What place for contractors in the future UK flexible workforce?
In our fourth interview over issues affecting UK contractors with Nigel Griffiths, the Minister for Small Business, UKTECH asks what the Minister sees the future role of knowledge-based contracting businesses as being in assisting to promote UK Plc. as an attractive place to do business in the international market.
UKTECH asked Mr Griffiths how, if a flexible workforce is key to our future success, small freelance IT and engineering, knowledge-based consultancies can help to achieve that success?
Mr Griffiths replied: "Companies that want specific tasks done and want to be able to tap into the best skilled people, of course, can benefit from that [method of working]. IT is a fast moving sector and obviously you want the maximum flexibility based on a company of whatever size to decide what strategies are best for them, some want short projects done and a number of bigger companies, like BT which has got the biggest IT outsourcing contract in Britain, need to manage much bigger projects, so I've seen it from that high level to the smaller one or two people project level."
"Nobody owes Britain a living... Any British company that doesn't think it is fighting for its life every day of the week could be in trouble with this level of competition" - Nigel Griffiths
UKTECH reminded Mr Griffiths of the IBM outsourcing contract to supply IT services to the Scottish Parliament being undercut by the Indian firm, Wipro Technologies, in December 2000.
Mr Griffiths said: "India has got some of the most highly skilled IT people in the world. Nobody owes Britain a living. I was at National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) in Mumbai last year and the primary concern of Indian IT delegates there was the number of IT jobs going to China. So, in the pecking order you have the US, the UK, India (equally skilled with the UK and US) and then China, which is cheaper still but not quite as skilled. Any British company that doesn't think it is fighting for its life every day of the week could be in trouble with this level of competition. The very first small business I visited as the Minister for Small Business was an IT company and I do try to visit IT or manufacturing companies every week. In business there is no wonderful tomorrow. Competition is going to be fierce in Europe and the third world and in America where productivity is 30 per cent higher than ours, which does worry me.
"We can only raise our productivity by making sure we have access to the highest skills and are motivating our young people and that we have a flexible workforce, which is why we took the stand we did on the Working Hours Directive. If we need to do an 80-hour week to make sure something gets delivered on time then so be it! We have to make sure we're up-skilling people all the time. I am not anti foreign workers bringing their skills into the UK, though my social conscience says to me we shouldn't be bringing doctors into the NHS here from the third world. Going back to your question about accidentally turning away the next Microsoft with IR35, I don't want to turn away a young 'Bill Gates Singh' from coming here. We're a trading country and we certainly don't have IT companies here in the UK beating down my constituency office door saying incoming workers have displaced them."
UKTECH: Regarding the role of recruitment agencies in the contracting business, were you involved in the recent deluge of complaints from agencies over the proposed Agency Workers' Directive?
Mr Griffiths: "Of course! The DTI Small Business Council, who are our advisors, have been onto this from day one and we have a number of SMEs we have been working with who are also in that sector. We spotted these agency proposals early on and we are lobbying Europe very strongly on it. Agents are quite rightly terrified of being wiped out by it.
"Agencies in the UK play a tremendous role in allowing us to have a flexible economy and workforce. That flexibility is the reason we're the fastest growing economy in G7 and I pay tribute to agencies for their ability to meet the varying needs, whether short-term or long-term, of businesses. They help us to even out the business cycle and stop businesses from having to worry that if they take someone on, they are lumbered with that person, which is a worry to other European countries under their own legislation. The last thing I want to see is companies being stopped from growing by not having access to skilled, flexible workers. I certainly do want Europe to take that away from us.
In our final piece on Nigel Griffiths tomorrow we look at the Minister himself, his background and experiences and the changes he has made from formerly holding the consumer brief to representing the businesses that sell to the consumers.