If you are being offered overtime by DWP please bear in mind the following taken from the PCS wesite ;-

Support the overtime ban – save jobs in DWP
26 Mar 2008

DWP management recently published their overtime spending figures for April 2005 – January 2008. The figures show £131.5 million has been spent on overtime in the past three years.

Over 5,000 jobs could have been saved
Based on the average DWP salary the money spent on overtime could have seen the retention or recruitment of an extra 5,260 full-time equivalent staff.

PCS has long been concerned that overtime is being used to mask job vacancies across DWP. In 2004, PCS negotiated with DWP a set of Workforce Management Procedures to ensure that in the midst of headcount reductions the Department prioritised redeployment in order to avoid compulsory redundancy.

Jobs not Overtime
While PCS nationally are currently in talks with the Cabinet Office, the current DWP Workforce Management Policy states where employees are surplus, or to prevent them from being declared surplus, managers must consider, amongst other things “reducing or eliminating overtime”.

With the announcements contained within the DWP 3 Year Business Plan that a further 12,000 whole-time equivalent posts are to be cut by 2011, PCS is demanding that the institutional overtime working across all business units has to be halted.

Play your part. Support the overtime ban
You can play your part in halting the overtime culture prevalent in many parts of DWP by continuing to support the overtime ban which is in place until 31 March.

The release of these figures makes all the more reason why an overtime ban should be supported.

Overtime costs jobs!

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.

As you may or may not know, one of our reps, Gary Jenkins, is fit enough to run the London marathon this year in April.

The reason we’re putting this on here is because we want people to sponsor Gary to raise money for the charity Sands.

As a branch we are strongly behind Gary and wish him best speed for the day. Please cut and paste the link and read about Gary’s experience and why he has chosen this cause. You can also give online.

Thank you for your generosity.

http://www.justgiving.com/garyjenkins
http://www.uk-sands.org/

First of all, thanks to all of you who came along, I’m sure the free feed and the free drink had nothing to do with it!

I would also like to thank all the reps and officers who have volunteered their services for the next 12 months. I’m sure the free feed and the free drink had nothing to do with it!

My final bit of thanks goes to the Royal Oak who put on a brilliant spread and kept the drinks flowing.

Here’s a quick summary of the officers elected:

Chair – Martin Leedham
Vice Chair – Dorion Griffiths
Secretary – Andrew Latham
Assistant Secretary – Gary Jenkins
Treasurer – Brian Kelshaw
Organiser – Dorion Griffiths
Assistant Organiser – Ziyad Lorgat
Equality Officer – Andy Taylor
Branch Learning Coordinator – Phil Gibbs
Women’s Officer – Caroline Ash
Young member’s Officer – John Rock
Black Minority Ethnic Officer – Ziyad Lorgat

We had other positions filled at the meeting, a full list of those elected, including your site reps, is available on request.

Thanks again and we’ll see you all at the Mandating meeting soon.

The Secretary of State announced today the merger of the Disability and Carers Service (DCS) and The Pension Service (TPS).

PCS were informed of this announcement the day before it was made. The Chief Executives of each organisation have promised full consultation on the changes in organisation. We are naturally concerned about job cuts and further site closures as well as a potential deterioration in our members’ conditions of service.

PCS are concerned that there will inevitably be the resultant “economies of scale” at management level, support service functions and estate. We will argue strongly for those affected to be accommodated according to their wishes, offered best possible redeployment opportunities or other options where appropriate.

However, given the closures that have taken place in TPS and DCS recently we remain to be convinced that management will not use this merger to exploit further so called efficiency savings.

Management say it will be business as usual for a considerable period and we welcome that measured approach rather than the big bang.

This will give us the opportunity to raise important issues and find acceptable solutions.

We will keep members informed as things develop.

PCS believes that there may be some advantages in the merger. There is, as management have pointed out, a similar customer base and this will, hopefully lead to a more coherent and progressive strategy to address poverty for pensioners and disabled people.

We hope that we can work with management to develop a strategy that addresses the many social and economic issues facing this client group in a way that maintains, if not increases, staff numbers and job satisfaction.

Management state that they want to “deliver products and services designed around our customers’ needs”. So do PCS members in both organisations but they have been hampered in doing this by poor IT, the failings of Lean Processing and staffing reductions. There is significant room for improvement. There needs to be a fundamental recognition that a significant proportion of this customer group are uncomfortable with a telephony/call centre organisation. We need to work with customer representative groups such as the NPC and the Disability Alliance to increase face to face contact and develop other more user friendly practices aimed at reducing poverty.

The service that this acutely disadvantaged client group deserves can only be delivered by a properly staffed, trained and motivated workforce backed up by fit for purpose IT.

We look forward to working with management to achieve these aims and objectives over the coming months.

Our Annual General Meeting is fast approaching.

It will be held at the Royal Oak in Willenhall, Portobello, @ 2pm and is open to all our Members with a Buffet and a free drink.

Before the AGM we need you to decide who your reps will be. we are asking for nominations to the following positions:-

Standard issue day glow jacket, worn with pride.

  Welcome to the first post on the Wolverhampton and Walsall Blog. Please read on. 

Organised?

 Firstly can I thank those who have supported the union over the last few couple of weeks. 

We would like members to send us articles they would like to be published in future posts. We would like you to contribute as much as possible. It’s your union. Please send articles or letters to dorion.griffiths@thepensionservice.gsi.gov.uk or in a grid to Dorion Griffiths at Walsall Pension Centre, Lower Hall Lane Walsall. Alternatively pass them onto your local rep. 

We need distributors in all of the offices that come under our area, and ideally PCS wants a rep in every one. I would also like to get our database as up to date as possible so I will be looking for everyone to check we have you correct details. You can do this by logging onto the union website www.pcs.org.uk with your membership number and a password. If you have any problems then just ask your rep and they can show you how. 

Finally we’d like to wish all our members a wonderful festive season. See you all in the new year for the AGM. 

Dorion Griffiths.

Branch Organiser.