role that the former senior adviser to the prime minister played in awarding the contract to Public First, a research firm owned and led by two of his longtime partners.
Public First was paid £ 564,393 to research public understanding of the coronavirus and government messages about the pandemic, and one of its partners was assigned to work in Downing Street.
The company is led by James Frayne and Rachel Wolf, both former colleagues of Cummings and Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove. In 2019, Wolf co-wrote the Conservative party general election manifesto.
When The Guardian and openDemocracy first revealed in July last year that Public First had been awarded a no-bid contract, the Cabinet Office said in a statement that it was “foolish” to suggest that the owners’ associations with Cummings and Gove were a factor in the decision to award you a contract.
However, in a witness statement presented to the higher court on Monday as part of a judicial review of the award, Cummings described himself as the “decision-maker” behind the government’s decision to hold more groups. focal points and hiring Public First, and said his faith in the company was based on his long experience working with its staff.
Cummings described Frayne and Wolf as his “friends,” but added: “Obviously, I didn’t request that he be brought to Public First because they were my friends. I would never do such a thing. ”He said he“ asked ”officials to hire the firm because, in his experience, it was the only company with the expertise to urgently conduct the required focus groups.
“The fact that I knew the key people at Public First well was an advantage, not a problem,” he said, “since in such a high-pressure environment trust is very important, as is technical competence.”
Cummings said he knew the quality of the company’s work and “knew they would give us honest information unlike many companies in this industry.”
“I am a special advisor and, as such, I cannot direct public officials,” he added. “However, as a result of my suggestion, I expected that people would hire Public First. The nature of my role is that sometimes people take what I say as an instruction and that is a reasonable inference, as people assume that I often speak on behalf of the prime minister. “
Cummings said he had not met with Frayne since 2016 and was not involved in the contractual arrangements with Public First or the compensation of the company.
Catherine Hunt, chief analysis and evaluation officer for the Cabinet Office and the prime minister’s office, described Public First in internal communications as “colleagues” with Cummings and then-Johnson’s communications chief Lee Cain, “therefore, getting all of our work without a contract. “
In an eyewitness statement, Hunt said that the email to his colleagues was a hoax in an effort to ensure that overdue invoices were paid to the company, and that it was “not true” that Public First received the work without a contract because of relationships with Cain and Cummings.
Jason Coppel QC, representing the Good Law Project, a nonprofit campaign group that presented the judicial review, referred to another internal message from Hunt in January related to a previous Public First appointment for non-pandemic work. . In that message, Hunt referred to Public First as “the conservative party’s investigative agency testing the conservative party’s narrative on public money.”
Coppel said that showed that senior officials had “deep misgivings” about the contract. However, in his testimonial statement, Hunt noted the rest of his message, which said “but it will actually be very interesting and very good.” He said his reference was “intended to be frivolous and lighthearted,” and did not view Public First as a “conservative party investigative agency.”
In its legal case, the Good Law Project argues that the Cabinet Office acted with “apparent bias,” given that the contract was awarded directly without competition and the work of Frayne and Wolf with Gove and Cummings at different times over many years.
The Cabinet Office legal case makes a virtue of previous relationships with Public First, saying that Cummings wanted Gabriel Milland, a Public First partner, to be posted to Downing Street because he had worked with him previously “and had great respect for their skills, experience and expertise. “
The government argued that Gove and Cummings’ relationships with Public First partners meant that they were aware of the quality of their work and denied that it had shown “bias” in naming the company. “On the contrary, the past professional connection simply allowed a better judgment to be reached as to whether Public First was really the best / only appropriate body to perform services as needed,” states his defense.
The Public First contract was not tendered under emergency regulations that waived normal procurement procedures due to the pandemic.
Frayne has said that Public First was “the obvious choice” to lead government focus groups, as it was “one of the few agencies that could meet this demand,” and was chosen because of its experience and ability to work in unusually long periods short. realize. The company was already doing research for the government in February, then conducted more than 100 focus groups across the country related to Covid-19, specializing in investigating “hard to reach” communities.
There is no evidence to suggest that Gove was involved in the process to award the contract. The Cabinet Office did not directly respond to a question about whether his statement to the Guardian in July misled the public.
When asked at the time whether the fact that Frayne and Wolf were “long-time close associates” of Cummings and Gove had been “a factor” in the decision to grant the contact, the Cabinet Office strongly rejected the suggestion. .
“This is nonsense,” he said in his July statement. “Public First was hired to do this job because of their vast experience in the area. We have several vendors to work with in government investigation, of which Public First is only one. “
The judge, Judge O’Farrell, will determine the case for judicial review after the one-day hearing of the arguments of both parties.
