With Carillion's compulsory liquidation earlier this year costing the public purse an estimated £7bn there have been many questions raised on whether taxpayers are getting a fair deal when it comes to outsourcing.

The UK's public sector outsourcing market is worth billions and is one of the largest in the world, second only to its American counterpart. Sharing the profits of this is an ever shrinking group of businesses that continue to win contracts by offering cheap prices that can't be matched by smaller companies. However last year, amid shocking profit warnings and losses for a number of outsourcing companies, local authorities have started to try to move away from the – as before unquestioned – norm of outsourcing on the local government stage.