I was one of the civil service IT staff sold off to outside suppliers 15 years ago. We had been told for years by managers how poor we were compared to the lean and keen private sector, and how much time and money would be saved by selling us off. I didn't take redundancy at the time as I was newly married with a kid on the way and I thought that they might be telling us the truth.
After a couple of months working for the private sector (Sema Group) I realised that we were just as good, and in many cases considerably better than our private sector equivalents. Most of us also had pride in providing a public service, something that was lost when we were sold off.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
