Hundreds of Covid-19 tracing staff were left in the dark over the future of their jobs as a £60million contract was handed to private companies yesterday.
Workers at Pursuit Marketing in Glasgow, which had been handling a £10million contract assisting with Test and Protect, said they didn’t know where they should be turning up for work after the firm lost out on the lucrative new deal.
National Services Scotland (NSS), which provides procurement and logistics for the NHS, handed the two-year agreement for “additional call centre capacity” to Scots firms Ascensos and Go-Centric.
Bosses at Pursuit said they had arranged the transfer of operations and 600 staff under a “tight timescale”, with some workers claiming they were only given confirmation that their current roles were being scrapped just two days before.
One worker said: “It’s been a total shambles. The new contract was starting on Thursday and employees were still to find out on Wednesday which company they would be working for.
“Staff were waiting for a call the night before the contract ended to tell them which company they were going to work for the next day. It was a mess.”
Pursuit was due to find out if its bid for the new contract had been successful on March 9 but it’s understood it wasn’t told it had lost out until nine days later.
Bosses told staff on March 23 and asked for an extension to the existing contract to allow more time to deal with the transfer of staff, but it’s believed it was only told it had been denied on Monday.
Pursuit said: “Our contract for Test and Protect call centre services ceased on March 31.
“We are now working closely with the new contract holders… to transfer employees across in accordance with TUPE (Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment) arrangements.”
The vast majority of staff are understood to be keeping their jobs under legislation which protects employment during contract transfers.
An NSS spokeswoman said: “The vast majority of workers affected will be able to transfer to work on the new contracts, which will commence from April 1 as planned.
“Last November, all suppliers were made aware that future contract requirements were likely to be of smaller scale and consideration should be given to TUPE in relation to staff.
“We have engaged with Pursuit to minimise the impact on jobs and have encouraged incoming suppliers to work with Pursuit to safeguard jobs.
“We’re working with all parties to achieve the best possible outcome for impacted staff while upholding our remit to achieve best value for Scotland’s NHS.”
Ascensos said: “We have now concluded discussions with NHS National Services Scotland and other parties to ensure the effective transfer of services and the related personnel as planned.”
The £60million contract replaces current agreements with call centre services that were brought in urgently to assist health boards during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In October, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon denied tracing was being outsourced to private companies. She said: “Test and Protect in Scotland is an NHS service.
“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.”
David Harper, chairman of go-centric, said: “We’re incredibly excited to start working for the NHS in Scotland and take immense pride in our contribution to the national recovery, so we’re thrilled to be growing our dedicated team.
“We’ve worked hard with all the parties involved to a very tight timescale, and we’re currently welcoming our new colleagues and assisting them so that they can continue to deliver this critical service.
“Everyone joining us will have fantastic opportunities ahead for training and skills development, a commitment to their health and wellbeing, and the chance to further contribute to communities through our charitable programmes.”
The Scottish Government was unable to comment.
