Comment by isostatic

Sounds like departments were using contractors as full members of staff. Contractors should be brought in for a specific purpose, as a consultant to staff, as an extra pair of hands to follow the whims of staff.

If contractors are the only expert in a domain, there are big problems. Of course in corporations this is quite frequent - middle managers have yearly budgets for contractors, but aren't allowed to use that money to increase their headcount.

A company I work for decided to get a contractor in to run a £40m project. This makes sense for a management perspective, they get to blame the contractor (who's already left) if it fails, and they get to claim the glory if it works. It's terrible for a company though.

If I want 500 cables run in a data centre, or even 5 cables if it's a long way, I'll get a contractor in. Saves me a day by not having to do that work neatly and lets me do more important things (like ranting on HN). If I want someone to build me a fancy gui, I'll specify the frameworks, and let them mess around with the look and feel, but ultimately I own the output of the work, I need to be able to deal with it as if I wrote it myself.