This story [1] was originally published on OpenDemocracy.net/en/.

This story [1] was originally published on OpenDemocracy.net/en/.
License: Creative Commons 4.0 - Attributions/No Derivities/
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UK government faces ‘urgent’ calls to scrap ‘failed’ Test and Trace scheme
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Senior Labour frontbenchers have today written to the health secretary, Matt Hancock, demanding the government ends the outsourcing of COVID-19 contact tracing and redirects the money to local authorities.

In a letter seen by openDemocracy, Rachel Reeves, shadow Cabinet Office secretary, and Jon Ashworth, shadow health secretary, point out that “since the start of the pandemic, almost two million close contacts have been left untraced and uncontacted in England”. It also asks whether the government will “claw back some of the money from this clearly failed contract”.

The letter comes as the original contracts for a national contact-tracing call centre come up for renewal, openDemocracy understands. In the letter, Reeves and Ashworth say “it would be a grave mistake to continue with a flawed approach which has proved costly in every sense”.

Serco and SITEL were originally hired to provide national contact tracing for a sum of up to £720m if the contracts ran for a maximum of “up to 12 months”. The contracts, which were granted to the outsourcing giants without competition, started on 18 May 2020.

The shadow ministers note that “for a sizeable amount of its contract, Serco, SITEL, and other companies in charge of contact tracing failed to reach the percentage of close contacts needed to curb the spread of infection”.

[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/uk-government-faces-urgent-calls-to-scrap-failed-test-and-trace-scheme/