PCS response to MOD's latest 2022 pay offer

MOD have issued a new pay offer today. The heavily trailed offer is a below inflation average of 3.6% consolidated and non-consolidated pay in a one-year deal. This is the best achieved by negotiation, we need you to vote in the National Ballot to give PCS a mandate for industrial action to force the government to do better.

The offer from MOD is 0.15% less than the first year of the three-year deal, is that a better offer? YES! You have not had to sell your terms and conditions to get this pay rise. That makes it a far better offer. MOD must recognise that the terms and conditions they want you to sell, are the only thing stopping a mass exodus of staff; you need an above inflation pay rise this year, on top of compensation for all the below inflation pay you have suffered over the last twelve years.

PCS are campaigning to get pay and pension issues and more resolved for you, by holding a national ballot for action about pay, pensions, job cuts and cuts to the compensation scheme. You must all use your votes in the current ballot open until the 7th of November 2022; this is democracy in PCS, yet another way to have your voice heard.

Non-union members have written to PCS, criticising our position not to ballot over the three-year offer; there is nothing to stop them joining PCS and having their voice heard. This union was criticised for our actions and told won't get a better offer; people who said that were wrong; we have undoubtedly received a better offer from MOD for the reasons set out briefly above, this offer does not ask you to sell terms and conditions, so it is worth more than the original offer as a result.

When we stick together, we can achieve so much more this shows what can be achieved when a trade union like PCS holds its nerve and works on behalf of its members, the national ballot can take this even further and we need more of you in membership. The more PCS members we have in Defence the stronger your bargaining position and the more we will achieve for you with no detriment. All civil servants should JOIN PCS.

There is nothing to stop all members voting in the PCS national ballot. New members can vote in the ballot if they join today. PCS is the union that has the strength to look after your rights at work. Join PCS, get a new ballot paper, use your vote in the ballot and all PCS elections to fully have your say, that is PCS trade union democracy in action.

Action points

• All branches should now hold properly convened meetings

• These should be on pay, and why we all need to vote in the ballot

• All members need to post off their ballots

• They are not counted unless they are posted

• When you’ve posted let PCS know

• Consider putting your own FIRST-CLASS STAMP on the envelope to ensure it makes back on time

• CWU comrades are taking action to support their jobs and your postal service, this may disrupt the ballot papers getting back so post now.

• step-by-step guide to requesting a ballot paper.

PCS had its democratic structures criticised and challenged. PCS holds elections for you to vote in for Branch Reps right up to the National Executive and National President each year. If members require a vote on anything in PCS, there is a laid-out process starting by calling a general branch meeting with proper notice. You get to vote for your reps and the NEC, and you also get direct democracy via a properly convened branch meeting. As with all membership led organisations there are rules and these need to be read understood and followed.

On 13 October, we emailed all members for whom we hold a personal email address and texted all members for whom we hold a mobile number, giving them a personal link to click on. This link is the easiest way for members to tell us that they have already posted back their ballot paper. Members are asked to input their national insurance number to verify that it’s them or provide their surname and date of birth if they don’t know (or PCS don’t hold) their NI number. Replacement ballot papers can also be requested via the same personal link.

Chris Dando               Justin Thomas

Group President Group Secretary

Pay - MoD Main: Offer FAQs

We have created a series of documents answering common questions on why PCS has rejected the recent MOD pay offer.

You will be aware that PCS has recently rejected the MOD multi-year pay offer and we appreciate that many of you have concerns and questions that you would like us to respond to (see also article below at 17 August).

We have created a series of documents to answer your Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and to explain the PCS position. We hope that you will take the opportunity to read them and gain a better understanding of why the decision was made and how PCS is working for your best interests.

You can find these FAQs here: MoD Pay Offer FAQs

Note: To access these documents you will need to be a member of PCS Digital. All members are entitled to use PCS Digital which provides a range of membership services. For full details including how to join see this link: PCS-Digital (using your membership number)

Pay - MoD Main: PCS rejects MoD Pay Offer

The PCS national disputes committee has rejected the below inflation 2022 pay offer from MOD.

Inflation in the UK is predicted to reach 13.5% this year and as a whole the country has seen the value of wages drop by 3% in the last 12 months. In this climate the MOD wanted PCS members to sell terms and conditions in exchange for just one year's worth of inflation; giving up term and conditions for a three year pay cut.

Average UK wage inflation is 6.6% this year, well under inflation, you were offered 3.75% because the secretary of state interfered in the deal. The MOD would only put 1.87% of new money each year into the offer, even less than the 2% minimum the Treasury remit agreed.

The PCS national disputes committee (NDC) met and considered the 2022 pay offer from MOD. Representation from the group executive committee was listened to first then the following considerations were taken into account:

• the national ballot on pay, pensions, jobs and the civil service compensation scheme,

• the UK cost of living crisis,

• the loss of terms and conditions

• the equality impact of reductions in sick and annual leave on vulnerable staff.

The NDC has decided not to ballot members on this offer, and therefore PCS rejects the 2022 pay offer entirely.

Members and activists are urged to prepare for the national ballot and to use the next month to update ballot details, talk to non-members about joining PCS and raising awareness in the workplace that collective action is the only way that we will retain terms and conditions and achieve pay rises that address the cost of living.

DSg will meet the department for formal talks about achieving a pay settlement that does not leave our members selling valuable terms and conditions, for less than inflation.

Pay - MoD Main: MoD Offer is not enough

The pay offer has been below inflation every year for three years and MOD is also selling off terms and conditions.

Informal pay talks have been going on with MOD for months. We have made some progress in finding ways to construct a business case to the Cabinet Office and Treasury to deliver more money for all staff. However, as these talks have progressed, there has remained one major sticking point: inflation has shot up and is predicted to climb higher, as the impact of rising energy costs and food bills hit home.

