Quango 'to outsource jobs to India'

Jul 29 2009

A major quango is set to outsource more than 100 jobs to India as a cost-cutting measure, it has been reported.

The British Council plans to recruit local Indian workers to fill IT and finance posts, according to The Times.

The proposal has infuriated unions, who are nervous about plans for belt-tightening in Whitehall as the Treasury seeks to make billions of pounds of efficiency savings.

The Council last month announced plans to axe up to 500 UK jobs in the face of Government pressure to cut costs and the fall in sterling.

According to The Times the body, which promotes British culture overseas, will fill more than one fifth of those posts in India and plans to bring some of the Indian recruits over to "shadow" finance staff in Manchester.

It is believed to be the first time that the Civil Service or a quango has directly exported jobs to save costs

The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) responded angrily to the decision.

PCS spokesman Dave Cliff told The Times: "We think it is an absolute disgrace. The British Council is an educational and cultural organisation to support British culture, but a big part of this organisation is now going to be based abroad."

Martin Davidson, the British Council's chief executive, told the newspaper: "Our spending power overseas has been hit by the fall in the value of sterling in the last year. To ensure that we continue to spend as much of the money we receive from the taxpayer as possible on our programmes abroad, we are cutting our running costs by creating leaner, lighter and more effective administrative and back-office functions."

The Council hopes to make many of the cuts through voluntary redundancies.