Why is offshoring UK public services data and process a bad idea?
I think that is probably a good idea that this guidance is issued not least because it does actually start to establish that the biggest barriers to the off-shoring of public sector services is the PR hit and the fact that MPs will be up in arms when someone decides to move jobs to India or elsewhere.
The reality is that most process performed by the public sector could be done cheaper overseas and probably more securely than they are done in the UK. The types of operations being brought back on shore are call centres not the transactional activities that require little or no contact between the back office staff and customers (e.g. processing invoices, data input, processing forms, etc). If we got rid of these low value but extremely expensive bits of work then we should see a fall in the costs of doing government which should translate in to lower taxes at both the national and local level.
The other problem that this guidance will probably not address is what governance means and how many times a year the local mayor and their cronies will have to go to foreign parts to make sure that the system is working properly. That is where the screw up will be as council budgets for first class hotels, business flights, etc rocket as everyone sets off for a fortnight in Goa!
Of course all this is wishful thinking as the idea that off-shoring will ever work for the public sector is a non-starter. There are to many agendas in place to allow this to happen from the unions, to MPs, to local councillors and executives. They all have to maintain their jobs and positions and offshoring reduces the needs for all the middle managers that exist today and replaces them with a strong governance team who actually manage the contracts (something that govt has real problems doing today).