Speeches by Beales.

“Capabilities come up a lot as a challenge, and the Chair has pointed to some of the 50% headcount reductions at ICB and NHS England. The Committee has talked about this previously. Do you have a sense about the headcount level of digital staff at ICB level and at NHS England level? Is it higher or lower than when the c…”

“You are not really sure what is happening at the ICB level?”

“And that did not come from the centre, from your perspective?”

“Would the capability and capacity be higher or lower than 2024 when the contract—”

“So it does not apply to all. I am quite confused about what the policy is; I do not know about my colleagues. There have been reports down this track that senior NHS procurement officials have been warned about speaking out about Palantir. It has been reported in the FT that officials have warned staff about criticisin…”

“There was no warning or sense of repercussions communicated?”

“Less capability.”

“Just to finish, the NHS more broadly was pushing for more devolution to local decision-making. We have moved now from “should” to “could”. Apparently areas were not expected to have to do this, but generally that has felt like a mandation towards Palantir as a single provider in this space. Do you regret that movement?…”

“I do not understand why the system does not think that, why it does not think that what you are saying today is the situation, based on planning guidance that said they should. Considering that the Government have decided to remove a lot of requirements in planning guidance and streamline the system of requirements, re…”

“It was not 85%.”

“Isn’t that to be using it, not to have signed the memorandum of understanding?”

“Why does what the planning guidance says differ from what you are saying to us today?”

“It is not “could”?”

“We have 205 providers of secondary and tertiary care.”

“Do they consider consideration about fit and proper persons?”

“You said you were happy about the rollout and the performance of the contract. We have heard, and it has been mentioned, that we are not at the 85% level of secondary care trusts adopting the Federated Data Platform by March. I think 168, and you suggested a higher figure, have signed the memorandum of understanding, b…”

“That would be part of future decision-making?”

“But those who are not, why do you think they are not? Why do you think they are concerned?”

“I will ask you for a few clarifications about some of the testimony today. You talked about there being no role for preference or opinion and that it has to be based on performance. Is there no role in public contracting to look at issues such as whether the contractor meets fit and proper persons tests? Is there any r…”

“On the second point, should we be looking to regional procurement of digital contracts rather than single national contracts?”