Daily Archives: July 26, 2017

Exclusive Hundreds of IT roles at the BBC are to be offshored to cheaper wage locations, under a 560m contract renewal coming into force with its incumbent outsourcing giant Atos.

In a conference call with 300 staff - heard by The Register - Atos bosses said the new Aurora IT contract model will involve a "significant amount of offshoring and new tooling".

The workers were warned they will be pushed into an "availability pool", where some may be redeployed to another role within the company.

But only a fraction are expected to be retained on the BBC account, with most of those local roles to be exported to Atos centres in Poland and India, sources told us.

The vast majority of the Infrastructure and Data Management team and the professional services team (B&PS) will be relocated, staff were warned, but the media practice team and service desk will continue to operate from their current locations.

In total, around 400 Atos staff have worked on Auntie's tech support agreement, and may have done so for the past decade when the agreement was first reached. The renewal was agreed in May.

Last week James Purnell, BBC director of Radio and Education, told presenter Kirsty Walk on Newsnight (at 5:15 on this video) the 75m expected to be saved from the IT programme with Atos could help address the gender pay gap exposed after the Beeb revealed the salaries of stars earning more than 150,000.

On the briefing call, staff were told that a large mix of offshore versus onshore was necessary in order for Atos to win the bid against Fujitsu and CSC.

Employees were also told the new IT model is supposed to begin in October this year, however, those plans are "subject to change" with an overhaul done "in a more staged manner" rather than a "big bang" approach.

"The original plan was to deliver significant milestones and key deliverables in October. That is still the plan of record, but we are re-baselining some of those activities," staff were told.

One staffer told The Register that although the company was not making employees redundant, there was some uncertainty as to what would happen if they remain in the "availability pool" for too long.

The new Aurora IT programme, supposedly a "tower contract", will replace the original 2.3bn deal the BBC signed with Siemens back in 2004, which was transferred to Atos when it acquired Siemens' Solutions and Services unit in 2010.

Aurora was scheduled to begin in 2015, but the existing contract with Atos had been extended for another two years at a cost of 285m.

In addition to Atos, the other main supplier to win a place on Aurora is BT, which will pocket 100m over the next seven years to supply its internal network.

El Reg asked the BBC and Atos about the changes.

A BBC spokesman said the structure of the outsourcing arrangement was up to Atos in terms of how it chooses to provide services under the shiny new model. He said:

"As planned, these services will be provided to us by Atos from October."

Atos didn't directly answer the points we raised. A mouthpiece said it was in the "very early stages" of the new contract with the license-fee-payer-funded broadcaster.

"We look forward to delivering the new service which will provide a fantastic end user experience taking advantage of new technologies, whilst also providing significant cost savings."

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Take that, gender pay gap! Atos to offshore hundreds of BBC roles - The Register

Apex court seeks details about PTI leader Jahangir Tareens offshore company

PTI General Secretary Jahangir Tareen. PHOTO: APP/File

ISLAMABAD:The Supreme Court cannot disqualify any parliamentarian on mere presumptions, Chief Justice of Supreme Court Mian Saqib Nisar observed on Wednesday.

The three-judge bench of the apex court, headed by the chief justice himself, took up PML-N leader Hanif Abbasis case, seeking disqualification of PTIs general secretary Jahangir Khan Tareen.

The bench also directed Tareens counsel to supply details regarding his clients offshore company, including details regarding creation and interest in the Trust, any receipt transmitted by the Trust, creation of the offshore company, names of the owners of the company or owners of the title of the company, legal and beneficial owner of the company, the quantum of assets the company created abroad and how much amount was sent from Pakistan for creating the company.

How do we apply Article 62, judge asks Imrans counsel

However, the court observed that the money was transferred via banking channels and Tareen paid taxes. It also questioned how it could be established that Jehangir Tareen is the beneficial owner of the company.

Hanif Abbasis lawyer Azid Nafees argued that Jehangir Tareen had admitted in an interview that he had offshore assets, but did not declare them in his nomination papers.

In response, the bench said Jehangir Tareen might have accepted that there was an offshore company, but it was in the name of his children and he had nothing to do with it and he is just the settler of Trust.

The counsel said Tareen admitted that his company was named Shinny Limited and owned a flat in London which he acquired after selling his property in Canada.

However, Tareens lawyer Sikandar Bashir told the bench that the petitioner, instead of raising such questions, should himself prove the veracity of his allegations because he had levelled them in the first place. He also contended that the petitioner had no legal cause to file the case against his client and that they were ready to reply all queries on the question of the offshore company.

