Insourcing is often treated as a corrective to outsourcing in public services and low-wage work. When services are brought back in-house, the assumption is that inequality has been addressed through a change in employment status. Pay improves, contracts stabilise, and the logic of outsourcing appears to be reversed.

In many cases, this reflects years of worker organising and long campaigns to secure better conditions. But the shift in legal employer does not necessarily resolve how work is organised, valued, and experienced on the ground.

Across cleaning work in UK public institutions, insourcing has delivered clear improvements. Workers have moved from outsourced contracts into direct employment, with gains in hourly pay, sick pay, holiday entitlement, and pension access. In some cases, long-standing gaps in basic employment conditions have been reduced or removed. 

These changes matter. They alter the baseline security of work that had previously been structured around subcontracting models that fragment responsibility and spread accountability across multiple actors, making it harder to identify who is responsible for working conditions. They also show what becomes possible when workers challenge outsourcing and secure direct employment. 

At the same time, evidence from these workplaces points to gaps that remain. Insourcing does not always remove the workplace hierarchies that determine how different kinds of work are valued and workers are treated. 

Cleaning remains a form of “dirty work” within institutional life — necessary but invisible. Even after insourcing, it continues to occupy the lower end of occupational hierarchies. This reflects how value is assigned across roles in the organisation, rather than contract status alone. The work is physically present everywhere in the institution, and yet is socially positioned at its margins. 

This is where the limits of contractual reform become visible. 

In practice, insourced workers often occupy a space that is formally integrated but socially separated. The boundary is no longer external (outsourced versus in-house), but internal (core versus peripheral work). Understanding and addressing this gap matters both for workplaces that have already achieved insourcing and for efforts to improve conditions across outsourced service models more broadly. 

What changes — and what doesn’t 

Across cleaning campaigns, insourcing has delivered real gains. Workers move into direct employment, with improvements in pay, sick leave, pensions, and job security. In hospitals, this includes alignment with NHS employment structures and stronger recognition of cleaning as part of patient safety. In universities, it includes access to paid holidays and formal employment protections that were not previously available.  

These changes are significant. They reduce some of the most immediate forms of insecurity linked to outsourcing. But when workers describe everyday experience after insourcing, a more uneven picture appears. 

1. Material improvements — but not full equality 

The most visible gains are in pay and benefits. Workers consistently report higher wages, access to sick leave and pensions, and more stable contracts. At the same time, these improvements do not translate into equal standing across the workplace.

Differences remain in pay structure and progression, including the absence of enhanced rates for unsocial hours, slower movement through pay bands, and exclusion from allowances available to other staff groups. 

One worker described the outcome after insourcing: 

There were no changes at all, whatsoever. This is why we now have another campaign. All the benefits we have is the sick leave, the 41 days annual leave and the pension contribution. Because we didn’t have any of this with the contractor. These are the only changes. But if you look at the more physical changes, like working conditions, nothing has changed!

— Anonymous worker, cited in Marcel 2024

Another worker similarly described how improvements in pay and benefits did not extend to how they were treated: 

In that difference of benefits, it has been a quite big and good change for us! But, with regard to the treatment, dignity and respect, I think the university continues treating us the same way as the contracting agencies used to treat us.

— David, cited in Kaiser, 2021

2. Inclusion in the workplace — but continued exclusion from space 

Formal employment brings workers into the organisation, but not always into the spaces that shape belonging at work. Cleaners continue to describe exclusion from staff rooms, rest areas, and informal workplace settings where relationships form and information is shared. In some cases, they are still expected to use separate entrances or remain out of sight during working hours. 

One worker recalled: 

We could not even go to some of the levels. It was very bad, they would tell you, ‘Don’t sit there, you can’t sit there because you are a contractor’ […] We were branded as the cleaners, we were so ‘filthy’ so we couldn’t sit in certain areas, we couldn’t stand in certain areas and speak because they did not want to see us in those areas.

— Anonymous worker, cited in Marcel 2024 

Even when rules are not formally in place, exclusion can still shape behaviour: 

On the sites where I had worked, I had never seen any of us buy sweets or drinks from the vending machine. It is not forbidden to do so. It is unthinkable. […] Without it being said, we know that the vending machine is not for us.

— Anonymous worker, cited in Marcel 2024

In one workplace, this separation became very visible: 

At Christmas time we got a letter informing us that there would be a reunion. As they always told us that we were all part of the same family, I thought that we would be invited to the Christmas party as usual. But actually, the cleaners were only going to celebrate among themselves in a meeting room. I thought: “they are dreaming!! I will never go to this party.”

— Anonymous worker, cited in Marcel 2024

Accounts from other insourced university settings point to similar forms of spatial marginalisation, including a lack of basic facilities: 

Changed in the men’s room, at eight in the morning… someone was working early and he entered the bathroom and the cleaner was in her bra… He apologised, because logically, he did not expect to find a female cleaner changing in the men’s room.

— Rachel, cited in Kaiser, 2021

What changes is employment status. What often remains is a sense of being “inside but not equal”, cleaners are direct employees, but many still describe feeling like second-class staff within the institution.  

3. Recognition improves — but dignity remains uneven 

Insourcing can increase recognition of cleaning as essential work. In hospitals, this is often linked to patient safety; in universities, it comes through formal employment status.

