18.07.12
Fudging the numbers
The outing of shoddy practices at Serco is another blow to the Government’s ambitions to outsource more and more public contracts. But one of the most worrying issues – amongst many – is the monitoring and assessment Serco conducted on the quality of its own services.
The Care Quality Commission brought to light mistakes in Serco’s records that falsely claimed that the company had met its targets for meeting, treating and satisfying patients.
The CQC did say that this was down to errors in procedure and technology failings but Andrew George, Lib Dem MP for St Ives, whose concerns about Serco were one of the reasons for the CQC’s investigation, remains unconvinced that the data manipulation issue has been resolved.
Whether or not the issue is resolved, it is a grave concern that the Government is moving more public sector contracts into the private sector without properly vetting the assessment methods used by these companies.
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