Outsourcing the coronavirus crisis to business has failed – and NHS staff know it Cat Hobbs
about 4 years in The guardian
Handing out contracts out to firms like Serco and G4S is now second nature to those in power. We need to rebuild state capacity
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The coronavirus pandemic has revealed a lot about British society – the fragility of the economy, the insecure situation so many workers find themselves in – but it has also shone a light on the state itself. Many comparisons have been made between the current mobilisation of state resources and the second world war. But while that crisis involved a ramping up of public sector capacity, this one is being managed by a state that believes itself to be utterly dependent on the private sector.
First, there are the outsourcing giants, shadowy corporations who have been handed numerous contracts over the past 20 years. Matt Hancock has put Serco in charge of the phonelines for contact tracing, a vital part of the government’s public health strategy. This is a company that mismanaged data at a GP surgery, and failed to train staff properly for a breast cancer hotline service. Along with G4S, it claimed money from the government for tracking prisoners who were later found to be dead. Continue reading...
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