Compulsory transfer of WSD and BD staff into Contact Centres Services (CCS)

The following details have been supplied by the PCS DWP Group:

DWP have announced today (15th July 2014) yet another transfer of staff across DWP Operations. This time management have announced the creation of 6 satellite contact centres to be set up on the following sites:

• Boston Job Centre
• Chatham Job Centre
• Lancaster Job Centre
• Luton Job Centre
• Redruth Job Centre
• Skegness Benefit Centre

This means that teams of 1 EO and 12 FTE AO’s will be created on these sites and the staff selected to work on these teams will become contact centre staff. Initially management will seek volunteers on the relevant sites but if this is not possible then staff will be posted into the new role by management.

Where there are existing back of house teams then these teams are likely to be moved as one to contact centre work. The moves are permanent and are expected to take place in the Autumn of 2014.

Why are management doing this?
DWP maintain that there are too few staff in CCS at present and too many in WSD. This transfer is therefore part of their attempts to address this perceived staffing imbalance. Bizarrely, even though management accept that there are also too few staff in BD at present they have included the BD staff at Skegness as part of this transfer to CCS.

What work will they be doing?
Management have not yet decided which CCS service line these staff will be deployed on, though they accept there is logic in placing jobcentre staff on the JEL line. However they have said that these staff will come under the CCS ‘house rules’ which includes scheduling and limited access to flexible working hours.