The Scottish history graduate quit his £21,000 a year job as a manager for Sky Television in April to work in an Indian call centre. The cost of living is seven times lower than in Britain, which means their value of lifestyle is much higher."The firm has so far recruited 15 people, with another 10 in the process of signing one-year contracts.Featuring at the top of the company's website, which tries to lure Britons in their early twenties, is the story of Kenny Rooney. "[Recruits] get a far better package than they would if they were working in the UK Their accommodation and flights are paid for. A UK firm is recruiting British graduates to work in Indian call centres for a few hundred pounds a month to help satisfy the demand from banks and insurers who are moving thousands of call centre jobs abroad. Workers earn 11,000 to 30,000 rupees a month - about £150 to £400, less than a quarter of the average salary in the UK. Tim Bond, the managing director of Launch Offshore, pointed out that living in India was a lot cheaper. The London-based firm, Launch Offshore, which used to help businesses set up call centres in India, now focuses on recruiting young people from Britain to work in India. But according to the Government's barrister, this accusation will be made later in the case.Tomorrow the judge, Mr Justice Lindsay, will hear the shareholders' application to try to force the ONS to produce all documents relating to the classification issue.Jonathan Sumption QC, speaking for the Government, told the court that the claimants will allege that Sir Richard Mottram, who was the Permanent Secretary at the Department of Transport, was "involved in manipulating the ONS".The ONS is resisting the court summons on the basis that the documents are confidential and that disclosure would affect future "full and frank" communication between the ONS and government departments The case continues..
But, "within a remarkably short time", according to Mr Rowley, a second call to Mr Cook later that day produced the answer from the ONS that it was "quite certain" that CLG would be private sector.The shareholders have not claimed, so far, that officials actually "leant" on the ONS to come up with their preferred answer. is there any action the Department [of Transport] can take to persuade the Treasury to address this question with the seriousness it deserves?"The Government had decided to put Railtrack through administration and convert it into a "company limited by guarantee" (CLG), Mr Rowley said.The court heard that the ONS was told to focus on this plan to such an extent that Mr Cook "complained about the pressure being put on his staff to come to a very important judgement over the CLG model in a very short time without a full appreciation of the facts".The issue of the CLG structure was described by officials as the "last piece of the jigsaw". The court heard that Stephen Byers, the Transport Secretary at the time, told the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, that "whatever words will get it [the CLG] in the private sector" would do.Mr Rowley said that a telephone conversation on 5 October 2001 between the then Permanent Secretary at the Treasury, Sir Andrew Turnbull, and Mr Cook left the government official with concerns. Mr Rowley said that statisticians were told to concentrate on this task rather than on Railtrack's own restructuring proposal.Railtrack and the Strategic Rail Authority were working up a joint venture that also urgently needed an opinion from the ONS on the treatment of its debt. The court heard repeated pleas from the SRA to the Treasury to provide the ONS with the necessary information to adjudicate on the SRA-Railtrack proposal, which also needed to "score" as private sector debt.David Thomas, the director of corporate finance at the SRA, wrote on 3 October 2001 to an official at the Department of Transport: "Jeff Golland [a Treasury official] and his colleagues persist in refusing to take seriously the need to brief ONS properly... According to the shareholders' QC, Keith Rowley, the Government plotted secretly to put Railtrack into administration but was concerned that the company's debt might come on to the public balance sheet as a result. It was on this categorisation issue that the ONS was asked to give its verdict. As such, it has powers to force employers to take action if it looks as if there might otherwise be a call on the fund.Although the regulator cannot force employers to take action that might force them into insolvency, it can require funding top-ups.The regulator can also step in if companies attempt to default on pension promises through corporate restructuring.Justin Wray, a director of the Pensions Regulator, said: "We are expected to be more proactive than previous regulators and we see this framework as being entirely consistent with that approach."Ros Altmann, an independent adviser on pensions who has campaigned for better regulation, said that she welcomed the new rules.
Ms Altmann said: "Someone should be keeping track of what's happening at a company that has made pension promises to staff, particularly where it has asked employees to make payments of their own to help fund such promises".. Len Cook, the Government's chief statistician, has been issued with a summons to produce key documents to the High Court case that is seeking compensation for shareholders in the defunct Railtrack. The court heard yesterday that government officials "pressurised" the Office of National Statistics, run by Mr Cook, into giving priority to its preferred solution to the financial crisis at Railtrack in 2001 - over the company's own plan. The regulator, set up this year to police occupational pension schemes, said companies would have to give it early notice of problems that could eventually lead to staff suffering.