Double standards or just don’t care?

Apparently, McKinsey is not the only consulting firm to have been retained by the government during the Covid-19 crisis. Accounting and consulting firm, Deloitte was appointed to manage PPE procurement for hospitals and supporting testing sites but was criticised for a series of administrative errors and delays in providing the kit. By the beginning of June, around 30 contracts worth a combined £34m had been awarded to consultants relating to Covid-19 projects. PwC was the largest single beneficiary: that month it had been contracted for nearly £10m of financial advice to the Cabinet Office and the British Business Bank.

Down the road from these consultants’ offices we are running two holiday clubs and two food banks funded by our Covid-19 fundraising efforts for our more disadvantaged children. These are the children who did not meet the “vulnerable” criteria during lockdown but are what we consider to be at risk and in need of a lot of support – especially having spent the last five months living in high risk families. They are among the 705,000 children who live with parents’ dependent on alcohol, the 130,000 children who live in families damaged by domestic abuse or the 17,000 children living with parents with a severe and enduring mental illness. The others are from the 4.5 million children living in poverty with their families going without the necessities of life because they have insufficient money to meet the basic needs (month on month) despite 70 per cent of them working.