DWP have today announced five separate voluntary exit schemes in various parts of DWP Operations. The schemes are targeted at certain groups of staff in particular grades. Management expect up to 1,700 jobs to be lost across Operations as a result of this exercise. PCS is completely opposed to these savage and unnecessary job cuts.
Management claim that they are forced to run this exercise due to the severe financial and staffing pressures they face, especially from April 2014. Specifically management claim that they have to lose staff because work volumes are falling and they have to live within a staffing budget that has been arbitrarily cut by 10%. Welfare reform changes have also, management claim, led to a need for less staff. However the uncertainty over when further welfare changes, such as Universal Credit and increased conditionality, may happen make the longer term staffing picture very unclear.
Scheme One
All AAs in DWP Operations are eligible to apply for this scheme, apart from those at Blackpool Disability Centre. Management want 750 AAs to leave under this scheme. This would equate to around 30% of the total numbers of AAs in Operations.
Scheme Two
Those eligible to apply for this scheme are:
· HEOs and SEOs in Benefit Directorate Centres, apart from those in Disability Centres.
· Any EO or HEO in Contact Centre Services, apart from those in NMT.
· Surplus AO staff in Contracted Customer Services.
Management want 170 staff to leave under from these areas.
Scheme Three
Those eligible to apply for this scheme are any AO, EO, HEO SEO or Grade 7 in Operational Excellence Directorate who work in either Change Delivery or Operational Infrastructure, or who are surplus. Management want 240 staff to leave under this scheme.
Scheme Four
Those eligible to apply for this scheme are:
· AO, EO, HEO, SEO & Grade 7 staff in DWP Visiting. Management want up to 200 staff to leave from this area.
· AO and EO staff in certain specified Job Centres in four Districts (Cumbria & Lancashire, Kent, Essex and West of Scotland). Management are seeking very small numbers from these offices.
· Any surplus staff in WSD.
· AO, EO and HEO staff badged to transfer to the new Customer Compliance structure from 1st October 2013. Management are seeking around 100 staff to leave from this area.
· EO and HEO staff in Child Maintenance group badged as Legal Enforcement, Investigators, Inspectors or Court Presenting Officers. Management want 46 staff to leave from this area.
Scheme Five
AO, EO and HEO staff in Operational Excellence FIS employed on FIS Intelligence, Central Prosecution team and Incident Management team.
Eligibility in these areas will vary by grade and location. Management want 98 staff to leave from these areas.
Terms of the Schemes
The Group Executive Committee (GEC) pressed management for the most generous terms possible to be made available but DWP have instead offered the standard terms for voluntary exits. The terms on offer are therefore the same as have been offered in other recent voluntary exit schemes.
Management want to be able to allow as many as possible of those who apply to leave. However, where schemes are over-subscribed, there will be a selection exercise using the standard DWP workforce management criteria of performance, competencies and attendance. In addition business needs may dictate that an individual will not be allowed to leave in particular circumstances.
Management are emphasising that all of these schemes are entirely voluntary and are not planned as any kind of precursor to a move towards compulsory redundancies.
Vicinity
These schemes are scattered around a large number of DWP offices. In many cases there will be sites where some staff are eligible to apply and yet other staff in the same grade but on a different section are not eligible to apply. The GEC pressed management to widen the schemes to avoid this happening, but they refused
PCS Response – More staff not Less
PCS is completely opposed to these savage and unnecessary job cuts. We firmly believe that DWP needs more staff not less. Over 20,000 staff have left DWP since 2010 and the department should not allow any more to leave. PCS has of course made our opposition to this scheme very clear to management.
Members are already working under excessive pressure to keep on top of their workloads with the staff that we have now. This pressure and stress will increase even more if 1,700 staff are allowed to leave, on top of the normal turnover of staff and with no recruitment or promotion planned.
The GEC believe the department is being over-reliant on recent dips in unemployment to justify these staff cuts. Our view is that it is still very unclear whether the long term trend is for unemployment to fall and the risks of further increases remain all too real. In fact, in many regions, unemployment is actually still increasing. It is also madness for any jobs to be cut when, as we are repeatedly told remains the case, DWP has to convert 7 million claims to Universal Credit by the end of 2017.
The GEC will continue to campaign for more permanent jobs to lift the pressure on staff, for promotion and career development opportunities and a fully funded DWP that provides excellent customer service.
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