More than 1,100 jobs from central government departments and agencies were outsourced to the private sector in the last financial year, new research has uncovered.

The findings, uncovered through a series of questions tabled by former Labour cabinet minister Frank Dobson, have prompted union fears that savings are being made not through efficiencies, but through cuts to pay and conditions of staff, as evidence emerges of hundreds more outsourcing schemes being tendered across the country.