2015 Home Office Group Conference

Day 1

Conference opened with the Group President making an statement on the difficulties that the union has faced, including cuts to representative’s facility time and the Departments decision to remove check off. The President also thanked the hard work of the representatives throughout what was clearly a difficult year.

The President also made reference to the cuts that we have been informed about this year circa 1200. However, it was also noted that this was before the election of a Tory government, now of course with a majority conference believes that this situation is likely to get worse.

We then had standing order committee reports number 1 & 2 moved agreed by conference without any issues, which is always welcomed.

Conference discussed two references back on Emergency Motions 1 & 2, which talked about Moderation and Redundancies. Emergency motion 1 was lost before conference agreeing that Emergency Motion 2 should be on the agenda following a successful reference back agreed by conference.

Conference then received a Presentation of the Annual report by the Group Secretary, Mike Jones. During his address he stated that conference meets this year against a backdrop of attacks to reps, pay, facility time and that pressures placed on reps at this time are immense.

The Group Secretary spoke about attacks on our democracy with difficulties in organising by the Home Office such as the cuts to time for members to attend events such as Annual General Meetings.

The Group Secretary also detailed the attacks on the fabric of the union with the Departments decision to remove check-off. The news from the group secretary was welcoming and that we have signed up most of our members to Direct Debit.

Mike Jones also stated that he was proud of the work that the reps have done this year and this is demonstrated by the turn out at conference with all seats taken, which was great to see.

Group conference then received the General Secretary who spoke about a number of subjects that are heading our way following the result of the General Election. Mark stated that we must stick together and fight. He stated it would be easy to walk away from Conference and get depressed about what we face but we mustn’t let this happen.

Our Branch motion (Emergency motion 5) was lost despite a valiant effort by the branch delegates to highlight the reduction in the number of member’s briefings that had been received. However, just having the debate was helpful to highlight the fact.

Conference then welcomed Shelia Coleman form the Hillsborough Justice Campaign. Shelia talked about the impact of the tragedy on the city of Liverpool and how people united as one following the tragedy.

She thanked PCS for their support which has been in place for many years.

Shelia also stated how the media and other influences such as the establishment tried to blame the fans and close down the avenues to seek justice.

Day 2

The first motion up for debate on day two was A10 which centred on the facility time that reps have endured for the last few years. The motion called for a fair and reasonable new policy to be negotiated by the GEC.

Our branch delegation spoke on this motion by stating if we don’t deal with the cuts to facility time we will lose everything as they will come for the lot and reps simply won’t be able to undertake the work we need to representing members.

The motion was passed by conference and will be taken forward by the GEC.

Conference also had a presentation of the PCS strategic review by the head of bargaining of PCS (Paul O’Connor). Paul outlined the attacks that the union has been facing over the last five years including the blatant attacks on the unions finance by the Government who have seen PCS as a thorn in their sides.

Conference were left in no doubt that we have been singled out due to our campaigning and resistance to the cuts agenda that the government have tried to impose on our members. The fact we have had the temerity to challenge this government has brought PCS into the sights of the establishment who are looking to crush our movement and any opposition to their plans.

Paul stated that the review that PCS are undertaking will look at covering the following elements:

• Finance
• Organising
• Membership
• Internal staffing costs
• Bargaining and industrial campaigns

The conference then broke to undertake some workshops which covered Membership Participation, Role of a rep, Successful campaigning and overcoming barriers for developing reps and active members. This was received well by delegates and a report was made back to conference on some of the initial findings. Conference will be publishing some of these finding to branches so they can ultimately be reported back to members.

Conference carried a motion to reduce the size of the Home Office GEC which was agreed by the delegates. This means the size of the GEC will fall to 25 members from the previous 34.

Conference also carried three distinguished life memberships for 3 ex-reps Martin Kelsey, Pete Norris, Ben Rapier. Members in the Branch will know Martin was one the main reps in our branch for many years and totally deserves his award. He was a totally committed rep who dedicated all his time for the betterment of members.

Conference was closed by the Group President with the vote of thanks being given by GEC member Kevin Mills.