The UK professional support services sector is confronted by challenges from a range of different directions. The sector spans legal, recruitment and other services including support, management consultancy. By a broader definition, although not within the scope of this report, outsourcing and support services spreads into the outsourced provision of facilities and operational management of non-core activity to private companies, utilities, public infrastructure agencies, central and local government, hospitals and health authorities, education and the Ministry of Defence. A basic premise of the sector is the delivery of expertise and professional skills in a manner that reduces costs to a level below the expenditure that would be required if the tasks were handled entirely in-house.