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Good Law Project Questions Award of £70bn Net Zero Contract by Broadband Group

Friday, Aug 19th, 2022 (10:44 am) - Score 912
internet and uk computer law

The Good Law Project (GLP) has filed judicial review proceedings against the East of England Broadband Network (E2BN) for their alleged decision to “unlawfully award” a £70bn ‘Everything Net Zero‘ Framework Agreement to the Place Group, which they claim is a micro “company with scant emissions reduction expertise“.

Just to give this some context. The E2BN is a private company that was established by a number of local authorities to help bring faster and more secure broadband internet connectivity services to UK schools and the wider education sector, as well as overseas. Meanwhile, the UK Government’s Everything Net Zero programme aims to provide services, products, solutions, and support for the public sector transition to Net Zero.

NOTE: Net Zero reflects the goal of an organisation to remove as many carbon emissions as they produce.

As for the Place Group, they’re a small Cornwall-based consulting, project management and research company with around 20 years’ of experience in the field of education. The group helped to establish the Free Schools Programme and were involved with the very first bid that was submitted to the Secretary of State in 2010.

We should point out that Framework Agreements typically set out the terms under which public bodies can award contracts to suppliers without going through regular, open tendering processes. As a result, they need to be tightly written, with clear guidelines, to avoid possible misuse.

The Legal Challenge

The Good Law Project (GLP) has questioned why E2BN, which describes itself as a “regional broadband consortium“, would be allowed to write such an agreement. The GPL also claims that the agreement offers the Place Group a way of “controlling how the entire public sector, from the NHS to local government offices, will award contracts even loosely connected to ‘climate’ issues.”

On top of that, the GPL has question how the Place Group ended up “being the only company to submit a tender for the right to administer the framework” and whether E2BN and the Place Group had any pre-existing relationship.

GLP Statement

This is a lot of power and responsibility for a firm … that’s so small Companies House lists it as a ‘micro-company’.

Calling it the ‘Everything Net Zero Framework Agreement’ isn’t hyperbole. It really does cover everything Net Zero. £70 billion is equivalent to almost the entire annual Department for Education budget.

E2BN’s decision raises far more questions than a well-run framework agreement process should. The UK’s Net Zero response deserves much better than this.

On the face of it, E2BN’s decisions and conduct in respect of the Everything Net Zero Framework appears to be in breach of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. They seem to have created a mechanism through which billions in public contracts can be awarded by the Place Group to unspecified suppliers without open, transparent and fair competition.

The Place Group confirmed that they would be responsible for running the tender competitions for public sector ordering bodies, but they added that their role is merely to save the public sector money and to ensure that the Net Zero strategy gets translated into practical projects that get implemented.

Place Group Statement

Our role is to save the public sector money (we saved £26m for schools in the south west) and to ensure that the Net Zero strategy gets translated into practical projects that get implemented. The Everything Net Zero Framework has a limit of £70bn that can be procured through it.

Place Group has NOT been awarded a contract for £70bn. Like all frameworks supporting public sector procurement, our costs are covered from a very small framework levy that suppliers pay if they win contracts.

Net Zero is a critical agenda for the UK and the globe, and implementing a strategy that is effective at cutting emissions in line with the science and offers the public purse best value for money is our mission. We are contributing to helping the public sector achieve its net zero obligations. The UK is committed to reducing emissions by 78% by 2035, and achieving net zero by 2050.

The GPL has published their Statement of Facts and Grounds in full (here), although they’ve acknowledged that “perhaps there is a reasonable explanation” for the way everything has been handled and so have asked the High Court (Queen’s Bench Division) to give E2BN more time to provide some “proper answers“.

The legal challenge itself is being crowdfunded here and has so far managed to raise about £28k of their £40k stretch target.

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Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and .
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Comments
7 Responses
  1. Avatar photo anonymous says:

    It’s not a £70bn contract. And Jolyon has a long history of failed legal challenges against the government, all crowdfunded by others…

    https://order-order.com/2022/08/02/no-the-government-hasnt-handed-70-billion-to-a-tiny-cornish-company/

    1. Avatar photo Cassandra says:

      They also have a long history of successful legal challenges. People wouldn’t be crowdfunding them if they didn’t support them.

      Regarding this specific contract, the government themselves list it as a £70bn contract:
      https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/notice/783fd5e3-50cd-49f6-b0cf-1cd48265fb33

      According to the crowdfunding page for this specific case (https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/everything-net-zero) it sounds like the contract is for _control over_ £70bn of spending (i.e. they get to instruct the government on who to pay that money to) rather than £70bn actually being given directly to them. This sounds like a standard way of describing this type of contract though, and they could just instruct for money to be paid to another company they own, so I’m not sure how important the distinction really is in practice.

      The Place Group is a tiny (two staff members) company that work in the education field. They don’t have any Net Zero expertise, and yet they’re being placed in control of this much Net Zero spending? Over all government departments, not just the education field that they normally work in? And the contract was awarded by the East of England Broadband Network, which is supposed to be focused on supplying internet to schools?

      The point of this lawsuit isn’t “this company is being given £70bn”. The point of this lawsuit is “this looks like corruption”.

    2. Avatar photo Jazzy says:

      He has a long line of failures Cassandra – I think it’s about 70%, it could even be higher and he even tried to claim victory for a case he wasn’t involved in

      Jolyon admitted on social media that his chambers were blackballed over his Fox incident and he couldn’t get work, so he now has crowdfunders pay for his lifestyle in the form of court actios. He also has millions in the bank which are just sitting there. The government are planning to change the rules of crowdfunding for legal cases, because of the way it is being abused. Yes fair enough, crowdfund to set the law straight but no one seems to know where the money goes to when they win and are awarded their costs back

  2. Avatar photo NE555 says:

    Reminds me of classic Smith and Jones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8dB4YnLSsE

  3. Avatar photo Jazzy says:

    Jolyon, the kimono wearing fox killer on another grift, I see

    His band of loyal EU loving middle class yummy mummies and daddies will fund it

  4. Avatar photo Buggerlugz says:

    £70B no doubt awarded to another companies with they’re own vested interests involved in some way. FFS this government is just laundering tax payers money now, funnelling it back into they’re friends and they’re own pockets any way they can.

  5. Avatar photo GNewton says:

    Is it really £70Billion? And not £70Million? £70bn would be several times higher than BT/Openreach’ budget of £15bn for deploying fibre broadband to 25 Million premises during the next few years.

    Just wondering.

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