Ending outsourcing is key to rebuilding the social state

Editorial / 24 September 2026 Burnham must turn words into action without delay 24 September 2026 Editorial / 23 September 2026 The threat to peace and democracy comes from Washington, not Moscow 23 September 2026 Editorial / 22 September 2026 Xi meets Trump – two visions collide 22 September 2026 Editorial / 21 September 2026 The link between war, energy prices and Britain’s cost-of-living crisis 21 September 2026 Editorial / 20 September 2026 Liberal dilemmas as the ruling class seeks a new vehicle for fragmented Britain 20 September 2026 Editorial / 18 September 2026 Tom Watson, Palantir and post-Starmer Labour — which side are they on? 18 September 2026 Editorial / 17 September 2026 Time to lift Palestine Action proscription 17 September 2026 MAKE public services public again. The case for ending the outsourcing bonanza and ensuring services we all pay for are brought under public control is obvious.

Labour gets it. Officially, anyway. The “biggest wave of insourcing in generations” was promised by former chancellor Rachel Reeves when the party was still in opposition; it was a theme she picked up back in the pandemic, when lucrative contracts for everything from PPE to test-and-trace systems were being handed out on a who-you-know not what-you-know basis.

The Boris Johnson administration’s contracts for cronies were unusually brazen. But like the pandemic itself they exposed a fundamental problem in the way the country is run.

Britain has been hollowed out by decades of Thatcherism. Our industries were gutted, sold off and shut down because transnational firms could manufacture more cheaply elsewhere; come an emergency, we scrambled to buy essentials abroad because our domestic manufacturing capacity was inadequate.

In the same way the state itself is hollow — not so often a provider of the services we pay taxes for as a commissioner, buying those services on our behalf from profiteering firms.

To quote the new Back In-House: The Case for Ending Outsourcing report by Common Wealth, “outsourcing was sold as a way to introduce competition, improve service quality and reduce costs, but, in reality, it has produced concentrated markets where outsourcing conglomerates focus more on extracting profits than serving public needs.”

Huge outsourcing firms like Serco and G4S are overmighty subjects like medieval barons. They can break the law — both ended up settling cases where they had defrauded the taxpayer by overcharging millions — without fearing it reduces their chances of future contracts.

The services they provide are often shoddy, their treatment of workers and those in their care shabby, since their commercial imperative is to spend as little as possible to maximise the returns to their shareholders. But their scale ensures they remain best placed to keep winning contracts.

The Common Wealth report, commissioned by the RMT and Unison unions which founded the Insource Now campaign (since joined by Civil Service union PCS), estimates the 2024-25 operating profits of private companies delivering public services at £6 billion. Money that could have stayed in public hands and been reinvested in staff and services.

For comparison, the sum Starmer hoped to cut from social security payments to disabled people before last year’s back-bench revolt stopped him was £5bn.

The point is not that saving the one sum would pay for the other.

It is that ending outsourcing is essential to cutting through the crap we are fed on tax and spending.

The loudest voices in our politics and media insist that the British are taxed too highly — and millions, seeing what they pay each month and resenting deteriorating services, would agree.

The left needs to retaliate on multiple fronts. Yes, working-class people are taxed too highly, especially with the long-running freeze on income tax thresholds, but property and profits are not taxed highly enough.

But also — crucially — decades of neoliberalism have not cut public spending as a share of GDP, they have just redirected it to the pockets of corporations and hedge funds and private-equity investors.

Outsourced workers paid poverty wages get those topped up by the state (more than a third of universal credit recipients are in work), with assessing who qualifies for what often itself outsourced.

It enables the doom-loop where we are always spending too much however much we “cut,” and we must always seek “savings” from public services and social security. Narratives on the lips of shameless politicians after decades of exactly those policies.

Starmer was ejected because it was clear he would never deliver the change he promised. Labour conference this weekend is a chance for our new PM to show he is different.

Economy / 25 September 2026 Outsourcing companies rake in £6bn profits from public services last year, study shows 25 September 2026 G4S, Serco, Mitie, Sodexo and others made vast profits ‘at the expense of workers’ rights, accountability and service quality,’ Common Wealth warns

TUC Congress 2026 / 15 September 2026 Let’s move from outsourcing by default to public service by design 15 September 2026 The Labour government must deliver on its commitment to bring back privatised services into the public sector. This not only saves money but also creates accountability and generates wider social benefits, argues ANDY MCDONALD MP

TUC Congress 2026 / 15 September 2026 Capita’s pension shambles shows why outsourcing must end 15 September 2026 PCS is demanding the long-overdue return of essential services to public ownership, explains FRAN HEATHCOTE

TUC LESE Regional AGM / 18 April 2026 Building the fight against outsourcing 18 April 2026 Outsourcing is at the heart of inequality. Only collective unity in the trade union movement can topple the Establishment’s obsession with it, says SAM GURNEY