Rail enquiries to be offshored to India?

A union claims train operators have a "moral obligation" to re-evaluate plans that could see up to 1,700 rail enquiry call centre jobs outsourced to offshore locations such as India.

The Association for Train Operating Companies (ATOC) started the re-tendering process for the rail enquiries service earlier this year and said it expects to announce the winning bids in early December.

The current service is run by BT, Serco, First Information and ClientLogic with 1,700 staff in call centres in Newcastle, Plymouth, Derby and Cardiff. But union Amicus claims ATOC is proactively pushing for the work to be done in cheaper offshore call centres.

Lee Whitehill, spokesman for Amicus, told silicon.com that representatives of ATOC have already been out to India to examine possible call centre locations and the quality of service, and that some rail enquiries are already being fielded by offshore workers.

"The British taxpayer subsidises ATOC to provide the rail enquiry service and what are they getting in return – 1,700 redundancies? We want to see exactly what the costs are and how many jobs will be lost," he said.

Whitehill said a call to rail enquiries at the weekend was answered by someone who was unable to give specific journey details and admitted to being based outside the UK.

A spokesman for ATOC said only 10 operators out of a total of 1,700 were currently based offshore, handling less than one per cent of rail enquiry calls. He also denied Amicus claims that train operators had set an offshore agenda for the rail enquiries service.

"Where the call centres are is a matter for the suppliers," he said. "The big three facts for us are quality of information, accuracy of information and value for money. Where the suppliers want to base the call centres is up to them."

Whitehill accused ATOC of being "disingenuous" by passing responsibility for where call centres are based to the suppliers.

"It doesn't sound like the act of an organisation merely twisting in the wind in terms of what its suppliers want," he said.