The government’s own scientific advisory group, SAGE, has said that for contact tracing to be effective it must reach 80% of close contacts with infected people, a figure the national service has regularly missed.
Reeves and Ashworth outline concerns about the spread of new variants causing future surges in infection and lockdowns, despite the roll-out of vaccinations. They urge Hancock to “halt the outsourcing of contact tracing in England to large private companies” and to “urgently lay out a clear and immediate plan for localising and integrating contact tracing”.
openDemocracy asked the Department of Health to confirm whether the contracts with Serco and SITEL for the national contact-tracing call centre would be extended beyond May 2021. It replied that it does “not comment on specific contracts” but that “all changed [sic] to contracts will be published in the usual way”.
There is no update to the original contract on the government’s websites.
Reeves told openDemocracy: "The government’s lack of transparency on contracts is deeply concerning – despite the sleaze consuming government, they refuse to even do the basics when it comes to transparency."
The performance of the outsourced national contact-tracing service, and the rest of the Test and Trace scheme has been subject to fierce criticism. The Public Accounts Committee of MPs found last month that despite “unimaginable” levels of spending, with £37bn allocated, the Test and Trace scheme had made no “measurable difference” on the spread of the virus.
Anthony Costello of Independent SAGE told openDemocracy, “The outsourced contracts to Serco, SITEL and Deloittes have failed.” He added that the whole methodology was flawed. “Call-centre contact tracing doesn’t work…[it] has not been used in countries that have successfully suppressed the pandemic. The UK has picked up only two contacts per case on average whereas Taiwan, for example, found 17… These contracts should not be renewed… The government should follow the evidence and implement a local system that works.”