DWP Group Campaign Plan Report

The following details have been supplied by PCS DWP Group:
The PCS DWP Group Executive Committee (GEC) met on 29 and 30 October. A key part of the meeting was a discussion about the DWP Group Campaign Plan agreed by conference in May.

The GEC reviewed and welcomed the progress made by negotiation and campaigning so far on some issues.

Despite this progress on some issues the GEC expressed anger at the increased pressure on staff. The GEC therefore agreed to ask for an urgent meeting with departmental management about the key issues of concern to our members. 

The GEC noted a number of areas where improvements have been won by negotiation, particularly to cabinet office Civil Service Employee Policy proposals and in campaigns such as the brilliant stand by members at Garston Contact Centre to fight the proposed closure of their office. However, the GEC are clear that continual government pressure to cut staffing has resulted in an unacceptable squeeze in our members’ working conditions as the department try to force more out of less staff.

In particular the recent decision by the DWP to recruit Agency Workers into contact centres, at the same time as announcing mass voluntary exits and more staff moves, is further evidence of the chaos in the management of department. The GEC is clear that Agency Workers are a threat to members’ job security, undermine the rate of pay for the job and are an attempt to undermine the PCS unionised workforce.

It is a sad indictment of the public perception of the government department with the role of getting people into work that it is now seen as offering such low paid temporary jobs because it can no longer attract new staff into sites in some areas of the country, even in the worst recession for a generation. 

The GEC is determined to fight the drift towards a low paid, casualised, low morale workforce.

The GEC has therefore now written to the DWP Permanent Secretary seeking a meeting to demand – 

1. Staffing levels need to be increased with permanent employees to allow our members to provide an improved service to the public.
2. That the use of agency workers is ceased, the current agency workers should be offered a DWP contract, on equal pay and conditions. 
3. That work is moved to AAs where they are surplus or at risk of being surplus 
4. The festive leave restrictions in place are immediately ceased, with a 40% limit applying across the peak leave period. 
5. Minimum Expectation Levels in the benefits directorate are suspended  pending proper consultation with PCS on benchmarks. 
6. Access to genuine flexible working arrangements is restored across the department 
7. Privatised work, such as the handling JSA and IS calls, is brought back in house and no further privatisation of DWP work. 
8. Managing Attendance policy and procedures should be improved and staff should be treated fairly. 
9. Performance management policy must be adhered to with no quotas and all decisions must be fair and transparent. 
10. Arbitrary restrictions to part-time working must end. 
11. Work Experience participants must not be used to carry out DWP work. 
12. Pay should be increased by at least £1,200 or by 5%. 
13. No compulsory redundancies and no compulsory transfers. 
14. No changes to grading without proper consultation

The GEC believes that all of these issues are of key concern to our members and are reasonable policies that should be adopted by any good employer.

The GEC believe that all of these are issues within the control of DWP management. The GEC has asked for centralised departmental talks on all of these issues.

The PCS message to the DWP is clear. Stop making the department a worse place to work, stop attacking our members, talk seriously to the union about our reasonable proposals or there will be a sustained campaign of action for an improved DWP.