The Company
Clandeboye Agencies is a Walker family business based in Antrim, Northern Ireland. The company runs the website slumberjackcoffee.com and supplies wholesale confectionery — according to Yell, a supplier of coffee, biscuits and related products to the food service sector. Companies House lists four directors: Andrew, David, Nicholas and Stephen Walker.
The company's 2019 accounts — prepared by UBT accountants, the Brethren-connected accountancy firm — show a profit of £101,000 and net assets of £276,000. Against this financial backdrop, the company was awarded over £107 million in PPE contracts within weeks of the pandemic beginning.
Clandeboye Agencies is owned by members of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church.
Contract 1 — £93,240,000: PE Gowns
The first and larger contract, published on Contract Finder on 23 June 2020, shows a DHSC award commencing 18 May and ending 19 May — a single-day contract period consistent with emergency pandemic procurement. The contract covered the supply of 22,200,000 gowns collected weekly over 12 weeks from 18 May to 3 August 2020.
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Contract value | £93,240,000 |
| Gowns ordered | 22,200,000 |
| Average price per gown | £4.20 |
| Collection period | 12 weeks: 18 May – 3 August 2020 |
| Logistics | Uniserve — collected directly from manufacturer |
| Manufacturer | Redacted |
| Quality certification | Intertek — Taiwan office |
| Contract Finder | View notice ↗ |
The manufacturer has been redacted from the published contract. The quality certificate was issued by the Taiwan office of Intertek.
Contract 2 — £14,280,000: PE Gowns
The second contract, also published on 23 June 2020, covers a DHSC award commencing 27 April and ending 28 April. Gowns were collected weekly over nine weeks by Uniserve from 3 May to 28 June 2020, directly from the factory of Medtecs (Cambodia) Corporation Ltd. A 50% deposit of the contract value was paid by the DHSC on award.
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Contract value | £14,280,000 |
| Collection period | 9 weeks: 3 May – 28 June 2020 |
| Logistics | Uniserve — collected directly from factory |
| Manufacturer | Medtecs (Cambodia) Corporation Ltd |
| Quality certification | Intertek — Taiwan office |
| Deposit paid | 50% on contract award |
| Contract Finder | View notice ↗ |
The quality certificate for Contract 2 comes from the same Taiwan office of Intertek as Contract 1, and carries the same date of issue and the same test date. Contract 1's manufacturer is redacted; Contract 2's manufacturer is Medtecs (Cambodia) Corporation Ltd. Both certificates being issued simultaneously suggests the gowns from both contracts were tested together or that the certification process predated the contracts themselves.
The Brethren Network
David Walker, one of the four directors, is a former director of Causeway Vision Ltd, which trades as Causeway Trading. Causeway Trading is situated at the OneSchool Global Knockloughrim Campus and is structured to donate any profit to charity — consistent with the wider PBCC model of campus-adjacent commercial operations.
Garth White is a current director of Causeway Vision Ltd and is also a director of Ascot Signs — another company that won PPE contracts during the pandemic.
UBT accountants prepared Clandeboye Agencies' 2019 accounts. UBT is the Brethren-connected accountancy and business services group with operations across multiple countries.
Uniserve Ltd — the government's appointed logistics partner — collected gowns from both contracts directly from the manufacturers, as it did for multiple other Brethren-connected PPE contract winners including Blueleaf.
The Disproportion Question
The central question raised by Clandeboye Agencies' contract awards is one of proportion. A coffee and confectionery wholesaler with £276,000 in net assets and a profit of £101,000 in its most recent accounts was awarded £107.5 million in PPE gown contracts within weeks of the pandemic being declared — contracts representing approximately 389 times the company's entire net asset base.
The VIP channel through which these contracts were awarded was designed to fast-track suppliers with political connections or ministerial referrals. No information has been published identifying who referred Clandeboye Agencies to the VIP channel, or what due diligence was conducted on its capacity to fulfil contracts of this scale.