Public sector in no mood to offshore

Local and central government are not likely to follow private sector companies in moving operations to other countries, principally to save money.

The trend towards so-called offshoring has been strong recently. Banks have grabbed the headlines but many different types of company have chosen locations such as India for work including application development as well as call centres.

Peter Gershon, head of the Office of Government Commerce, said in an interview with the FT today that he has assured unions jobs won't go overseas.

However, he didn't take an ethical stance - along the lines that the public sector should adopt a 'UK first' approach - but rather stressed data security.

"We have to be very careful about the extent to which customer data actually moves offshore. That is a key issue," he said.

He also suggested it would be beneficial to look at better use of UK facilities, perhaps involving "rationalisation of contact centres" rather than move them overseas where costs can be much lower.