UK vaccines taskforce chair Kate Bingham is to step down from her post at the end of the year amid criticism that she spent £670,000 on public relations consultants, the Financial Times is reporting.
The FT said, citing a Sunday Times report, that Bingham had used eight full-time consultants from London PR agency Admiral Associates to oversee her media strategy, and has contracted them until the end of the year.
Under Bingham’s vaccine taskforce, Britain has secured supply deals for more than 350 million doses of six different COVID-19 vaccine candidates.
At the weekend, The Sunday Times reported that according to leaked documents, Kate Bingham, chair of Boris Johnson’s vaccine taskforce, has charged taxpayers £670,000 for her own team of boutique PR consultants. Leaked documents also show that eight full-time consultants from London firm Admiral Associates are on the equivalent of £165K salaries.
Bingham, is married to Conservative MP for Hereford & Herefordshire South, Jesse Norman.
The claims also state that Alok Sharma, the business secretary, did not sign off the expenditure, which has cost around £500K already, with contracts running until the end of the year Instead, it was signed off by a civil servant.
Full story – https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/vaccine-tsar-kate-bingham-runs-up-670-000-pr-bill-sjxmrz2bx
