UNISON used this week’s TUC Congress in Brighton to press Labour for better public services, fairer work and an end to outsourcing — setting out a clear test for ministers on whether the Make Work Pay agenda will deliver for people who keep the public realm running.
Delegates unanimously backed a UNISON motion calling for ministers to begin the mass insourcing of public services before the next general election, bringing workers, utilities and services back under public control.
Speaking to Congress, UNISON general secretary Andrea Egan said:
“Working people have had enough. It’s time for the government to deliver the massive wave of insourcing it promised in its manifesto.”
She argued that outsourcing means worse terms and conditions for staff and huge profits for private contractors, naming firms including Serco, Compass, Sodexo, ISS, Mitie, HCRG and Veolia as examples of companies pocketing millions from public contracts.
“Unions stand for a country that looks after its people, where services are run for communities, not profit, and a politics that strengthens the public sector instead of stripping it back.”
Outsourcing costs still climbing
The Congress push follows UNISON and the RMT’s Insource Now! campaign launch earlier this month. Their analysis of soft facilities contracts — cleaning, catering and security across rail, health, local government, policing, higher and further education and schools — found the value of outsourced awards and renewals reached £6.2bn in 2025, up from £3.5bn in 2024, with the 2026 figure already at £6.6bn.
Labour’s Make Work Pay / New Deal for Working People promised “the biggest wave of insourcing of public services in a generation.” Motion 35 welcomed steps on a two-tier code and public interest test but warned that measures so far are too weak — excluding wholly owned subsidiaries and applying mainly to larger central government contracts rather than the wider public sector.
Congress agreed to campaign for a public-sector-wide strategy and timetable for insourcing, and for a new procurement bill that gives the public interest test legislative teeth.
Fair visas and a fair settlement route
UNISON also used Congress to challenge proposed immigration settlement changes. Senior vice president Debbie Rowden told delegates that plans to extend the route to settlement for many key public service workers — in some cases from five years to as long as 15 — would drive away international staff and leave them open to exploitation.
Moving a composite motion calling for the proposals to be withdrawn, she said the government was treating health and social care as “low waged and low skilled” while offering bankers a faster three-year route. The motion was carried by Congress.
UNISON’s Fair Visa campaign wants the longer settlement waits dropped and sponsorship rules changed so migrant care workers are no longer tied to a single employer.
Together we are stronger
Across the week, UNISON’s message was that better public services and fairer work cannot be delivered by dividing the workforce. Outsourcing, insecure visas and attacks on the value of care work all push in the same direction: weakening the public sector and the people who staff it.
The union’s answer from Brighton was collective: bring services back in-house, make work pay for the staff who deliver them, treat migrant key workers with dignity — and remember that together we are stronger.
