Way to go Birmingham Council!

Shock, horror. Birmingham city council is being lampooned for being a pioneer and offshoring 100 low-level back-office IT jobs to India.

I think its great news. The council, together with Capita will now be able to circumvent the unions and get people to do a hard days graft while saving the taxpayer money. I know, I sound incredibly right wing. Perhaps I am when it comes to jobs, outsourcing and offshoring. I prefer to think of it more as foreward thinking.

Why all the uproar? I got into a brief spat on Twitter with a small B2B magazine on the issue. They kept falling back on the argument "But its taxpayers money being exported". "A bad day for Birmingham." "100 jobs lost"

That's 100 people that work in IT who are now free from the shackles of a desk. They will get a decent redundancy package and if they have any sense, they will use it to get their own business off the ground. Its 100 more potential TweetDecks in the making. Its 100 people that will have to pull their finger out and do something with their lives. Its the future. Deal with it.

Its also nothing new. Taxpayers money has been walking out the door or being 'exported' for decades. SERCO, General Electric, Microsoft, Siemens and so many more global companies have been getting a slice of the action for years. Imagine if all the computers in the government had to be made by British firms? Or all the operating systems? How about all the mobile phones, cars, stationery and everything else? We would all be bankrupt and living on foreign aid.

Why is it so different when it comes to labour? If labour is a commodity and it can be provided for lower cost and higher quality elsewhere, then market forces will take their toll. Its simple economics and it makes sense to me.

Congratulations Birmingham on taking a bold first step. Here's hoping other government departments follow suit and make the most of the global economy while also ploughing the billions we save in to fostering the spirit of entrepreneurship and creativity that we so badly need to take us forward in the years ahead.