Azid Nafees maintained that Tareens children were acting as his proxy.

SC to hear petitions against Imran, Tareen on May 13

The counsel said Jehangir Tareen also gave and received huge amounts as gift from his children.

In response, the bench remarked there was nothing illegal if the father was giving or receiving funds from his children.

It also pointed out that Tareen received Rs87,500,000 in 2010 and Rs69,750,000 in 2015 from his children, while gifted Rs1.4 billion to his children from 2010 to 2015 according to his income tax and wealth tax returns.

Azid also argued that in the Panama case this was the manner of the acquisition of property which was the main issue and the source of the money and for this, the Joint Investigation Team had been constituted to probe it. Justice Umar Atta Bandial remarked that in that case, the existence of foreign assets was admitted.

Disqualification: SC issues notices to Imran, Tareen

Azid said in this case Jehangir also admitted that he had an offshore company and owned assets and he had sent money abroad to his children and they invested the same in the company.

He alleged that Tareens investment had come from children in the shape of gift. He said Jehangir became the public officeholder in 2002 and has since been giving gift to his children.

Regarding commission of offence in the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, the counsel contended that by depositing gains and fine Tareen had accepted his culpability in the offence and he should be disqualified.

He said under Section 25 of the National Accountability Ordinance 1999, the accused returned the money in plea bargain. He said that the Supreme Court in Dr Mubashir Hassan case declared that even if the accused returned the money in such a plea bargain, he or she would still be considered an accused.

However, the bench observed that every member of Parliament who was served a notice by the SECP could not be disqualified just because he or she had been served a notice. It also wondered if all parliamentarians could be directly disqualified under Article 184(3) of the Constitution. It also wondered if the SC could adjudicate such matters in the presence of other forums.

The case was later adjourned until today (Thursday).

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Offshore assets: Conjecture not enough to disqualify MPs: Supreme Court - The Express Tribune

about 16 hours ago Updated: about 14 hours ago

Allied Irish Bank: no longer plans to offshore roles in its IT operations unit, where 129 staff were outsourced to Wipro more than two years ago. Photograph: Paul McErlane

AIB has changed its mind on offshoring certain IT functions to India as part of its five-year outsourcing arrangement with Wipro. It is understood that the bank decided that such a move was too risky in the current environment.

The bank confirmed to The Irish Times it no longer planned to offshore roles in its IT Operations unit, where 129 staff were outsourced to Wipro more than two years ago.

In a statement, the bank said: On an ongoing basis we review our IT operating model to ensure we are delivering to our changing customer needs. In 2015, AIB outsourced some IT operations to multiple partners, including Wipro.

As part of our agreement with Wipro, we recently considered offshoring a small number of IT operations roles. Following an evaluation, AIB has decided not to offshore these particular roles at this point in time.

Informed sources suggested that some 100 roles had been earmarked by Wipro for India but the bank put the figure at about 30.

AIB is believed to have spent a large sum of money on implementing the outsourcing arrangement, with EY engaged as consultants on the project.

The outsourcing plan was originally conceived during David Duffys time as chief executive. Since then, AIB has returned to sustained profitability, paid a dividend to shareholders, and regained a main stock market listing in Dublin and London.

The transfer of roles to India would also have resulted in a number of long-serving staff, who moved from AIB to Wipro in 2015, being offered redundancy packages. The banks change of heart means those offers are now off the table.

The Financial Services Union welcomed the retention of the jobs in Ireland.

The FSU was advised on Monday of the decision by AIB to direct Wipro to retain jobs in Ireland that had been earmarked for offshoring to India, its general secretary Larry Broderick said. This is welcome news and provides job security to staff in the ITO section of Wipro who carry out work for AIB.

This development strengthens the unions view that we need a strategic approach to banking services in Ireland that includes the issue of outsourcing and offshoring technical support and other functions. This is important for employment in the sector and also for customer confidence and security.

In addition, Mr Broderick said AIB had advised the union that a review of the work that Wipros application, development and maintenance section undertakes for AIB was under way. We expect clarification on this in the coming months, he said.

It is understood that about 100 roles are involved in this area, with 28 of them already offshored.

Founded in India in 1945, Wipro is a listed company specialising in global IT, consulting and business process services. Its website says it has a dedicated workforce of more than 170,000 staff.

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AIB scraps plans to offshore IT roles to India - Irish Times