According to a Guardian article the study found austerity policies such as cuts to welfare and local services are driving the rapid spread of foodbanks in the UK. The research shows emergency food aid is most concentrated in areas where there are high levels of joblessness and benefit sanctions.
The Conservative-led coalition persistently refused to acknowledge a link between its economic and social security policies and the explosion in foodbanks. But the Oxford study, published in the British Medical Journal, shows demand for food parcels is strongest where poverty is accompanied by restrictions on, and reductions in, social assistance.
As part of our general election campaigning we are asking candidates to support the removal of the sanctions regime.
We want a welfare state that ensures everyone has a decent standard of living free from poverty, and for our highly-skilled members in the Department for Work and Pensions to be able to use their expertise in supporting people back to work, and help them receive the benefits they deserve.
Here are the key stats showing the impact of government policy on welfare over the last 5 years:
We are asking candidates to pledge to support well-funded public services, help end the public sector pay freeze and back our campaign for tax justice, if elected MPs on 7 May
All branches are being encouraged to get involved in this year’s general election by asking their local candidates to support our 5 key election pledges:
We will be reporting what our activists have had back from candidates as well as summarising what the party manifestos mean for our members.
A big part of the Make Your Vote Count campaign is to highlight the importance of voting to members. By contacting candidates, feeding back on whether they support us on our issues, we can help make the election more relevant to our members.
If you live in a safe seat you may wonder whether it is worth contacting candidates. However, making links with candidates standing in an election can help with our political campaigning going forward. An elected representative may not necessarily agree with you on all issues but if a specific one was to come up, say an office closure, that affected local jobs and services it would be an advantage if there was already an existing relationship.
Clearly we want as many candidates as possible to be aware of our national issues and to support our pledges. It’s also important to remember to localise the issues by raising office closures in your area or examples about how people in your workplace have been affected by the low pay and cuts to services.
We have all the resources you need are on our Make Your Vote Count pagesincluding an up-to-date list of candidates and a feedback form to send to your regional secretary once you have heard back from any of your candidates.
The first electronic only copy of the Voice is attached for your distribution to all members in your branch.
In order for this to work, branch secretaries need to have an e-mail distribution list for members. We believe that in most branches, this will already be the case, but if not branch secretaries do need to set this up. Ideally, you should have two separate lists; one of office addresses and one of home addresses.
Whilst this briefing concerns the journal, it is of course best practice that branch secretaries have e-mail distribution lists to disseminate other PCS information to members.
If you need assistance in setting up a distribution list, please contact your regional secretary in the first instance who will liaise with group office as necessary.
PCS will begin the first stage of the process of switching DWP members to Direct Debit this week. The first impact of this will be that the reports available to branches on commix imembership will change. Members who have completed a switch to DD will now will appear in the DD column only and not the Check Off/DD (co dd) column.
The deadline for switching DWP members to DD with uninterrupted membership is now 12 April (though we will have till noon on 13 April to make last minute changes). This slightly earlier date is to make sure we meet all deadlines at Unity bank.
Members will soon begin to receive letters in the post confirming their DD payment dates, the account PCS will make deductions from, the amounts and a reminder of the terms of the PCS DD guarantee. If they see any errors in these letters please ask them to contact the PCS HQ membership department using the phone number or email that is in their letter. A sample copy of the letter can be found in the Document Library.
Any member without a valid ballot address will not be written to. Any member with a ballot address that is their work address should be mindful that post may be wrongly opened. If members wish to change their ballot address they can do so by emailing or phoning the DWP Leeds group office , any regional office or PCS HQ membership department.
Branches should take all possible steps to contact members with invalid ballot address and get them updated.
It is important to note that under DD regulations we may only make deductions regularly if we are able to correspond with individuals. If PCS are not able to contact a member for at a ballot address or an email address for 12 months we must stop making deductions. If we are forced to stop taking DD payments PCS will have to lapse members. Having up to date contact information for every member now becomes much more important.
Today we have gone over 70% of our DWP members DD ready. There is a massive amount of activity planned for the next couple of weeks as the teams of PCS reps, regional organisers, PCS full time officers and staff visit branches to help and support them getting members DD ready in over 40 DWP sites. Let us know if you need help.
All branches are asked to make sure that talking to members between now and 12 April and asking them to get DD ready is your number 1 priority over the next 2 weeks. Some members have repeatedly said I will switch to DD when check off stops. Now is the time to go back to them and get them DD ready.
The normal PCS rules will apply and members that have not switched to DD by 12 April will still be PCS members and will remain so throughout the normal 3 month lapsing process. A final lapsing letter is sent out after 3 consecutive missed payments in accordance with supplementary rule 3.6 of the PCS national rules, which in this case will be around the middle of July.
Continuing to ask members to stick with the union and pay by dd during this period between 12 April and mid July will be a very important part of our campaign.
In other departments this period has seen a significant increase in the number of members committing to stay with the union and pay by DD. For example in the Home Office when DD ended about 65% of members where DD ready but by the lapsing date that had improved to nearly 80%.
