|
Offshoring has become a standard business tool for UK businesses. Many companies are happy to take advantage of the lower costs and big labour pool that offshoring locations such as China, India, South Africa or Vietnam can offer, and suppliers see it as a good way of trimming their prices.
However this is not the case with the government. It has signed conspicuously few offshoring deals - especially to India. This cannot be due to a generalised fear of outsourcing as the majority of public sector technology services are delivered by big IT companies. The reason for the few offshoring deals can be attributed to the fact that no government wants to be seen to be creating jobs in another country at the expense of its own citizens.
Also, governments have to be accountable to the whole country. So the financial savings made have to be balanced against the wider impact on society. This could mean that the government could end up effectively subsidising jobs in the UK that would otherwise be moved elsewhere in world. What happens at the moment is that the government outsources to an onshore company and then that supplier sub-contracts the work, and some of it inevitably goes offshore. That is, a political sleight-of-hand approach is taken.
There should be more transparency and honesty in addressing the offshoring issue especially where government contracts are involved.
|