Workwise
UK may offshore civil servants’ jobs to India

The British Government is secretly planning to switch tens of thousands of civil servants’ jobs to India or eastern Europe in an unprecedented cost-cutting initiative. According to sources, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), government’s biggest ministry, is considering proposals by private companies to take work overseas.

“This could involve the transfer of part or even all of the functions of the DWP area of business that could have previously been located in the UK, a centre located outside the UK,” said the document, written by the department’s security team.

According to recent reports, the memorandum warned strict measures to be taken to ensure that sensitive information is not leaked.

Birth and death records to shift

The move follows decisions by two government departments, the Office for National Statistics and the Department for National Savings, to start replacing British-based staff with overseas employees, earning a fifth or less of UK salaries under deals with private firms.

The biggest deal is being implemented by German-owned Siemens Business Systems, which proposes to transfer all records on births, marriages and deaths to Chennai.

“We have no plans to move any of our contact centres or any of our other services offshore. Some of the suppliers for our support services such as IT may use offshore sub-contractors. That is entirely a matter for them,” a spokeswoman for the Department for Work and Pensions said on Monday.

Banking already offshored

Banks, electricity and gas suppliers, airlines, rail operators and phone companies already operate call centres in India and eastern Europe. A decision by the DWP to start negotiations with some of the private companies approaching them could mean the first large-scale government operation going abroad.

Expressing resentment, Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), the largest union in the civil service, told the Independent newspaper his organisation had not been consulted despite the fact that 70 per cent of the department’s 120,000 staff were members of the union.

“This Government has privatised more civil service work than the Thatcher and Major governments. When in opposition, Labour would have cried foul if a private company did this.

Union opposes move

“Politically, this is huge. It is the Government as an employer prepared to look overseas to cut labour costs. The question is, do we want a public service based in the UK, serving the citizens, or do we want to move to a more commercialised model?” A growing amount of National Health Service back-office work is also going to India under a joint venture between the NHS’s shared financial services and Xansa, one of the largest outsources of finance and accounting. — PTI