First Universal Credit Sites
Announced
Management have today (17th
May) announced the first tranche of offices that are to become Universal Credit
(UC) service centres. 16 DWP sites and 2 HMRC sites have been named. The sites
have capacity to house around 8,500 staff. The sites are:
DWP Benefit Centres
Bolton, Glasgow,
Wolverhampton, Wrexham, Canterbury, Birkenhead, Cosham, Sunderland
DWP Contact Centres
Grimsby, Bootle, Dundee, Bangor, Paisley, Derby, Makerfield, Middlesbrough
HMRC
Blackpool Ryscar House, Merry Hill
These sites will be used to
deliver the first phase of Universal Credit. This begins in April 2013 with the
start of the UC Pathfinder and then expands as the first New Claims to UC start
in October 2013.
Management are very keen to
stress that these sites are for the first Phase 1 of UC and that further sites
will be named to become additional UC sites in 2013 and then again in 2014 in
order to deliver the subsequent phases of UC. From April 2014 new tax credit
claims will become UC cases and from 2014 to 2017 all existing claims to
working age benefits and tax credits will be gradually converted to UC. It is
therefore important to understand that today’s announcement does not exclude
any DWP Benefit Centre or Contact Centre from becoming a UC site in the future.
What if my office has not been named?
PCS is concerned that members in DWP sites that are not
named as UC sites will fear that their site may close as a result. Management
have assured us that this is not the case. Sites not chosen to be UC sites will
be required to maintain existing claims to legacy benefits during the
conversion process which runs until 2017 and further announcements of more UC
sites will be made over the next 2 years. Staff will also be required to
continue to process those benefits that are not being subsumed into UC.
Management’s letter to all
staff clearly says that “staff in all our sites still have a key role in
delivering essential changes”. While this does not constitute an indefinite
guarantee of a job for everyone it is nevertheless less an important assurance
for the foreseeable future.
UC in the longer term
At this stage management are
not able to say exactly how many staff will be required to process UC in the
longer term. This will be ongoing work that is likely to be heavily influenced
by the experience of UC in practice. Factors such as the take up of online
claiming and the robustness of the new IT are likely to be important factors in
determining this. Management have also made clear that they intend to consider
alternative methods for delivering UC from 2017 onwards, but are unlikely to
make any firm decisions on this before 2015.
HMRC Staff
As well as announcing 16 DWP
UC sites, management have also announced 2 HMRC sites for phase one of UC. This
will mean the HMRC staff on these sites will be transferred to DWP and become
DWP staff. This is obviously a major issue for our PCS colleagues in HMRC, but it also has implications for DWP staff.
The staff transfer will take
place under the principles of the Cabinet Office Statement of Practice (COSOP)
that governs the transfer of staff within the public sector. This means that
HMRC staff will transfer into DWP on their existing terms and conditions. There
are differences in the staff terms and conditions that apply in DWP and HMRC,
most notably rates of pay, which are generally higher in HMRC. PCS will be pressing for these terms and conditions to be harmonised for
all staff on the best terms. Further discussions will be taking place with
management on this. There is also further work ongoing to confirm what other
HMRC sites may become UC service centres.
How will UC be organised?
Detail on this is still
being developed but management have given some broad indicators. Online
claiming with automated processing will be used as much as possible, though the
extent of this is very dependent on the quality of the new IT systems that are
being developed.
UC sites will be known as
Service Centres. These centres will deliver both telephony and processing
functions under a single management chain. PCS welcomes this as we believe that the separation of telephony from
processing has not delivered good customer service and has been extremely
unpopular among our members.
Job Centres and ex-PDCS offices
Job Centres and ex-PDCS Offices as well as HQ and shared services sites are not in scope for selection to become UC service centres. Job Centres will deliver the labour market services of UC from 2013. The exact detail of what this will mean is still being worked on. Pension centres will be largely unaffected by UC while Regional Disability Centres will be changing to become Personal Independent Payment (PIP) offices when PIP is introduced in 2013 to replace Disability Living Allowance. The future of Warbreck is uncertain in terms of what will happen after 2016, when the re-assessment of the DLA cases is concluded.
PCS Position
UC
is a very large change programme for DWP and HMRC staff and will undoubtedly be
unsettling to many of our members as they fear for their job security and their
future during a period of change. PCS’
priorities for Universal Credit is to ensure that our members’ interests are
fully protected. Specifically we will be seeking agreements with the employer
that UC is delivered in a way that ensures there are no job losses or office
closures, terms and conditions are protected and that UC work continues to be
delivered in-house.
