Scots 'Test and Protect' not being outsourced, says Nicola Sturgeon

Nicola Sturgeon has insisted that Scotland’s Test and Protect system is not being “outsourced” after a £1.3 million contract was handed to a private company to provide contact tracing staff.

Members of the public are seen on Princess Street. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed the Scottish Government is planning to introduce a new five-tier coronavirus lockdown system from November 2. Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

But the claims were branded “ridiculous” by opposition leaders.

The First Minister said a “small number” of staff had been brought from the private sector to “work within the NHS system”.

Nicola Sturgeon rejected outsourcing claims

Motherwell-based call centre firm Ascensos was awarded a £1.3 million contract directly from National Services Scotland for providing additional contact tracers.

The contract award notice said the agreement covers the "immediate and rapid deployment of additional track and trace contact tracers".

Ms Sturgeon insisted today the firm was merely providing extra staff.

"We have not and we will not outsource any parts of our contact tracing system and no parts of the contact tracing system is run by the private sector, and I want to make that perfectly clear,” she said at the daily coronavirus briefing.

"What National Services Scotland has done is recruit a small number of staff on a short-term basis from private companies as we migrate from a system that, in its early days, was staffed by people within the NHS who could be called on, as we migrate from that to a permanent workforce.

"This small number of staff recruited from the private sector work within the NHS system, they work under direction of the NHS, they are trained in Test and Protect, they work as part of that integrated NHS system - they are not working to a private company that has been given the responsibility of running contact tracing.

"That's not semantics, that's a very, very different thing."

The NHS had originally moved staff from other departments into contact tracing work. However, a more permanent solution was needed and recruitment began for 2,000 full-time staff to work solely on Test and Protect.

The contract award notice said the staff would be used to "meet the additional demands of the Scottish health and social care sector during the current Covid-19 pandemic".

The First Minister went on to say 1,800 contact tracers are available to Test and Protect and that figure is expected to rise by 245 before the end of the month.

She said contact tracers had been recruited from travel agency Barrhead Travel, after the company offered staff who would otherwise be facing redundancy due to the pandemic.

But Tory leader Douglas Ross said: “The SNP’s answers are shifting all the time. The First Minister claimed no private firms would be involved in contact tracing, then behind closed doors they brought companies in to help.

“It’s a ridiculous situation when we’re being asked to believe that apparently it’s not outsourcing if the SNP are the ones doing the outsourcing.”

Labour health spokeswoman Monica Lennon said: "For weeks, Scottish Labour has been calling on the Government to recruit more contact tracers, but they have not done enough to build up capacity and expand routine testing to key workers."

Ms Lennon accused the Scottish Government of "complacency and dithering" over the performance of Test and Protect.

She said: "SNP ministers may be turning to outsourcing, but the buck stops with them to expand Test and Protect and make it work efficiently and effectively across Scotland."

A message from the Editor:Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by Coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.