£1.4m Covid mortuary contract is questioned

ADEVON council gave a £1.4million contract for a temporary mortuary to a recently dormant company with no assets or employees, it has been claimed.

The facility has not been used as the number of deaths due to Covid19 stayed at a level that could be managed by the existing system.

An initial Government forecast in March predicted the number of deaths in Torbay could reach more than 1,000 in a “reasonable worst case scenario”.

The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics report 58 Torbay residents have died with Covid19 up to September 11. Councillors were told the mortuary set up at Kingskerswell has since been scaled back and the forecast spending is now just over £800,000.

The cost is due to be met from extra Government funding to cover the council’s pandemic response.

Questions were asked about the contract by Conservative councillor James O’Dwyer at a full meeting of the council on Thursday night.

The opposition councillor had submitted a written question asking for information about the costs and how the council had ensured “value for money” with the contract awarded at the end of March.

He then asked a supplementary question whether the council was aware that the contract had been given to a “recently dormant company with no assets or employees”.

He asked whether the deal was arranged in line with the council’s normal procedures.

The council’s deputy leader Darren Cowell responded that the contract had been awarded in “exceptional circumstances” when the Government was “keen to ensure that local authorities responded in an extremely speedy manner.”

He said the council had consulted neighbouring authorities to set up the mortuary to deal with the “worst case scenario” and the facility was delivered so the council was ready should the need arise.

Cllr Cowell’s written response set out that the council was told the “reasonable worst case scenario” was a forecast of 1,087 deaths in Torbay over five months in the first wave of the pandemic.

That led to it putting into action an Excess Deaths Plan on March 24, which meant building a temporary mortuary as part of the emergency response.