{"id":23828,"date":"2020-09-21T16:09:17","date_gmt":"2020-09-21T15:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=23828"},"modified":"2020-09-21T16:28:43","modified_gmt":"2020-09-21T15:28:43","slug":"cronyism-and-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=23828","title":{"rendered":"‘Cronyism and chaos’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds gave a major speech today (September 21) at Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Connected online conference, the party published a damning \u00e2\u20ac\u0098file of failure\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 <\/a>outlining the billions of pounds wasted and mismanaged by the Tory government amid the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The file revealed that more than \u00c2\u0141130m was handed to Randox Laboratories \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a firm that has donated to the Tory party \u00e2\u20ac\u201c for testing kits. In the end, three-quarters of a million of these tests had to be recalled because they were deemed unsafe by the Department of Health and Social Care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, at least \u00c2\u0141150m of a \u00c2\u0141252m contract for Ayanda Capital was wasted on face masks, as a huge proportion of these masks were deemed unsuitable for frontline NHS staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government has so far handed outsourcing giant Serco and call centre firm Sitel \u00c2\u0141108m and \u00c2\u014183m respectively to run a contact tracing service which has so far failed spectacularly<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figures from August showed that of the firms\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 10,000 contract tracers, which Serco recruited, trained and managed, they only managed to contact 2.4 people each. Overall, only 56 per cent of people who have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive for the virus were reached by contact tracers managed by Serco and Sitel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite their poor performance, their contracts continue to be renewed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Endenred was another firm targeted in Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s file of failure \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the company was handed more than \u00c2\u0141230m to administer school meal vouchers over the summer, which experienced severe delays, with families reporting they struggled to redeem the vouchers when the scheme was first launched. As UniteLIVE highlighted over the summer,<\/a> the delays to the school meal vouchers caused serious hardship for many struggling families. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The firm is now being investigated by the National Audit Office (NAO).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taeg Energy, meanwhile, was handed more than \u00c2\u014143m to provide hand sanitiser to the NHS, despite the fact the firm had stopped trading in 2016 and has been listed on Companies House as dormant since 2017.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The biggest waste of taxpayers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 money outlined in Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s file of failure was Chancellor Rishi Sunak\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own Jobs Retention Bonus, with an estimated cost of \u00c2\u01412.6bn. Sunak announced the Jobs Retention Bonus in his summer economic statement in July<\/a>. As part of the bonus, employers would be paid \u00c2\u01411,000 for every furloughed worker that they retain until at least January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even by Sunak\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own admission, this bonus scheme would entail \u00e2\u20ac\u0098dead weight\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 costs, since many of these bonuses would be set to go to businesses which were going to bring staff back to work anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her speech today<\/a> (September 21), shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds said that this \u00e2\u20ac\u015bfile of failure\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 was one that \u00e2\u20ac\u015bno carefully crafted Instagram story from the Chancellor can hide\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bJust some examples; \u00c2\u0141130 million to a Conservative donor for testing kits that were unsafe, \u00c2\u0141150 million for facemasks that couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be used by NHS staff, over \u00c2\u01412.6 billion to be handed over in so-called job retention bonuses, to businesses who were going to bring staff back to work anyway, outsourced contract after outsourced contract which has simply failed to deliver,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to be this way,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she went on to say. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWorkers and businesses should expect more, much more from those in power.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dodd\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s speech comes as a new survey has found that the vast majority of the public wants the test and trace system to be taken out of private hands.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearly three-quarters of those polled said they wanted local public health teams, and not firms like Serco and Sitel, running the country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s test and trace programme, while only 14 per cent said they wanted a private company to run it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, UniteLIVE highlighted further problems<\/a> with privatised labs running community testing, which has been beset with problems for weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Responding to Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s latest revelations of astounding Tory mismanagement and waste of taxpayers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 money, a Unite spokesperson said, “Labour is absolutely right to shine a light on the cost to the country of the Tories’ approach to getting this virus under control.  The cronyism and chaos sickens voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The funnelling of masses of public cash the way of their mates while at the same time talking of cuts to benefits to ‘pay’ for this crisis is just the same old Tories.\u00c2\u00a0 Not acting in the public interest and certainly not up to the job.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Hajera Blagg<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds gave a major speech today (September 21) at Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Connected online conference, the party published a damning \u00e2\u20ac\u0098file of failure\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 outlining the billions of pounds wasted and mismanaged by the Tory government amid the pandemic. The file revealed that more than \u00c2\u0141130m was handed to Randox Laboratories \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a firm […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":827,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1308,1],"tags":[1295,102,1348,1426],"wps_subtitle":"Billions of taxpayer funds wasted as fat cat firms cash in on Covid-19 contracts","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23828"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23828"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23832,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23828\/revisions\/23832"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}