UNIONS say Labour is failing to tackle Britain’s outsourcing “scourge” as new analysis reveals spending on private contracts has soared since it took power.

The value of outsourced contracts awarded or renewed for “soft facilities” management, including cleaning, catering and security, hit £6.2 billion in 2025, Unison and RMT research shows.

That is up from £3.5bn for 2024 when the Labour government came to power with this year’s figure already at £6.6bn so far, according to analysis of official contract registers.

Unison general secretary Andrea Egan said: “This is hardly the wave of insourcing that everyone was promised. At best, all we’ve seen is a trickle.

“Outsourcing is a scourge that’s draining vast amounts of cash from public services to generate huge profits skimmed off by greedy bosses of private firms.

“Every penny should be spent on providing higher quality services for everyone who needs them and making sure staff are paid fairly, instead of given rock-bottom rates.

“Insourcing makes perfect economic sense and makes sure the public get what they pay for.”

The unions say the figures collected so far “are just the tip of the iceberg” as the outsourcing of public-sector contracts is still widespread in health, local government and transport.

They will call on PM Andy Burnham to implement an urgent programme to deliver on insourcing at the launch of their Insource Now! campaign in Westminster tonight.

RMT general secretary Eddie Dempsey said: “Public-sector outsourcing is a national scandal that has been privatising essential public services throughout the country.

“Taxpayers’ money is being used to increase the profits of wealthy corporations while workers and communities pay the price through worse jobs and services.

“With Andy Burnham’s welcome support for insourcing, there’s now a real opportunity to turn the page.

“We’re calling on the government to urgently agree a new ‘people’s plan’ for insourcing to end the exploitation of workers and ensure public services put people before profit.”

Labour vowed to oversee “the biggest wave of insourcing for a generation” during the 2024 general election and ministers declared an end to “outsourcing by default” with a new public interest test across central government in June.

RMT and Unison now want Mr Burnham to ensure each government department and public body works with unions to create a “people’s plan” to insource contracts as they expire or when break clauses arise. 

They also want to see annual audits produced, alongside the autumn budget, to make clear how much profit is extracted from public services through outsourcing.

Their campaign has been backed by the Green Party, left Labour MPs and activists.

Labour MP Andy McDonald said: “Outsourcing continues to cost the state to pay private profits for the provision of key public services, whilst also costing the workers in worse terms and conditions. 

“With the Insource Now! campaign, Unison and the RMT are providing more evidence that it makes economic sense to insource provision of our services. 

“We must make sure that the new public interest test does its job of economic transformation and delivers, as we promised, the biggest wave of insourcing in a generation.”

Former shadow Labour chancellor John McDonnell MP said: “Unison and RMT are doing the whole labour and trade union movement a huge service in launching this campaign.

“Let’s be clear privatisation and outsourcing rip off the workers, the service users and the taxpayer.

“They have lined the pockets of the wealthiest in our society at the expense of many of the poorest. Ending outsourcing and bringing services back in house could be a massive gamechanger for the Burnham government but it needs fast and urgent implementation.”

Green MP Ellie Chowns said: “It is time to reverse these decades of outsourcing and bring more of our public services back in-house, to be run for public benefit, not private profit.”

A spokesperson for former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn MP’s Peace & Justice Project said: “If the Prime Minister was truly serious about change, he would immediately end the scourge of the private profiteering in our public services. 

“This total failure has seen the super rich get richer while workers struggle to put food on the table and pay their rip-off bills.

“It’s time to end the grotesque exploitation of Britain’s workers and bring these critical jobs back in-house — guarantee them fair pay, trade union recognition and full rights from day one.”

A spokesman for Momentum said: “Bringing services back in-house is urgently needed. 

“Unaccountable, rip-off outsourcing has eaten away at public services for decades. 

“We need a democratic alternative.”

The Cabinet Office was contacted for comment.