Government fucked up yet another covid contract

[noblegiraffe]

Covid catch-up tutoring, which is pretty much the only way that the government is trying to get kids to catch up from the disruption to their education is basically a disaster.

Why? Because instead of giving the contract to the Education Endowment Foundation who ran it last year, they decided to award it to Randstad, a Dutch HR company who submitted the lowest bid.

And they can't do it. It's a mess.

So kids who fell behind because they couldn't access remote learning for whatever reason (including the incompetent government failing to provide them with laptops) are now doubly screwed because the cheapskate government couldn't be arsed to spend any money on a quality provider.

twitter.com/samfr/status/1465239826534440964?s=21 (link to paywalled FT article that I could read on twitter)

I wouldn't be even remotely surprised if there was cronyism abound on this either. It seems to be such a regular reveal now and yet not nearly enough outrage. Awful and unforgivable either way

Well isn't that a surprise!?

That's awful. I wonder what the weighting on price v quality was

Half arsed sub standard service for the next generation. They (the elites in government) care very little about our school children.

My impression of the quality of randstad support during the pandemic for students entitled to dsa was that it ground to a halt completely.
I do not hold them in very high regard.

No surprise there

Nadhim Zahawi was on This Morning telling parents to ask their kids' school if they were engaging in the tutoring programme.

It would help if it were fit for purpose, wouldn't it?

twitter.com/nadhimzahawi/status/1465404794500231178?s=21

I'm so tired of this.

We deserved so much better.

This government is structurally incapable of producing a response to the pandemic because it is in hoc to a profoundly ideological element that has gripped the Conservative Party.

Historically, the U.K. has done well when it has favoured pragmatism over ideology.

I think future generations will look at the UK's response to the pandemic and be bewildered.

It's an unbelievable mess.

This is just one instance of what an appalling, inadequate mess it is.

It's awful.