Well, of course, people are terrified of going here. But this is issue, although related to immigration, actually is not directly about immigration at all. It is about the exegesis of big business as opposed to any role protective role a state may have with its citizenry.
Let me ask the direct question: What is good about providing employment via an Indian agency which is set up to minimise or avoid any UK tax being paid (company tax, employers contribution, pensions, employee tax possibly as well), that does not provide employment to people who live here and have been through the UK educational system and, above all, provides no opportunity for training in this industry for UK people?
Although I liked the people very much it simply beggars belief that HMRC should regularly be party to such schemes, as I have no doubt such schemes are, in one way or another, common place.
Where will the UK nationals be found in this industry though? Well, of course, working on projects such as Border Control where it is a requisite to have security clearance. This is the looking glass world of Whitehall giving with one hand and taking with the other. Group think at its best (worse) where a sop is given in the direction of the inevitable tensions caused by carelessness in other areas.
And how childish group think really is. All about avoiding issues, wriggling free from the implication of collective action.
All about disclaiming any responsibility. How strange it is that people who disclaim so much still feel so paranoid! The more they disclaim the more defensive and paranoid their behaviour. This is what has replaced rectitude, big company paranoia seeping like poison through every aspect of civil life.
BT laid off 15,000 people - but they retained their relationship with this sub-continent supplier - how extraordinary, not even in the EU.
From the point of view of the quality of the work being done what this means is that there are so many more layers between the customer requirements and their execution. How do I mean this?
What BT want in employing its agency staff is both a cheap and obedient set of workers. They might call it proficient. What it means is that there is little potential for individuals' investment in the work, what there is scope for is more management, the very thing that BT and Serco, who hold the contract, want because this is where they make their money. There is no scope in this arrangement for improvement from the ground up. The very antithesis of everything I know about how good software is developed.
Actually, in this situation, the reality was that the people from this agency were employed on integration testing. But, as integration was the only place where the software was tested, i.e. it wasn't tested before at all, it meant it was the first line of defence. It was the place where all defects could be glossed over. And this was precisely how it was used. Defensively, any defects discovered might take a long time to be fixed so the process was very slow, and to gloss over what could be glossed over: missing feature, too bad, just look at how expensive it will be to get it in if you make a fuss about it now!
So, in short, I have been appalled at the working practices, in every aspect, that I have encountered, I believe this is a direct result of HMRC having a very poor legal footing in the contract and team to execute its terms, and that, overall, much money could be saved by taking a far more robust and Alexandrian approach. I personally found it unbearable to have to take part in practices that were aimed squarely at company profit and other peoples career betterment without regard to the final product in terms of costs or quality. I shall come back to this when I discuss the management layer which is Serco.