London: As Indian investorsstalk British companies with takeover offers, the economic logic of outsourcingoperations to Indiacontinues to direct the growth plans of major companies, despite protests fromthe affected employees.

Tata Steel has been the latest big budget Indian investor,having taken over Corus in January. The spate of takeovers by Indian investorsand the creation of jobs in Britainhas partially reduced the decibel level of protests against outsourcing to India.

The National Health Service (NHS) has announced that it willexport hundreds of clerical jobs, including accounting functions, to India.

"I recently gave permission to outsource 60 percent ofthe work to India,"NHS deputy finance director Peter Coates said in Mumbai.

"It could go higher, but the constraint is that wecannot move jobs to India atthe expense of shedding jobs in the (United Kingdom). Politics will bean important factor," he added.

The latest traffic of outsourcing from Britain to Indiainvolves the insurance giant Prudential, which this week confirmed that it willoffshore 130 jobs from its main Scottish site to India over the next 12-18 months.

The company, which employs more than 2,500 people atCraigforth, near Stirling, said the jobs would be moved to Mumbai - alongside afurther 80 currently based in Reading.It said the move was part of its pledge made last year to cut 150 millionpounds from the costs of its UKbusiness.

The latest move follows the decision by the company in April2006 to move 200 jobs to Craigforth and 230 to Mumbai, as it closed three outof five of its UK sites at Belfast, Bristol and Holborn Bars in London.

Bank major Lloyds TSB, which already has a significantpresence in India, announcedthe closure of its back-office operation at the Thorpe Wood service centre in Peterborough this year.

The Lloyds TSB Group Union claimed that the decision toclose the centre was linked to plans to relocate more back-office roles to India,where the bank has around 2,500 workers.

Peter O'Grady, assistant general secretary of the union,said: "Our concern is over what is going to happen to the people in Peterborough. We want toembarrass Lloyds TSB into keeping these jobs within the UK."

A Lloyds TSB spokesman confirmed that the bank had set a"target" to relocate a further 400 back-office jobs to India this year, but denied the Peterborough closure wasrelated.

He said: "We took a very difficult decision to close Peterborough, but these jobs will be moved to other partsof the UK - not outsourcedto India.We are speaking to all the individual staff affected at the moment. We have agood track record in redeploying staff elsewhere in the group, but there willinevitably be some natural turnover."

Another firm planning to 'look India'is Thomson Scientific, a multinational information firm, which intends to closeits Scottish office in Glasgow and shift thework to India.The company is also likely to axe jobs in

anchesterand London.

A company spokesperson said: "In order to continue tomaintain our place in the market we need to take action now."

Meanwhile, hospital officials in Birminghamhave become the latest to join others in Britainto consider sending confidential hospital notes to be typed up in India.Many hospitals in Britainhave already outsourced such work to India.

Reports from Birmingham saythat the Dudley Group of Hospitals Trust, which includes RussellsHallHospitalin Pensnett, is planning the cost-cutting move to India. 

Suzie Fothergill, spokesperson for Dudley Group of HospitalsTrust, said: "In response to the Birmingham Mail's enquiry regardingoutsourcing administration to India,the trust is carrying out a scoping exercise with a view to looking atrecommendations for the future. At this stage it is only being reviewed."

The University Hospital Trust in Edgbaston was the first in Birmingham to send administrative work to India, New Zealandand South Africain August last year.