This weeks New Statesman magazine includes a piece called “The Problem with Outsourcing” which focuses on the collapse of Carillion and also the possible issues with Capita, Serco, Interserve and Kier, four other companies that specialise in outsourcing. It is a good article by Grace Blakely who works for IPPR. The paragraph shown here features as the second recommendation, which followed on from a recommendation that is wholly consistent of my own blog back on 16th January and then the third suggestion regarding private financing of public services. Although I agree with that too, I don’t have enough of a grasp of such matters to comment. However this second recommendation which I fully agree with deserves a bit more reflection.

The company I work for believes passionately that our geographic focus is based within a 60-100 mile radius from our offices. Because most of our engineers live in coastal towns this does create challenges, as we cannot travel very far South before we are looking out over the English Channel. However the cost and environmental impact of long distance journeys is something we are very mindful of. Add to this the cost and social impact of putting our technicians and engineers up in Hotels is something we attempt to reduce as much as possible. This week one of our teams ended up in Blackpool, because we have a client whose sites includes the North West as well as the South East. Last week we had a team based in London who also stayed in a Hotel, however it is several months since we chose to accept work in a similar manner. Before we sound holier than though over this, there is another vital element of such logic. The installation work we carry out will inevitably lead to minor snagging in the early stages of the clients use of the schemes and then there will be maintenance issues. Being called out to deal with a sound or visual system that has gone down is much easier to resolve if we already have technicians in the area, or can get someone to do a detour without too much of a challenge. We know that some of our competitors travel down from the North West or even Scotland or Wales to install products in Schools. Such actions may work in the immediate term, but it is when things go wrong that the distance becomes part of the challenge. A final element of this is our commitment to work for local organisations employing local people and wherever possible buying goods from local suppliers. Thankfully occasionally a public sector body will tell us that they want to support local businesses. Sadly some are driven not by “value for money” which all of the above can fit within, but “cheapest supplier”. As the article by Grace Blakeley points out Carillion in their final months won several contracts on a low cost basis, the awarders of such contracts will now be dealing with the mess that such a strategy creates.