PCS opposed the sell-off to French multinational Steria of a range of several Government Departments' support functions, including human resources and finance, which took place on the 1st of November 2013.
It was announced on the 4th of March 2014 that the new company set up to run the latest shared services contract has already announced hundreds of redundancies.
Citing the need for "substantial cost cutting", Shared Services Connected Ltd has put 500 jobs on the line just four months after taking over.
It also announced offices in Cardiff, Leeds and Sheffield will close by the end of October – at the very margins of honouring its "no site closures for at least a year" pledge.
PCS have always opposed the privatisation of this work, warning it would lead to job cuts and office closures.
Details of the redundancies by site are:
- Alnwick, Defra: none of 36 staff
- Blackpool, DWP: 48 of 222 staff
- Cardiff, DWP: all 105 staff, office to close
- Leeds, EA: all 68 staff, office to close
- Newcastle, DWP: 13 of 209 staff
- Peterborough, EA: 6 of 86 staff
- Sheffield, DWP: all 239 staff, office to close
- York, Defra: 35 of 150 staff
The latest job losses comes as a sickening blow, there have already been over three thousand jobs lost in the DWP in the Fylde area over the last few years. We have raised our concerns about the jobs situation with MPs and other political leaders over the past several years. The area is crying out for jobs, not more uncertainty. We made the case to the MPs that we met in October 2014 that DWP Norcross should be used as hub for Civil Service work, rather than bulldozering the majority of the site as is now taking place.
Duncan Griffiths, Branch Secretary
PCS has also issued a national press release which has received coverage on the BBC News website here.
