Next move - HMRC, DVLC to India?

Loughton_Monkey

Only 70 jobs in Birmingham are being talked about here.

But surely the true savings will come when most of the Civil Service could be moved, surely? How many hundreds of thousands of desk-based jobs do we have in these large institutions? They could all go to India. Quarter the price at most, and no pensions.

War graves. Charities. DWP..... Even Care Home regulators for all the work they do. The list is endless.

And the bonus is that Indian accents are easier to understand than Birmingham, Liverpool, Geordie, or Welsh.

Let's go!


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13622189

'Offshoring risk' to thousands of council jobs'

The Unite union is warning that thousands of council and local authority jobs could be at risk of being outsourced abroad.

It follows the news that dozens of Birmingham City Council staff are to see their jobs offshored to India.

Up to 100 posts are to be transferred by the end of the year.
The cost-cutting move is thought to be the first time a council or local authority has outsourced part of their direct workforce abroad.

The posts are with Service Birmingham, a joint venture between Birmingham City Council and the management firm Capita.

A redundancy notice has already been served which will see more than 70 Birmingham-based IT jobs go.

Induction

Service Birmingham began looking at offshoring in the autumn.
The first tranche will see 18 roles move to India. A further 37 will go by the end of the summer.

A total of 100 are likely to go by the end of the year.

Service Birmingham has confirmed that employees have already been recruited in the Indian city of Pune.

It is understood that they will shortly travel to the UK for a formal induction.

the.ciscokid

Meh, this is a "joint venture" (which means some council official got his palm greased) with Capita, a private firm who specialize in outsourcing and provide ICT services.

The Unite Union (and your thread title) are somewhat scaremongering.

wymondham

Have you tried discussing your technical or financial issues with someone who does not fully understand the language, yet alone the problem?

In my experience, when 'customer care' is handled offshore, the service drops like a stone. Maybe they should at least try to sort themselves out before going along these lines??

CloudCuckooLand

Typical Local Government, behind the times...

The cost difference between India and onshore has reduced to the point where the small gain is hardly worth the downsides. Active consideration (if not already in hand) of bringing chunks of work back in some industries.

Some other countries might be better targets - i.e. Poland, lets make use of all those hard-workers who came here 2005-8, learnt the language, then went home due to recession...

dtsazza

wymondham wrote: »

In my experience, when 'customer care' is handled offshore, the service drops like a stone. Maybe they should at least try to sort themselves out before going along these lines??

"Thankfully", the DVLA is so god-awfully incompetent at anything that involves dealing with a customer, that I can't imagine it could be worse if offshored.