Has John Dalli signed a non-disclosure agreement for his hospital consultancy work?

The prime minister: now in the grip of crooks

John Dalli claims to be receiving no payment and to have no contract with the government for his consultancy work on the hospital and health services.

This in itself is badly wrong. You don’t allow somebody in to do work like that without terms of reference and contractual obligations.

But the absence of a contract indicates something far more serious. A consultant with a contract working in these situations would routinely be expected to sign a non-disclosure agreement preventing him from giving details to others or using them for his own personal or business advantage.

If the government has not thought it necessary to bind Dalli over under the terms of any contract, then it is highly unlikely that it has made him sign a non-disclosure agreement.

With a free and unencumbered run of the hospital services, the hospital itself, and all its stores of information and systems of purchasing, tendering and so on, Dalli is privy to all kinds of useful details, much of it sensitive – whether we are talking about patient records or supplier accounts.

Without a non-disclosure agreement, he may consider himself free to use that information to his advantage.