Dominic Cummings admits role in £500,000 government contract awarded to company run by friends

Cummings admitted he was the "driving decision-maker" in the granting of the contract

Dominic Cummings has admitted playing a pivotal role in the awarding of a £500,000 government contract to a company owned by his friends. Cummings, a former Special Advisor to the Prime Minister, resigned from his role in government on November 13, 2020. His final few months in the job were marred by controversy, when he was found to have broken coronavirus lockdown guidelines by travelling from London to his parents' home in Durham. According to a report published in The Times, opinion research organisation Public First was awarded a contract worth up to half a million pounds. The company was formed by two of Cummings' former colleagues, and its £500,000 contract went towards funding focus groups examining the government's coronavirus public health messaging. At a session in the High Court yesterday, Public First was described by a civil servant as a "Tory party research agency", with another employee commenting that the organisation was "too close to No 10 to be objective". [caption id="attachment_264129" align="alignnone" width="2048"] Dominic Cummings resigned from his role in government on November 13, 2020. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)[/caption] Cummings himself admitted he played an instrumental role in the awarding of the contract, stating he was the "driving decision-maker", but has denied letting his friendship with the company's founders play any role in the decision. The current government has faced repeated criticism for its awarding of contracts to those with close ties to the Conservative Party. Firms with no prior experience were awarded £4.5 billion worth of Covid-19 contracts, according to an analysis published in the New York Times. In total, around 1,200 contracts were awarded to firms involved in producing essential supplies. Of the contracts awarded, £4.5 billion went to companies with no prior experience of manufacturing such items. A further £3.7 billion went to firms that have political ties to the Conservative Party. Health secretary Matt Hancock has also been quizzed over the decision to award the former landlord of his local pub tens of millions of pounds to make coronavirus test kits.