Workers ‘charged out at double their rate of pay’

The Guardian has reported that call centre workers for NHS test-and-trace who are being paid £9.50 an hour were charged out to the government’s supplier, Serco, for as much as £21.50 an hour.

According to the newspaper, the rate was charged by call centre company Sensée. The workers were responsible for calling the contacts of people who had tested positive for Covid-19.

Tim Sharp, the TUC’s senior employment rights policy officer, said: “This rate looks excessive and seems to go beyond the already-inflated rates of commission commonplace in the industry.”

The test-and-trace system is budgeted to cost £37 billion over two years. The £1.3 billion budget for contact tracing included contracts worth £720 million for 2020-21, split between Serco and French-owned company Sitel.

According to the Guardian, Serco hired as many as 24 employment agencies to find workers for its contact tracing system in the rush to find the 18,000 workers required by the government.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/31/nhs-covid-test-trace-workers-charged-double-pay-union