Dominic Cummings’ role in contract award a ‘concern’, court told

The role played by Boris Johnson’s former adviser Dominic Cummings in the award of a £540,000 government contract to a company run by “friends” caused “significant concern” and “consternation” among civil servants, the High Court heard on Monday.

The Good Law Project, a campaign group, has brought a legal challenge against the Cabinet Office over its award of a government contract to Public First, a policy and research company run by James Frayne and Rachel Wolf, in March 2020. 

The couple have links to Cummings, who served as the UK prime minister’s chief adviser until he was ousted in a shake up of Number 10 last year. Frayne and Cummings both worked for Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister when he was education secretary and Wolf co-wrote the Conservative party’s 2019 manifesto.

Jason Coppel QC, barrister for the Good Law Project, claimed to the High Court on Monday that the contract was not advertised but was directly awarded to Public First because “Dominic Cummings wanted Public First to have the contract”. He added that Gove and Cummings had “close personal connections” to the firm.

The award of the contract sparked “significant concern and consternation” and “deep misgivings” among civil servants, the High Court heard.

Coppel pointed to an email sent by Helen Stratton, a civil servant, to Catherine Hunt, head of insight and evaluation at the Cabinet Office, in which Stratton said of Public First: “I have genuine concerns about the way in which they MIGHT [her emphasis] be spinning stuff coming out of focus groups — way too close to No 10 to be objective.”. In another email Hunt wrote: “This agency is the one who are Dom Cummings/ Lee Cain’s mates . .. ” She claims her email was intended to be light-hearted.

Obviously I did not request Public First be brought in because they were my friends. I would never do such a thing

Cummings gave a witness statement in which he defended the contract awarded to Public First. “Obviously I did not request Public First be brought in because they were my friends. I would never do such a thing,” he said in the statement. “I knew they would give us honest information unlike many companies in this sector,” he added of the company.

The Good Law Project is asking the High Court to declare that the contract award was unlawful. 

The Cabinet Office emphatically denied the claims and said there was no bias or apparent bias in the contract award. It said Gove had no involvement in the contract and that while Cummings had “substantial input” he did not “make that decision alone”.

Sir James Eadie QC, barrister for the Cabinet Office, told the High Court on Monday that Cummings chose Public First because it was “the best” and its work was all “public work not party political work”. The award of the contract had to be seen against the unprecedented backdrop of the pandemic when there was no time for a competitive process, Eadie added.

Eadie noted that Frayne, a co-founder of Public First, had not seen Cummings for “a substantial number of years”. In his statement Cummings said he had not met Frayne since 2016.

Michael Bowsher QC, another barrister representing the government, claimed to the High Court that the civil servants had been “very conscious” that procurement was not being done in the same way as in normal times and said that the government was “seeking to do the best they could in challenging times”.

“There is no criticism of the quality of work being done by Public First,” he said. 

Public First is an interested party in the case. Natascha Engel of Public First, who led on much of its research, said in a statement: “Given James Frayne hasn’t spoken to Dominic Cummings in several years and neither he nor Rachel Wolf spoke to Dominic Cummings or Michael Gove about Covid research, the idea this was some sort of quiet arrangement between friends is clearly wrong.”

The judge, Mrs Justice O’Farrell, has reserved her ruling.