I tend to agree here. The siren song of 'outsourcing' sounds great, but it's just moving the goal posts, really. The dept/org/staff still need to understand t

I tend to agree here. The siren song of 'outsourcing' sounds great, but it's just moving the goal posts, really. The dept/org/staff still need to understand their internal problems well enough to document and communicate them properly, including translating to the outsourcing company. Hiring IT people internally to be there long term to really understand the agency/dept/org/staff and their problems from an IT perspective should be a requirement for any org. Without a competent person who understands IT and the business needs, and has a longer term investment in the business itself, there's little chance of being able to choose an appropriate outsourcing company to do the job (or indeed to define the job competently in the first place).