[Stuart]

I think that we as a society are overcomplicating things because it appears cheaper. I say appears because if you look purely at normal outgoings , it is cheaper, but most people don't bother the factor in the costs of either not having the work done, or employing people (or a competing company) if the company providing your service goes t*ts up. It's also introducing more stuff to potentially go wrong.

For example, a school has a need for cleaning staff. These staff are a fixed cost, and will need storage space and equipment, all of which must be budgeted for. OK, so an outside cleaning firm will provide their own equipment, their own staff if the staff are based centrally, can service several schools with the same equipment and staff. Fair enough. That is cheaper. What if the company goes bankrupt? The school still needs cleaning, and it's unlikely the school will have the budget required for cleaners and equipment, even if they have the space required for storage. At least if the school goes bankrupt, they won't need any cleaners anyway.

I work in IT, and we are doing the same with systems, except it's worse because when you outsource a company critical system, you introduce not only the potential problems of what happens if the company hosting your critical system(s) goes bankrupt, but also miles of communications infrastructure than can go wrong, potentially taking out important systems for days. Most companies are unlikely to survive long without their critical IT systems.