In the quiet pause before the storm of the Makerfield result drops, good news has passed unnoticed. “The age of outsourcing is over,” declares the Cabinet Office. There will be “the biggest wave of insourcing of public services for a generation” Rachel Reeves says. Finally, here it comes: every government department promises to bring cleaners, security and others of all kinds back as public employees when current contracts expire.

“New approach to procurement signals ambition to end the era of outsourcing by default,” goes the government press release. Shares in the big state contractors Serco, Capita, and Mitie fell on Wednesday after the news.

You don’t often hear spontaneous outbursts of enthusiasm from the unions these days, but the Trades Union Congress (TUC) spokesperson’s response on Wednesday was: “It’s fantastic!”. Its statement celebrating this first step suggests it expects more to come. The Public and Commercial Services Union’s general secretary, Fran Heathcote, said: “This is a huge victory for members”, and “for too long outsourced workers have faced lower pay, poorer conditions and been treated as second-class citizens”.

A new public interest test will now be applied to every contract as it ends to reverse “years of outsourcing that eroded the state’s capability to deliver its own services”, the government says. This will apply to all kinds of services, including the training of senior civil........

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