Digital freelancers get the call from the public sector

Freelancers are increasingly being called upon to fill the void left by the huge reduction in permanent workers in the public sector. That’s the observation of a major online business marketplace anyway. And when you consider that 490,000 public sector jobs are due to go by 2014-15, the demand for flexible workers to complete specified projects can only increase.

People Per Hour, the online freelance marketplace, has discovered that the public sector has responded to the cutbacks by using freelancers in record numbers. The figures for digital freelancers are particularly striking – People Per Hour has seen a seven-fold increase in the number of freelancers invoicing for public service digital projects.

For all sectors, there was a 315 percent increase in the number of digital job postings which includes web design, database development and SEO functions.

What does this mean for digital freelancers? Well, it looks like they’re in the right place at the right time. For those public sector workers made redundant, perhaps it’s time to think about joining the freelance revolution?

According to PeoplePerHour.com’s founder and CEO Xenios Thrasyvoulou, the public sector is finally waking-up to the cost-saving potential of outsourcing to freelancers.

“When the recession hit, the private sector was quick to respond to the new economic reality by shedding permanent staff and engaging freelancers instead,” he says. “Thousands of UK businesses quickly realized this was the best way to stay lean and remain solvent in the face of testing economic conditions.

“The public sector had no such imperative and continued employing and retaining fulltime staff. However, since the government started slashing budgets, the public sector has been forced to find a more cost effective and efficient approach to human resources.

“It’s clear from our figures that the public sector has learnt a lot from the private sector about the benefits of using freelancers.”

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Image by ken fager ~ cc

http://twitter.com/idea15webdesign Heather Burns

This is an interesting perspective and one which, frankly, misses the point. Certainly when I worked in the public sector – which was at the height of the funny-money gravy-train years – it was standard and common practice for public sector agencies to bring in outside contractors and consultants even when they had in-house staff to do the work. If you were the marketing person your managers would still bring in an outside marketing firm; if you were in data analysis your managers would still bring in an outside data firm, and so forth. You were a very rare and lucky person if you were actually permitted to do the job you were hired to do; most of the time your employers were obsessed with “spending the budget to get the budget” rather than using that budget to serve the public and not their friends, erm, I mean, outside contractors.

Digital freelancers should not be finding more work from the public sector: they should be receiving *less*. The big-budget contractor culture can and should be slashed, in-house staff should be better utilised, and resources should be more intelligently allocated.

This article suggests that isn’t actually what is happening: rather, it would seem digital freelancers are setting up shop because they’ve been sacked from their public sector jobs and now are being encouraged to tender for what used to be their own workload. In other words, they are being sacked, then re-hired as freelancers to do the same work minus the pension and sick days. Only now, they might actually get to do the work that they were hired to do, as they are now the consultant and not the employee!

(I have a headache now. No wonder I left the public sector!)

Mel T Dixon

You make a good point, and either way you look at it, the manner in which public services have combined fixed staff with outside contractors has clearly been inefficient. The advantage that freelancers offer is the ability to take on projects with clearly defined goals – and greater efficiencies can, in many cases, be provided by a workforce which can be hired as and when needed.

Of course, these are general observations, and the balance you strike depends on the precise requirements of the individual public body. Nonetheless, freelancers and contractors do offer a crucial resource for meeting precise requirements for any organisation on an ad-hoc basis.
http://twitter.com/My_sexist_boss Julie Anonymous

Is there any evidence this is actually happening? The Government might be leaving its own contractors open to IR35 investigations!

Mel Dixon

Author's website: Freelance Advisor

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