Responding to the Public Accounts Committee report on Test and Trace, Tamzen Isacsson, Chief Executive of the Management Consultancies Association (MCA) said:
“The UK’s consulting sector has responded to the government’s request to stand up resources to assist in the Covid-19 pandemic providing extra capacity and specialist expertise. A vast number of healthcare organisations, the military, public bodies and private sector firms have supported the national effort to work as an integrated team to set up and scale the Test and Trace system, a vital service needed to help control this pandemic and the consulting sector has played its part in this nationwide effort. Consultants from across a wide range of firms are working shoulder to shoulder together with civil servants as part of one national team to help run the technology platforms and systems for testing the population. The Government, NHS and DHSC is responsible for the overall strategy of Test and Trace and MCA member firms and others are playing a part in the roll out and delivery. Our MCA member firms have highly stringent governance procedures which adhere to the Government set criteria and which ensure staff working on public sector projects meet the highest standards in ethics and are held to account to ensure the public interest is being served and that firms are providing value for money.
“All MCA Member Firms used by government in this period have been procured through competitively tendered Crown Commercial Service (CCS) frameworks which evaluate bidding firms against quality and cost criteria. Selecting the right expertise and capacity to develop new services has been crucial and as part of these contracts, consultancy firms are required to ensure they upskill civil servants and transfer their knowledge and skills to increase capability of the civil service for the future.”