by Lamiat Sabin

Parliamentary reporter

ONLY 15 per cent of the public think a private company such as “untrustworthy” outsourcing firm Serco should be in charge of England’s coronavirus contact-tracing scheme, a new poll reveals.

The damning results of the survey, conducted by Survation and commissioned by public-ownership campaign group We Own It, came as Serco boss Rupert Soames defended the firm’s operation.

He called it a “huge achievement,” claming that 25,000 contact tracers having had little to do — as a majority of cases are managed by existing Public Health England professionals — was “really good news.”

Contact tracers have complained of sitting idle, without contact from supervisors, with one claiming to have worked for 38 hours without making a call, watching Netflix instead.

In May, Serco, whose contract is estimated to be worth £108 million, accidentally shared the contact details of 296 of its tracers, an apparent breach of data-protection rules.

In an interview with City AM, Mr Soames insisted that the large amount of spare capacity would come in useful when there are “short bursts of frantic activity” such as local lockdowns like the one newly enforced in Leicester.

The Independent Sage group of scientists has said it is “extremely concerned” that the current tracing system is picking up contacts from only a quarter of estimated symptomatic infections.

The new poll found that more than two-thirds of the public believe that the NHS and councils’ local public-health teams and local health services should run the system, as is the case in Wales.

We Own It campaigns officer Pascale Robinson said: “The way to deliver this is with local public-health teams and local health services — the people who’ve got the experience of doing contact tracing —  in charge.

“That would be a system the public could have faith in, and that would deliver the coherent response we desperately need.”

The group’s survey of 2,003 people in June also reveals that 44 per cent of the public believe that Serco is “inefficient,” 49 per cent deemed it “wasteful” and 46 per cent believe it is “untrustworthy.”

An earlier Survation poll found that 40 per cent of the public were less likely to take part in the programme because it is managed by a private outsourcing company.