Outsource Magazine

The arguments against sending UK Government work to offshore outsourcing locations have been well rehearsed within the sector. There has always been a latent worry about data security and, where customer facing functions are concerned, about the quality of service delivery - subtly different from the quality of service itself. But these are concerns that can, with patience and clear, honest communication, eventually be overcome. As increasing number of professionals associated with the sector are saying, there are no inherent reasons why some offshore locations in the developing world should be any more insecure than developed world locations but there are a couple of roadblocks along the way.

First of all, you cannot outsource responsibility and so, for a government in particular, to send work offshore can entail a range of risks that, while they may not actually be any worse than those faced at home, seem more daunting becasue they are incurrred hundreds or thousands of miles away within an alien jurisdiction. There is a growing case for a universal legal code on data security that can be enacted into any legal jurisdiction that seeks to benefit from the outsourcing business. Codes of practice and 'guidelines are simply not enough where the privacy and security of very sensitive material is concerned.

The other roadblock is politics; especially during a recesssion. Which government would wish to be the one that put British workers out of a job and passed that work offshore? In good times that might be possible with the likelihood that displaced UK workers would soon find even better jobs in a burgeoning home economy. But during a recession and its aftermath, not only would the sending of work offshore cause social unrest but it might not make financial sense if the displaced workers then continued to be a cost to the UK government through the benefits they would be entitled to claim while no longer contributing productively to the economy. Add to that the risk of such out of work people steadily losing their skills through lack of use  and it can be seen why this has always been a contentious topic.

None of that should mean that the rationalisation of work across global boundaries should not be a long term goal but it should suggest that those seeking to step into outsourcing government work to offshore locations should tread carefully and with some sensitivity; also that they might do better to use the next year or two to prepare the ground and establish the network of contacts in areas where they'd like to work while holding back on the actual promotion of business, because it will be the providers who are able to time their pitch to coincide with an upturn in the UK government's and people's economic and employment confidence who will be best placed to win in the long term.