Health secretary Matt Hancock appears to have removed a photograph of the local pub formally run by an acquaintance caught up in controversy over a government Covid contract.

A company owned by Alex Bourne – the former landlord of Mr Hancock’s local pub the Cock Inn – is currently under investigation by the UK’s medical regulator over a contract to produce Covid test vials for the NHS.

In recent months Mr Hancock has been seen doing live TV interviews with a framed photo of the Cock Inn, located in his West Suffolk constituency, on the wall of his study.

However, on Tuesday, a different picture could be seen over the minister’s right shoulder when he made a series of media appearances.

Matt Hancock ‘takes down’ picture of pub linked to Covid contract

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-b1806608.html

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Of course, the pcture may have been replaced in order to be "spring-cleaned" .....

In any case, if those who have been awarded these contracts subsequently demonstrate that they have been ineffective or overly profiteering, then they'll become blacklisted soon enough.

NHS Test and Trace's remit is to find people who have come into close contact with those infected by the virus, thus enabling the lifting of blanket lockdown restrictions and a potential shift towards more localised measures should they be required. The organisation employs a team of (initially) 25,000 contact tracers who contact people who have newly tested positive for COVID-19 and ask them about their recent movements, before identifying others they may have come into contact with. Those people are then asked to go into self-isolation for two weeks. The contact tracers are employed by Serco, who in turn (as of September 2020) have 29 subcontractors; Serco were paid £108 million for the first phase of the work, up to late August.

The call centre is operated by American specialists Sitel, who were paid £84m for the first phase. In November 2020, Dido Harding described it as "the largest outbound calling centre in the UK".

All components – administering tests, processing samples in laboratories, and contact tracing – are contracted to private companies. Multinational consultants Deloitte handle testing logistics, including collection of statistics, and in turn appointed outsourcing companies Serco, Mitie, G4S and Sodexo, together with the Boots pharmacy chain, to run drive-through or walk-in test centres. In October 2020 over 1,100 Deloitte consultants were engaged, and the system was reported to have a budget of about £12 billion.

Serco Group plc is a British company with headquarters based in Hook, Hampshire, England. Serco operates in the following sectors of public service provision: Health, Transport, Justice, Immigration, Defence, and Citizens Services. Serco primarily derives income as a contractor from the provision of government services.

It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. The majority of Serco's turnover is generated from UK operations, but the company also operates in Continental Europe, the Middle East, the Asia Pacific region and North America.

So what if he's got a picture of a pub in the background? He's got a signed Newcastle United shirt hanging up behind him too. Isn't that a problem also because we can't attend footie matches?

Of course they will: