Britain’s outsourcing model, copied around the world, is in trouble (original) (raw)

Britain | The good, the dumb and the desperate

High-profile fiascos and dwindling cost-savings are making many question whether the idea has run out of steam

STEERING Britain’s new aircraft-carrier into its home base at Portsmouth is a delicate business. There is little room to spare at the mouth of the base, so the 65,000-tonne behemoth, HMS Queen Elizabeth, is nudged along by a specially commissioned tug, SD Tempest. Despite the sensitivity of the task, this is not a Royal Navy vessel. The tug was built and is operated by Serco, a private company, which also tows the country’s nuclear submarines out to sea from their base at Faslane.

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “The good, the dumb and the desperate”

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