But recognition does not always shift how workers are treated day to day. Across different workplaces, cleaners continue to describe unequal day-to-day interactions, lack of respect, and experiences of stigma. These instances reflect how cleaning work continues to be positioned within organisational hierarchies, shaped by gendered and racialised dynamics. 

In some cases, this is expressed in everyday behaviour: 

We see the differences between the original staff and us… even if we call them our colleagues now… you can see the difference; they don’t treat us the same way.

— Anonymous worker, cited in Marcel 2024)

In other cases, this is expressed more directly:  

The supervisor would call us ‘donkey’… I couldn’t believe it… My head could not register the fact that they were calling us donkeys… he became like a monster.

— Natalia, cited in Marcel, 2024

Workers also link these experiences to broader dynamics of exclusion within institutions: 

[T]he managers of the university are almost all British… most of the workers—cleaners, security, kitchen and maintenance staff… are foreigners. We’re Africans, Latin Americans…

— David, cited in Kaiser, 2021

And in some cases, this is experienced in explicitly dehumanising ways: 

[We] have the contract in-house, yes… But I feel they think of us like a different kind of species… that they can devalue, discriminate against, and exclude.

— Rachel, cited in Kaiser, 2021)

These experiences show that improved contracts and benefits can sit alongside everyday practices of disrespect and, in some cases, bullying, with workers continuing to report a lack of dignity at work. 

4. Representation exists — but voice remains constrained 

Campaigns have strengthened collective organisation, and in many cases, workers now have formal union recognition and more visibility within institutions. But formal recognition does not always translate into influence over how work is organised. Workers continue to report limited involvement in decisions that affect their day-to-day work, alongside restricted access to informal channels of influence. In some cases, gains achieved through organising are followed by strained relationships with management and a more hostile work environment. 

As one worker described this shift: 

There were many changes… but my bosses barely speak to me now… Before, we were a team… we would all help each other out. But today we don’t have that anymore. Now the bosses act very serious.

— Chelita, cited in Marcel, 2024

Even where campaigns succeed in improving contracts and employment status, workers continue to report bullying, weakened relationships with management, and little change in how they are treated day to day. 

Taken together, a pattern emerges. Outsourcing creates inequality across multiple dimensions. Insourcing primarily addresses the contractual layer of that inequality, improving pay, benefits, and employment status. However, the broader structures that shape how work is valued and how workers are treated tend to remain in place. This is why workers can be equal on paper while continuing to experience inequality in practice. Contractual inclusion does not automatically translate into full integration within workplace hierarchies, social relations, or organisational culture. 

Why this matters for worker-centred due diligence/ Implications for responsible outsourcing 

This gap has direct implications for how working conditions are assessed. Most approaches to human rights due diligence (HRDD) focus on wages, contracts, and compliance with labour standards. These indicators are important; they capture many of the gains achieved through insourcing and labour standards enforcement. But they do not fully reflect how workers experience daily working life.  

As a result, progress can be overstated. Improvements in contracts may be treated as proof that problems have been resolved and risk has been mitigated, while exclusion, limited voice, and unequal treatment continue. In other words, formal improvements are visible within due diligence processes, while everyday inequalities often remain less visible and therefore less likely to be addressed. 

A worker-centred approach requires a different starting point. It asks whether workers are able to access the same spaces, are treated as part of the organisation, and have a real say in decisions that affect their work. Without this, key aspects of inequality remain unaddressed, and forms of risk go undetected within standard due diligence frameworks. 

What this means for our work 

This is the gap we are working to address. As we develop responsible outsourcing principles, the focus is not only on whether minimum standards are met, but on whether workers experience dignity, inclusion, and fair treatment at work.  

This requires shifting how risk is identified and assessed in outsourced service supply chains. It means treating dignity at work as a core condition of responsible outsourcing, not an indirect outcome, and recognising that responsibility for working conditions is distributed across service supply chains rather than located solely with a single employer. 

In practice, this means looking beyond contract terms to how work is experienced: access to workplace spaces, patterns of everyday treatment, inclusion in organisational life, and whether workers have a meaningful voice in decisions that affect their work. This framing is relevant not only for outsourced services, but also for workplaces that have already achieved insourcing. In both cases, the challenge is the same: moving beyond contractual improvements towards dignity and respect in everyday working life. 

Improving procurement and employment contracts is necessary, but it is not sufficient on its own. The next stage is ensuring that these improvements are reflected in how work is valued and how workers are treated in everyday workplace relations. If outsourcing is to be genuinely responsible, it has to address how work is valued, how workers are positioned within organisations, and how responsibility for dignity is understood across supply chains. 

---

Sources cited:

FLEX (2026). Built with workers: A new approach to human rights due diligence in service supply chains, 23 February 2026. Available at: https://labourexploitation.org/news/built-with-workers-a-new-approach-to-human-rights-due-diligence-in-service-supply-chains/ (Accessed 24 April 2026).  

Kaiser, A. (2021) In-House, yet “Standing Somewhere off”: Spatial Reflections on the Enduring Marginality of Cleaning Staff in High-Ranking London Universities. New Sociological Perspectives, 1(1), pp.57-71.  

Marcel, C. (2024) Navigating Precarity: the lives of London’s migrant cleaners. PhD thesis, SOAS. Available at: https://soas-repository.worktribe.com/output/374604/navigating-precarity-the-lives-of-londons-migrant-cleaners (Accessed 24 April 2026).