Newly recruited contact tracers are being paid to sit at their computers with nothing to do after training sessions that left recruits feeling “completely and utterly confused”.
The government is hiring 25,000 people to track new coronavirus cases and identify who else might have been infected.
The British outsourcing giant Serco and Sitel, a large American contact centre company, are among those recruiting and training people to implement the system.
Sitel has redirected staff who worked for other clients including Airbnb, Thomas Cook and UK Visas and Immigration in order to help fill the posts before a planned launch, which Boris Johnson said yesterday would be no later than June 1.
Many of those hired will be tasked with calling people who have tested positive