CALLS have been made for a halt to outsourcing after another contract for new National Care Service (NCS) was handed to a global consultancy firm.
Unite the union has severely criticised the latest £546,000 contract award to consultants KPMG which covers the mapping of “current models” of health and social care across Scotland and producing a “high level road map for delivery”.
The Herald on Sunday revealed that ministers had already given one key contract to global consultancy firm PwC - but failed to use its own Scottish system for procurement which aims to make it easier for national businesses to supply goods and services to the public sector.
PwC was awarded the initial £100,000 deal for "mobilisation expertise" for the NCS including a “high-level roadmap towards delivery of design".
It involved the company working on a plan to set up a “agile design team for National Care Service” and produce a “high-level road map for design milestones”.
Unite said KPMG has received close to £3m in government contracts since the start of the pandemic to support Scotland’s Health and Social Care Services including the Covid-19 vaccination programme, and two other smaller contracts. Establishing a National Care Service is a key Scottish Government policy for the coming Holyrood term and is due to be fully up and running by 2026.
There have been more than 11,500 Covid-related deaths in Scotland and around a third occurred in care homes.
Nicola Sturgeon has said the reform of adult social care would be a “fitting legacy from the trauma of Covid” and would be the “most significant public service reform” since the establishment of the NHS.
Unite is now calling for an end to all contracts being outsourced to the private sector over the development of the service as fears grow about the increasing use of the private sector.
Unite will now press Scottish Government ministers to demand that there is an immediate cessation of contracts being outsourced in association with the National Care Service.
Mary Alexander, Unite Scottish Deputy, said: “Unite is deeply concerned about recent developments in the planning and design of the new National Care Service. Once again, global management consultants are being awarded public contracts as the Scottish Government increasingly outsources the creation of a National Care Service to companies such as KPMG and PWC.”
“Let’s be clear that these consultants have one objective which is to maximise the role of the private sector. It’s our firm belief that the new service must be an accountable and genuine public service with the motive of profit completely removed from its operations. We are demanding that the Scottish Government cease the outsourcing of any further contracts or we fear that the new National Care Service will be botched before it is even created.”
Plans for a National Care Service were announced in August, and marks a significant shift from arrangements in England and not for the first time.
When the Sutherland Commission recommended free personal care across the UK in 1999, only Scotland implemented it.
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