British Council to outsource jobs to India; govt staff oppose

H S Rao and Prasun Sonwalkar

London, Jul 29 (PTI) As the Gordon Brown government mulls
to outsource over 100 jobs at the British Council to India as
part of its cost-cutting drive, government employees denounced
the move as an "absolute disgrace" and feared that it could be
a blueprint for shifting more such services abroad.

The Council, which promotes British culture and language
abroad, said that 500 of its 1,300 British workers would have
to go in the next 18 months to save 45 million pounds. More
than a fifth of these posts are to be filled in India and the
body plans to bring some of the Indian recruits over to
"shadow" finance staff in Manchester.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), which funds
the British Council, is exploring similar options.

"The FCO is working actively to deliver cost savings and
to ensure that as much of our resource as possible is focused
on frontline activity delivering for the UK. We therefore
fully understand the British Council's efforts in that
direction," a spokesperson said.

The government employees unions fear that the move to
outsource British Council jobs to India could be a blueprint
for more such government jobs shifting abroad.

The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which
represents civil servants, opposed the Council's decision
saying it was against Brown's stated principle of "British
jobs for British people" and could not be justified during a
recession.

"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," PCS spokesman Dave Cliff was quoted as
saying by The Times.

Though the final decisions about which jobs will go
to India will be taken in the next few weeks, but they were
expected to include 58 finance posts, up to 40 IT posts and 15
posts for a new centre of excellence. PTI