The consultant I work for is undergoing a major redundancy process in the water engineering side of the business, with the majority of jobs being lost at graduate level and below.
We have been informed that the reasons for this are that the draft determination from Ofwat appears particularly tough and as such, we won’t be getting any work out of the water companies for possibly as much as a year. It is also apparent that when the work does start to come, unachievable efficiency will be required, forcing consultants to “offshore” work to India and the like.
To make graduates redundant in this country, only to employ staff in India in their place does not seem acceptable. If we, as an industry, are left with this as the only option to be able to survive, then it would seem that Ofwat has got it wrong and we should be doing more to influence its decision making.
This is a very important issue for the country as we have already practically lost manufacturing as an industry and cannot afford to lose construction skills overseas.
It is also clear that the reason for the harsh determination is that the government doesn’t want to put water bills up because it is still hoping to win the approaching General Election.
This is unacceptable and is destroying an industry. What is the ICE doing about this?
Joe Andrews, mailto:joekayaker at hotmail dot com
Read More