Outsourcing

Congress notes the policy shift announced by the UK Government in June 2026, which formally acknowledged that decades of "outsourcing by default" have damaged public sector resilience, eroded terms and conditions, and enriched private contractors at the expense of workers and public services.

Congress welcomes the introduction of mandatory Public Interest Tests and five-year insourcing strategies at Whitehall level, alongside the commitment to bring 2,000 facilities management workers across 83 civil service buildings back into direct public employment by 2028.

However, Congress recognises that the Whitehall model cannot simply be transposed unchanged to Northern Ireland. With Northern Ireland public procurement accounting for roughly £3 billion annually compared to well over £300 billion UK-wide, the Westminster threshold requiring five-year insourcing roadmaps only for bodies spending over £100 million would let the vast majority of NI public sector employers off the hook.

Congress stands with all affiliate unions opposing the scourge of outsourcing. Congress congratulates the PCS members working for Sodexo at Erskine House in Belfast on their principled stand against a shameless employer that has made hundreds of millions of pounds from the public purse while running down services, cutting hours, offering poverty pay rates, and engaging blatantly in union-busting tactics. These workers have demonstrated extraordinary resilience in fighting for dignity, fair pay, and equal treatment on the civil service estate.

Congress therefore calls upon the Northern Ireland Committee to:

1. Campaign alongside PCS to demand that the Westminster government immediately extend its civil service insourcing commitments to all UK Government property in Northern Ireland, ensuring that outsourced facilities and support staff in buildings like Erskine House are brought directly into civil service employment with matching pay and pensions.
2. Demand that the UK Cabinet Office apply a regionalised public interest test to all reserved government service contracts in Northern Ireland, ensuring that lower-value contracts are not permitted to bypass public sector delivery.
3. Coordinate movement-wide industrial and political anti-privatisation campaign.
4. Organise training for affiliate unions on developing “in-house bids” for NI public procurement.