Boston Consulting Group has won contracts worth millions of pounds to « support » the privatized Test and Trace system – now Sky News has obtained documents claiming to show the huge rates paid to them. leaders
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Private Test and Trace System Consultants in England are paid £ 7,500 per day, equivalent to £ 15m salary, it was claimed tonight
Sky News reported that the huge rates went to some executives at Boston Consulting Group, which was brought in to help the struggling outsourced contact tracing system earlier this year
Public documents show BCG won a series of contracts, including a £ 5million deal to provide ‘digital support’ to Test and Trace between April and July
Now Sky has obtained further documents claiming to show the government paid BCG around £ 10million for a team of around 40 consultants to complete four months of work
Individual consultants are unlikely to receive the full amount, but it is still well above the salary of the average public sector worker
According to the documents, the BCG grants the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs a reduction of 10 to 15%
BCG declined to comment on Sky News MPs condemned the House of Commons revelations
Munira Wilson, Lib Dem MP, said: « Imagine how far this money would go if given to local authorities They pay these consultants the weekly equivalent of what a nurse earns in a year «
Labor MP Toby Perkins said: ‘You won’t find dedicated public servants paid £ 7,500 a day, you won’t find them with £ 15 million
« But what you will find is basic skill, knowledge of their field, a willingness to make sure systems work before they are implemented
Phantom Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Rachel Reeves accused the government of being « obsessed with a flawed outsourcing model » and called on Number 10 to « change course » on contact tracing
« It fails to reach people who have come into contact with someone infected with the virus, it fails to communicate information to local councils which must act and it wastes hundreds of millions of pounds of money taxpayers that could be spent on a local response using local expertise
« It is not too late for the government to change course and I urge them to do so today »
Health Minister Jo Churchill admitted that government efforts to screen and test have not « always been transparent »
« Has it always gone seamlessly? Has it always been perfect? I’m the first in this shipping box to always say, ‘nothing ever gets done ladies and gentlemen’
« As much as we want Nothing ever works We do everything we can to ensure that people at local level are supported in this work – which is hard work – every day, » she told MPs
But Dan Carden, of Labor, noted that the « cronyism » of the NHS test and traceability system is well documented
M Carden said: « Tory Baroness and business leader Baroness Harding appointed to head Test and Trace, CEO of Serco, brother of a former Tory MP and Tory MPs on the corporate board winning contracts
« And if you have a problem with all of this, why not talk to the government’s anti-corruption champion – Dido Harding’s husband and a Tory MP
The outsourced test and traceability service originally recruited 25,000 call managers, most of whom are employed by private companies Serco and Sitel
Serco and Sitel had contracts worth £ 108million and £ 84million respectively to run Test and Trace between May and August 23
But their involvement was reduced in August, with more responsibility given to local councils, and councils are to undertake further work in the future when they enter the Level 3 lockdown
Chancellor Rishi Sunak said last month: « We have now provided over £ 12bn for testing and traceability »
The breakdown of this figure is unclear and may include the cost of the tests themselves as well as contact tracing
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Affairs said: « NHS Test and Trace is the largest per capita testing system of all major countries in Europe It processes 270,000 tests per day and nearly 700,000 people who otherwise would have unknowingly risked spreading coronavirus have been contacted
To build the largest diagnostic network in British history, this requires us to work with partners in the public and private sectors with the specialist skills and experience we need Every pound spent contributes to our efforts to keep people safe as we increase testing capacity to 500,000 tests per day by the end of October »
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World news – UK – Test and Trace private consultants pay taxpayers ‘£ 7,500 a day’ in cash
