UK tops for public sector outsourcing

UK tops for public sector outsourcing

The UK public sector has the most mature outsourcing market in the world, with a sophisticated outsourcing approach to transform services rather than just cut costs, according to a new study by Accenture.

Link: Outsourcing – The source of IT success

Outsourcing by governments is a growing trend with nearly 90% of government executives outsourcing activities key to delivering public services, according to the management consultancy.

The report, Outsourcing in Government: Pathways to Value, looked at outsourcing by 23 governments across Asia, Europe, North and SouthAmerica. It found that the ‘transformational’ outsourcing model adopted by the UK achieves the best results.

Satisfaction was highest (around 70%) among executives who chose outsourcing to achieve goals such as access to new technology, to standardise operations or gain expertise.

Only 50% who embraced the model to reduce costs and 24% who chose outsourcing to increase revenues ‘mostly or fully’ met their objectives.

Peter Holmes, head of Accenture’s UK government practice, said in a statement: ‘As governments become more experienced with outsourcing, they seek new ways to derive greater value from these arrangements and are therefore more inclined to outsource processes such as procurement, finance and accounting, and human resources, which were previously considered too critical to outsource.’

Even allowing for several high-profile government outsourcing failures, Richard Holway, director of analyst Ovum Holway, said he was not surprised the UK topped the league.

‘Despite failures you can still be top. With Thatcher, Labour and private finance initiative projects in the UK, the whole atmosphere is about outsourcing. Most Western countries are further back down the track butthey are running as fast as they can to follow us.’

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