Backbytes: Austerity? What austerity?

Austerity never comes for the outsourcing companies whose income has risen by a quarter, according to the Institute for Government

When "austerity" was declared in 2010, it was widely expected that the computer services giants would be among the casualties. After all, such IT project clusterbombs as the National Programme for IT in the NHS - among other examples of IT overspending and mismanagement - would need to be defused and scrapped as funding was cut.

Instead, however, the outsourcers would appear to have come out of it all smelling, if not of roses, certainly of money (their favourite smell).

According to a "think tank" called the Institute for Government (IfG), despite cuts in spending the big outsourcers - Capgemini, Serco and Capita - have been positively rolling in it in recent years.

Capita, whose tentacles extend into the Ministry of Defence, the Department of Health, the Home Office and the Department for Work and Pensions picked up a tasty £1.45bn in 2012 and 2013. Serco scooped up £810m, Capgemini swallowed up £1bn - four-fifths of which it acquired via its mega-contract with HMRC.

In all, instead of austerity reducing spending, outsourcing has actually increased by 23 per cent in value. So, either way, the outsourcing business would appear to be a winner...