The closure of a call centre in India by British energy major Powergen this week has been welcomed by trade unions here but experts believe that it was unlikely to lead to a trend due to the cost benefits involved.

Several British companies have outsourced call centres and back office operations to India to lower costs, including Lloyds TSB, British Rail, Aviva, Tesco and National Rail inquiries.

But there have been some complaints by British customers about the quality of service provided by call centres in India. In 2005, finance major Abbey announced it was bringing call-centre work back to Britain from Bangalore following complaints.

Outsourcing to India has also become a sensitive issue with several hundreds here losing their jobs in the process. In some cases, exasperated British workers have been asked to train Indian workers before losing their jobs to them.

Powergen said that it was closing its call centre in India following several complaints. It announced it would switch work to its existing call centres in Bedford, Bolton, Leicester, Nottingham and Rayleigh in Essex.

A delighted spokeswoman for trade union Unison said: "We have often made the point that moving jobs overseas is short-sighted and not as cost-effective as it might first appear. Companies that do it soon find that they lose the expertise that local people bring to the job."

However, industry experts are not too sure if closing call centres in India by Abbey and Powergen will become a trend. They also point that now some major Indian call centre companies have started operations in Britain itself. HCL and ICICI OneSource have opened call centre offices in Belfast in Northern Ireland, catering to British and European clients.

Martin Parker from Leicester University's Department of Management said he thought some firms would always find India an attractively cheaper alternative to Britain.

He said: "Is this the beginning of a trend? Only if big organisations are becoming concerned about the standards of customer service. Overall, the trend is still towards offshoring.

"It would be nice to think Powergen's decision is the start of a wider return, but I doubt it."