(Reuters) – 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 pounds ($881,000) on public relations consultants, the Financial Times reported on Monday.
Bingham’s use of a private sector company to oversee communications for her task force has caused concern in the government, and on Monday, government officials said she was not expected to continue in the job into 2021, the newspaper reported.
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.
($1 = 0.7603 pounds)
(Reporting by Rebekah Mathew in Bengaluru; Editing by Jan Harvey)