Alongside our work to get members DD ready branches should also be using this as an opportunity to ask non members to join the union. A DWP specific membership application form can be found here. If you want copies please contact leeds@pcs.org.uk
After the lapsing of any members not switched to DD in mid July the focus of our organising work will move into being a recruitment campaign designed to win all DWP staff to PCS membership. The GEC is already beginning to discuss this next stage with your DWP regional organisers and will be producing recruitment materials.
The work done by reps and branches in the DWP has been fantastic. The ending of check off is a political attack on PCS by the government. They hate us because our union has campaigned against austerity and we are a block on cuts in jobs and services. The government hope that ending check off will cut our members and cut our income. The work you do between now and 12 April and then up to mid July to get members to pay by DD and to recruit non members will prove them wrong and mean that PCS is not only stronger but independent of the employer.
Wigan Branch currently stand at over 94% of members switched.
If your one of the remaining few yet to, please come and speak to us - make sure you don't loose your union rights.
Management did not have finalised headcount allocations for 2015 -2016 yet but were able to share indicative figures with us that suggested once the staff had left on the Voluntary Exit Scheme (VES), headcount would be approximately “on target” to be just under 27,000 nationally by the end of year.
PCS continued to express concern about the impact on service delivery and workloads following the 3000 staff exits in June. In most areas PCS members working in Jobcentres are reporting that they are already struggling to deliver the service they believe they are meant to with staffing at current levels. The push on daily or weekly signing, along with the Universal Credit training requirement and roll out means that whilst unemployment may be decreasing, the pressure on staff to deliver more work with less support is increasing.
The GEC believes that the (Zeus) allocation model does not work, as currently there are necessary activities being delivered that are not accounted for in the model. We will be meeting the analysts soon to make this case.
However, the primary driver behind reduced staff allocations is the year on year “efficiency savings” which has seen DWP staffing reduce by nearly 30,000 overall since 2010. Whilst future plans for work services or DWP policy won’t be determined till after May, the GEC believes that fighting for better staffing levels for a decent publicly resourced employment service remains a key element of the Group campaign to be taken forward.
The majority of those leaving on the VES are in the AO grade, leaving doubts on how work currently and previously carried out by AOs will be delivered. We reiterated our position that there are, and should still be, roles for AOs in Jobcentres even after the introduction of Universal Credit. WSD management agreed to consult with PCS on the development of the future operating model, which may see more standardisation of processes within jobcentres again. The GEC will continue to resist any compulsory moves and compulsory redundancies that could arise from these changes, though none are expected in the immediate future.
Management are keen to press on with the Job Evaluation and Grading (JEGs) exercise for the Assisted Service Coach and anager roles (ASC, ASM) as indicated in the previous bulletin DWP/BB/204/14. This will be done with PCS involvement in the JEG process.
It was reported in the previous bulletin that management had agreed our position that Hardship Interviews should be conducted in a screened area or by telephone. However, management’s current view is that only adverse decisions that need to be communicated in this way, not the interview/data gather, although the Hardship Officer still has the discretion to use screens as a precaution. The Operational Excellence Directorate (OED) is reviewing Hardship Payments guidance; management agreed to a separate discussion with PCS so we can raise our concerns and ensure we have an understanding on how this work is conducted safely.
Following a Freedom of Information request which referenced a PCS circular, management confirmed our view that 35 hour weekly job search is not a legal requirement within the JSA Claimant Commitment. It is therefore unreasonable for members to be penalised through performance improvement plans or marked down on their performance at the end of the year for not including 35 hour job search as part of the JSA claimant commitment.
PCS made it clear to management that in many areas there is inappropriate work being carried out by people on Movement to Work (MtW). In particular some of the MtW participants in Jobcentres have been working with claimants unsupervised and with very little or no Keeping Safe training. This is unacceptable because this is work that should be rightly done by paid DWP workers and that it puts both Work Experience and DWP workers at risk. WSD management confirmed that in order to work alone with the public, the keeping safe part 2 must be completed which MtW will not have done. The “Assisted Service Front of House principles” also states the public must be supervised by DWP employees whilst using jobcentre computers. The GEC is currently awaiting for the DWP guidance to be updated following issues raised by DTUS, a full briefing will then be issued to branches.
PCS Group Vice President Helen Flanagan and PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka gave evidence to the recent Parliamentary Select Committee on sanctions. A full briefing on conditionality and sanctions will be issued after the Committee’s report is published.
We are aware that pressure is still put on our members working in Jobcentres to refer claimants to decision makers for sanctions and that end of year performance markings can be affected by the numbers referred for decisions. DWP Management and government ministers have been keen to state publicly that there are no targets for sanctions. If there are no targets for sanctions then it is not appropriate for PCS members to be told they have not referred enough claimants to a decision maker on a purely numerical basis.
Branches need to raise issues with local management and use escalation routes where appropriate if it is not possible to reach a resolution locally. Issues that may have national consequences need to be communicated to national negotiators via leeds@pcs.org.uk
