12,000 More Job Cuts, 200 Offices to close
The exact details of the office closures is not yet known. The breakdown of job cuts in businesses over the 3 years is Jobcentre Plus 7,000 – 8,000. Pensions and DCS 2,500 – 3,000. With other business units absorbing the remaining 1,000 – 1,500 job cuts. These numbers do not include CSA as they move towards C-MEC.
Despite the department admitting they have not been set any headcount reduction targets, they have claimed the Business Plan comes as a direct result of the government’s 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review, which called for a 5% administrative cost reduction year-on-year within all civil service departments. Yet at this time other civil service departments have shown there are alternative ways of reducing their spending, as opposed to the slash and burn tactics adopted by the DWP Executive Team.
Management failed to consult with PCS about any of these proposals. If management had we would have told them that there are appropriate areas to cut, such as:
- Consultants
- Chauffeur driven cars
- £2.67 billions wasted on private contracts
- Obsessions with targets and statistics
instead of cutting essential staff delivering the service. Management must start listening to the people who deliver the business and open proper negotiations on this plan with PCS.
More Insults
In attempt to soften the blow of job cuts and office closures the department has announced within their business plan that they are looking at new ways to reward staff who stay. One such way is to remind staff that they will be getting their pay increase on time this year, of little comfort to the 40% of staff who will get no pay rise at all. They have also indicated that they plan to look at a new staff bonus scheme and a discount voucher scheme. PCS calls on management today that if there is extra money to be had that it should be directed into the pay of staff and use it to settle our pay dispute.
More Disruption
With the ramifications of the government’s so-called efficiency agenda already causing havoc and disruption to customer service across DWP it borders on reckless for further cuts to be made. Every business unit across DWP is failing to deliver on its core business aims, regardless of what Key Management Indicators (KMIs) may say. Users of the DWP and staff alike know there are real problems with service delivery.
The tightening, to the point of strangulation, of public sector spending has already seen the reduction of offices and the loss of 30,000 staff across the DWP in the last three years.
More Inconsistency
At the time job cuts were announced in 2004, the then Chancellor for the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, said “to go further than that would put the delivery of services at risk.”
Today’s announcements to cut more jobs and close further offices do not square with the now Prime Minister’s remarks. Nor do they square with the other targets being set, on an almost daily basis, by government Ministers. This has left others to comment that the DWP is being deliberately set up to fail to increase the role of the private sector and consultants.
The DWP is currently charged with a number of high profile government initiatives, such as:
- Reducing Child Poverty
- Achieving 80% employment rates
- Introducing ESA
- Reducing fraud and error rates
- Increasing recovery of overpayments
- Introducing personal pension accounts
- Reducing pensioner poverty
- Setting up C-MEC
- Implementing Shared Services for other government departments
- Introducing Flexible New Deal
- Moving lone parents from IS onto JSA
Essentially, DWP is being asked to deliver more than it has previously done with less staff and offices. PCS believes this is a recipe for disaster, and one that is avoidable if senior decision makers act now by reviewing the Business Plan in the interests of the DWP users and staff.
More Risk
While one of DWP’s main strategic objectives is to make itself an exemplar of effective service delivery to individuals and staff. However, the potential impact of job cuts and office closures is already widely known. A number of DWP user advocacy groups have already joined PCS in bringing the current problems in the DWP to the attention of the government.
Conclusion
PCS has pressed senior DWP decision makers to highlight with government Ministers the real impact further job cuts and office closures will have on DWP’s ability to deliver a service to its staff and users.
PCS believes these cuts are ideologically driven and totally unjustified. PCS will continue to work with members and DWP user groups to oppose these cuts at all levels.
Thanks to the PCS website for this article.
