Leader: Who's afraid to say the 'o' word?

There is an embarrassing silence when it comes to frank discussion about the pros and cons of outsourcing and offshoring. Or indeed offshore outsourcing.

While those in the technology and related services industries know the subjects inside out - and, let's not forget, profit from these strategies - there is another wall of opinion, much of it trotted out again and again in the mainstream media, that says it is wrong and a betrayal of workers in a home country.

Sometimes the gulf between the two sides seems insurmountably wide.

And those that do try to reconcile the two sides of the debate or speak openly are often shouted down. Hard as some readers might find this to palate, two parties who have been frank and realistic on the subject include a handful of the UK's largest unions - who tend to pick their fights carefully on the subject - and the DTI.

But consider the BT manager who openly - and rightly - mentioned some of the "bigots" who called in to an India-based call centre where she just happened to be listening in. Although we have probably all by now experienced good and bad service at call centres located in the UK and in other parts of the world, it would seem that when the person on the end of the phone has a noticeably foreign accent some unacceptable behaviour is forthcoming. But apparently we're not supposed to talk about that.

So it is refreshing that this week we heard from an executive in the front line of offshoring - the actual phenomenon, rather than the theory - share his views with the wider world. Unsurprisingly, the account of Sean Egan from Aviva, owned by Norwich Union, was a positive one.

A presentation he made yesterday at a conference was also remarkably open and to be applauded. He didn't shirk some of the details and helped take the debate forward in a way we rarely see - at least in public meetings and forums.

Aviva could be lucky in that it would seem to have achieved the double whammy of benefiting from offshoring while moving most of the affected staff on the home-front to higher value positions. But that will not always be the case.

Another participant in a debate at the same conference perhaps summed up the issue well. Graham Sadd, CEO of Paoga (which stands for 'people are our greatest asset), pointed out that the economy depends on what some call the "talent engine". He said he would now always source "the right people wherever they are and wouldn't for a heartbeat think of not outsourcing because it was un-PC or I'd get bad press".

Fair enough, we think, but remember there will always be those who don't see the issue that way.