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back to article UK's big-spender councils shovel IT workers into a skip

A number of the UK's largest councils have significantly cut their IT workforce in recent years, according to local government figures. According to figures published in response to freedom of information requests by Guardian Government Computing by some of the highest spending local authorities on IT in the UK, several …

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  1. Zog The Undeniable

    Wiltshire figures

    They went unitary in 2009 and took on the workload of the former district councils, hence the increase in numbers.

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  2. Will99
    Headmaster

    Serious contradiction of figures

    The government (and training bodies talking up the market?) say we need 1000's of IT workers yet the jobs are declining mainly due to off-shoring.

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    1. Gordon 10
      Reply Icon

      Re: Serious contradiction of figures

      For the purposes of accuracy most of the jobs mentioned were Outsourced NOT (necessarily)Offshored.

      Now Im sure some were both - but the fact that most were done under Tupe and done less than 3 years ago suggests most are still in the UK. This is backed up by the re-hirings noted for those councils that have increased IT staff.

      I have as many problems with offshoring as the next Reg reader - but I also have a problem with knee-jerk conclusions that are not supported by the data or a link. Lets not paint the picture blacker than it is.

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      1. Dare to Think
        Reply Icon
        Unhappy

        Re: Serious contradiction of figures

        Well, Gordon 10, offshoring has been much a buzzword like "leverage, ecosystem, and agile" Back in the good ol'days (2003 - 2007) companies were eager to jump on that bandwagon and offshore the call centre to South Africa, manufacturing to China, HR and IT to India, and accounting to the Philippines. And our good politicians believed the story of "we no find skilled labour 'ere in da UK".

        Ensuring long term intellectual capital? Building a broad skill base? Training up skilled labour? Generating wealth? Not at all.

        Germany's long term success comes from keeping their engineering base and therewith their intellectual capital within, well, Germany. They are able to provide their young people at least some hope with apprenticeships and savings and loan schemes for their first house.

        The perspective we provide to our young people are stacking shelfs in a supermarket - if they are lucky, and that job is not taken by a guy from Russia.

        I ask every reader, who is the loser, when there is a non-EU company, taking over that IT service contract, fires people and offshores highly skilled jobs, and channels the profits out of this venture again offshore to avoid UK tax?

        Do our politicians tax outsourced or ICT-abused jobs? Not at all.

        Is there an insourcing move right now? Yes, to the companies' branch in Hungary, or Lithuania.

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        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Holmes

          Re: Serious contradiction of figures

          I downvoted this because it's written by someone who believes they are 'daring to think' and yet it's nothing more than a facile regurgitation of well known issues. If you really want to 'dare to think' then propose a viable solution that you can sell to the decision makers.

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dysfunction is coming

    As people here know, and West Sussex County will probably find out in due course, interleaving the outsourced services with dedicated services that are still internal, will unleash a headache that can't be measured in salary costs; especially when you're dealing with a certain, large, un-named outsourcing company.

    Give it a few years and it will all be in-house again. A few councillors will have resigned and the papers will enjoy some rather meaty headlines. It is just a shame that they don't learn from history and keep making the same mistakes.

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    1. Colin Millar
      Reply Icon

      Re: Dysfunction is coming

      In-house again - not a chance. The move in local government has been constant over the past 2 decades at least and there is no reason to think that there is any political will in any of the political groups to move back to large centralised infrastructure services. Quite simply - it would cost a huge amount to recentralise such a service once it has moved out and even if that kind of dosh were ever again available it would get spent on more high profile areas.

      You need to remember that in politics just because something is broken doesn't mean it will get fixed.

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    2. MrZoolook
      Reply Icon
      Joke

      Re: Dysfunction is coming

      I'd ring up and give them a piece of my mind...if only I had a translator to hand!

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  4. PeterM42
    FAIL

    More Jobs Going Overseas...

    .....no doubt.

    All so this country can add to it's benefits bill by having to pay dole money to redundant workers and boost the Indian economy.

    VERY CLEVER - NOT!

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