3,600 Job
Cuts Announced
The following details have been supplied by PCS DWP Group:
DWP have announced a large scale voluntary exit scheme across the whole
of the Job Centre network. This exercise is aimed at cutting up to 3,600 jobs.
The staff will leave DWP in June 2015.
Who is
eligible to apply?
1. All AO’s in WSD (excluding Visits, Access to Work and National
Partnership Team and the staff recently allocated to Contact Centre satellite
sites)
2. All EO’s in WSD (excluding most Work Coaches, Visits, Access to Work
and National Partnership Team).
3. EO Work Coaches are eligible to apply in the following Districts only
·
Surrey and Sussex
·
Devon Cornwall & Somerset
·
Thames Valley
·
Cumbria and Lancashire
·
East Anglia
·
Midland Shires
4. All HEO, SEO and Grade 7 staff in WSD (excluding Visits, Access to
Work and National Partnership Team).
How many in
each grade?
Management are anticipating that staff will be allowed to leave by grade
as follows:
·
AO’s - up to 2,100
·
EO’s - up to 1,100
·
HEO to Grade 7 - up to 350
In addition small scale voluntary exit schemes will be run in BD, NSD
and UC aimed only at AA’s and a handful of senior managers in NSD. AA’s who
have already applied to earlier exit scheme are not able to apply to this
scheme Also AA’s in PIP and DLA are not eligible to apply.
Why are DWP
doing this?
DWP claim that in 2015/16 they will have 7,000 more staff in WSD than
they will need. This is mainly as a result of year on year cuts to departmental
budgets and also to the ongoing falls in the JSA register. DWP would have
preferred to allow more staff to leave WSD but 3,500 exits is the most that
MyCSP is able to handle at any one time.
PCS says DWP
needs more staff not less
At a time when DWP is actually recruiting new staff and even resorting
to bringing in temps from the Brook Street Bureau, it is madness for DWP to say
it needs to run such a massive exit scheme. All over DWP members are under
enormous pressure to deliver more with less. They are routinely threatened with
PIP’s and face ever-increasing targets and benchmarks.
Can WSD cope?
PCS does not accept that WSD can cope with losing over 3,000 staff
overnight. This will put even more pressure on the staff remaining and will
degrade the service we can deliver to customers. Earlier this year DWP allowed
too many staff to leave on Voluntary Exit schemes and then had to recruit staff
to replace those they had allowed to leave. It is only too likely that they
will end up doing the same again
Falling
unemployment
It is true that unemployment has been reducing recently but any staff
that may be saved as a result could be redeployed into other parts of DWP to
relieve the pressure elsewhere and remove the need for unwelcome measures like
agency temps and increased privatisation of our work. Also unemployment can go
up as well as down and it makes no sense in the long term to lose so many
experienced and skilled staff in such a volatile economic climate.
Government
budget cuts
Falling unemployment is only one reason behind this exit scheme. The
main reason is that year on year since 2010 DWP has faced savage cuts to its
staffing budgets. DWP now employs 30,000 staff less than it did in 2010. This
reduction is almost exclusively the fault of the government’s cuts to DWP
budgets. Once again it is staff in the public sector who have to pay the price
of the economic crash in the private sector.
Terms
of the Exit Scheme
The terms of the exit schemes will be the standard
terms as used in all other recent voluntary exit schemes. Any individual exit
that is estimated to cost over £100,000 will be subject to a specific review by
the Treasury. Not all staff who apply will be allowed to leave and some staff
are likely to be deemed business critical, particularly those in Job centres
close to areas where DWP is expanding.
Pay
2015
The last day of service for staff leaving under this
scheme will be 30 June 2015. Under DWP rules, this will mean that they will not
be eligible to receive any of the 2015 DWP pay award including the
non-consolidated payment relating to the current performance year.
