Protecting The Roles Of UK Contractors
UK IT contractors are miffed. They are being usurped by overseas workers as an increasing number of blue-chip companies are offshoring many of the roles these vital workers perform away from the UK to supposedly more efficient locations.
The blue-chip companies in question include financial institutions, household names, who have for a long time relied on the expertise the UK contractors provide and engage large numbers of IT contractors in particular. The specialist skills freelance contractors supply on a daily basis to these organisations usually in critical or high level roles, are essential to their long term success and survival.
I find it hard to understand how offshoring these posts is in the interests of either the companies in question or the British taxpayer, and I believe their strategic decisions to offshore will have harmful long term impacts on UK freelancing and on the business sector as a whole.
Furthermore, PCG understands that many of the roles being ‘offshored’ have initially been filled by cheaper ‘Intra Company Transfers’ (ICTs) in what is a blatant abuse of the immigration system. According to UK Borders Agency rules, no Intra Company Transfer worker can replace a settled UK worker—yet this is exactly what appears to be happening.
I understand that, prior to offshoring entire departments, the likes of RBS and others have been using ICT work permits to train inexperienced foreign staff—demonstrating that ICT workers are not being used to bring in specialist skills as the rules state. British contractors have the skills in abundance.
In the long term, such an approach will lead to a de-skilling of the IT workforce, and a drop in the availability and size of the UK’s flexible, knowledge based contractors. This will clearly have a serious impact on the ability of the UK economy to bounce back as a key flexible skills base is lost. I believe that the UK’s big organisations have a responsibility to consider first and foremost the UK’s economic interests.
The economic benefit of offshoring has not yet been proven, but consistently, the value of freelance workers has. PCG has been campaigning hard now for a number of years and will go on campaigning to protect IT contractors who have been a key tenet of the success of these large organisations. I have no doubt that these short-sighted decisions will have long-term implications. They have been warned!
John Brazier is Managing Director of PCG, the professional association that represents the UK’s freelancers and contractors. For some time, PCG has been campaigning to clean up the Intra Company Transfer system to protect the roles of UK contractors.
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