Billions Lost through Outsourcing to Private Profit

That the Parliament notes with concern the findings of research by the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) on behalf of the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) into the cost in Scotland of outsourcing by public bodies of public services and utilities to private operators; understands that the report, Research on the Cost of Outsourcing, shows that Scotland spends more than £16 billion each year on externally supplied goods, services and works and that outsourcing extracts up to £3 billion from public services through privatised profit and financial extraction; believes that outsourcing is of particular detriment to the National Health Service and to residential and domiciliary social care and negatively and disproportionately impacts on low-paid women; further believes that Scotland must embrace proactive preventative investment across education, housing, health and social care, and shift to direct public delivery as the default for all core public services, and calls on the Scottish Government to commit to a national programme of insourcing to restore pay and pension losses to public service workers, and to embed trade unions as full partners in procurement oversight and reform.