Unions are calling time on outsourcing

For too long, our public services have been outsourced to private companies. 

This has destroyed investment, with public money too often enriching outsourcing company shareholders instead of improving services and serving taxpayers.  

About a third of public sector spending – some £395bn – is spent on private companies.  

These companies care more about profit than people – making their money by driving down the pay and conditions of workers and by providing poor quality services to the public. 

At the same time, the CEO of ISS enjoys a pay package of £2.7 million. Churchill has paid its shareholders £50 million in the past two years. And companies extract £400 million in profits from our railways each and every year. 

It’s high time to end of the scourge of outsourcing and bring our services back in-house. 

Steps forward   

The Labour government is starting to make good on its manifesto pledge to deliver the biggest wave of insourcing in a generation. 

Rail operating companies are already coming back into public ownership under Great British Railways.  

In March, the government committed to ending outsourcing by default and ensuring every pound of taxpayers’ money delivers good jobs. 

In June, the Chancellor and other ministers outlined plans to bring 2,000 Whitehall security staff, cleaners and others back in house. 

In August, the government announced new social value measures to help make sure procurement supports good quality jobs and skills.  

And new requirements on central government departments to develop insourcing strategies and ensure that public services are delivered in the public interest will soon be in force.  

But none of this happened by accident. 

It happened because workers organised, unions campaigned, and people stood together to demand change. 

One thing is clear – if Whitehall workers can be brought back in house, then so can workers across all our public services – including in the NHS and social care, in local government, in education and the justice system, and on our railways. 

Workers making change  

Union members up and down the land are making change happen.   

Right now, Barnsley Council nursery workers are in a long fight against plans to transfer council-run nurseries to a private provider. This will leave many staff significantly worse off – including through losing their hard-won local government pensions.  

And UNISON and the RMT have just joined forces to launch Insource Now! campaign, to fire up the insourcing revolution that our country desperately needs.  

Insourcing is also a massive priority for the TUC. 

It’s on the agenda at our 2026 Congress in the composite motion put forward by UNISON, RMT, PCS, UCU and FBU. 

And it’s why the TUC set up the Our Work Matters initiative to support workers and their unions to fight back against outsourcing.  

We’ve been working to make sure union members are heard by those in power. In May, the insourcing minister came to TUC’s HQ to meet outsourced workers. 

We’ve just launched a new online toolkit to support reps and members to make the most of the government’s new insourcing and Public Interest Test guidance in your campaigns to bring services back in-house. 

What next? 

The winds of change are blowing in the right direction, but there’s still a lot more to do.  

The government needs to bring forward procurement legislation to mandate insourcing across all our public services.  

In cases where outsourcing takes place, this new law can also make sure that any supplier getting its hands on public money provides good, unionised jobs – and also bar dodgy companies from procurement.  

The TUC and unions will be working with the Burnham government to make this happen.  

And through Our Work Matters we will continue to support union organising and industrial strength. Our next interactive online workshop on 30 September will explore how unions can make the most of new union access rights to organise outsourced workers.  

Together, we can put decent work at the heart of our public services once and for all.  

Sign up for the Making the most of new union access rights to organise outsourced workers on 30 September here.  

Join the Our Work Matters mailing list here.