Posted 6pm UK time

Wasting millions of pounds of tax-payer money through mis-management is unfortunate at the best of times. During a lockdown in which thousands upon thousands of jobs have been destroyed by the Government, threatening the livelihoods of those now unemployed, this is unforgivable.

With this in mind, a recent report by the National Audit Office on the performance of NHS Test and Trace does not make for joyful reading.

The following is reported in The Daily Telegraph today:

Call handlers for NHS Test and Trace spent just one per cent of their time working as £22 billion was “thrown at” efforts to “avert a lockdown,” a damning report warns. 

The National Audit Office (NAO) said billions of pounds have been spent on outsourced providers without proper scrutiny to prevent conflicts of interest and waste. 

Its report found that after 18,000 call handlers were employed in May, their “utilisation rates” were just one per cent. It comes after workers spoke of how they were effectively being paid to “watch Netflix” with one describing receiving £4,500 without receiving a single call. 

The incompetence of those in power is overwhelming.