This means that, although the headline offer may have been attractive back when inflation was at one or two percent, now it is predicted to peak at or above 11.5% around the time the offer would be agreed.

Most of the offer is funded from cuts to your terms and conditions. The department should have added additional monies to the offer to compensate for the steep increase in inflation, which has led to staff being offered the chance to sell allowances, annual leave and sick leave for a significantly below inflation pay deal over the next three years.

This is on top of the 2% that the government over-charges you for your pension and the estimated 20% reduction in your pay over 12 years of an effective pay freeze.

We believe that PCS members deserve substantially better.

PCS rules mean that we cannot move to an immediate ballot on this offer. We asked for this to be clearly stated in the communications from the department. This is not simply a contractual change on pay, but it is also linked to a contractual change to terms and conditions. Members must be given an opportunity to understand the implications of this offer, particularly those who are being asked to give up terms and conditions to fund it.

Our union has respected confidentiality through these informal pay discussions and has not shared or discussed this offer in detail with our executive (GEC). We were aiming to do so on 10 August in an emergency GEC. The offer will also need to be put to our National Disputes Committee for permission to ballot on this offer.

MOD has now released details of the offer to all staff, stating that their “overriding aim is to ensure any award is in the pockets of staff as soon as possible”.

We have requested the opportunity to discuss this offer with our members in at pay meetings before any deadline is set for acceptance, to enable them to fully understand the contractual changes proposed, with facility time to undertake this consultation with you. So far, we have had no response to this reasonable request.

We will continue to set up meetings to discuss this with our GEC and members, recognising that this is peak holiday season for many members who will be taking a well-deserved break.

This pay offer from MOD does not adequately address your cost of living and is still a year on year pay cut. We will keep you informed of developments. In the meantime, if you have questions, email: dsg@pcs.org.uk

MOD Main Pay Offer 2022

The MOD have released their 2022 pay offer today. As you will see from the details, most of the offer is funded from cuts to your terms and conditions. The department should have added additional monies to the offer to compensate for the steep increase in inflation, which has lead to staff being required to sell allowances, annual leave and sick leave for a significantly below inflation pay deal over the next three years.

Stay up to date with latest news on the PCS website

PCS Defence Sector Group Response - MoD Offer in not enough

The pay offer has been below inflation every year for three years and MOD is also selling off terms and conditions.

Informal pay talks have been going on with MOD for months. We have made some progress in finding ways to construct a business case to the Cabinet Office and Treasury to deliver more money for all staff. However, as these talks have progressed, there has remained one major sticking point: inflation has shot up and is predicted to climb higher, as the impact of rising energy costs and food bills hit home.

This means that, although the headline offer may have been attractive back when inflation was at one or two percent, now it is predicted to peak at or above 11.5% around the time the offer would be agreed.

Most of the offer is funded from cuts to your terms and conditions. The department should have added additional monies to the offer to compensate for the steep increase in inflation, which has led to staff being offered the chance to sell allowances, annual leave and sick leave for a significantly below inflation pay deal over the next three years.

This is on top of the 2% that the government over-charges you for your pension and the estimated 20% reduction in your pay over 12 years of an effective pay freeze. We believe that PCS members deserve substantially better.

PCS rules mean that we cannot move to an immediate ballot on this offer. We asked for this to be clearly stated in the communications from the department. This is not simply a contractual change on pay, but it is also linked to a contractual change to terms and conditions. Members must be given an opportunity to understand the implications of this offer, particularly those who are being asked to give up terms and conditions to fund it.

Our union has respected confidentiality through these informal pay discussions and has not shared or discussed this offer in detail with our executive (GEC). We were aiming to do so on 10 August in an emergency GEC. The offer will also need to be put to our National Disputes Committee for permission to ballot on this offer.

MOD has now released details of the offer to all staff, stating that their “overriding aim is to ensure any award is in the pockets of staff as soon as possible”.

We have requested the opportunity to discuss this offer with our members in at pay meetings before any deadline is set for acceptance, to enable them to fully understand the contractual changes proposed, with facility time to undertake this consultation with you. So far, we have had no response to this reasonable request.

We will continue to set up meetings to discuss this with our GEC and members, recognising that this is peak holiday season for many members who will be taking a well-deserved break.

This pay offer from MOD does not adequately address your cost of living and is still a year on year pay cut.

We will keep you informed of developments. In the meantime, if you have questions, email: dsg@pcs.org.uk

Justin Thomas - PCS Defence Sector Group Secretary

From the Group Secretary

Taken from Defender (July 2022)

Job Cuts

This government is not going to solve the economic crisis by sacking public sector workers, We all must play a strong part in acting against this administration that is void of all ideas.

The UK government believes that it can fix the economic crisis by sacking 91,000 civil servants, taking jobs from the very people that spend their wages in the UK, yet leaving wealth in the hands of those who do not spend money here because they hoard it in overseas tax havens. This is now clearly the biggest challenge that PCS faces as a union and comes on top of the cost-of-living crisis as inflation heads towards 10% in the UK.

We know many civil servants are doing the work of two people and doing overtime for free to do it. There are continual attacks on the staff numbers in the civil service with the right-wing press calling for the heads of civil servants to appease the hard liners in the Tory party.

We now know that the government wants 91,000 removed from the headcount. This is not about money, it is about human beings removed from the civil service. Whitehall mandarins do not know how or where to let the axe fall; no doubt the consultants and the outsourcers will be filling senior civil servants’ heads with ideas so they can line their pockets with our hard-earned cash. Privatisation is the spectre looming over this process, by shifting more civil servants into the private sector they can create profit for their chums and say they have reduced the civil service in one stroke.

If these jobs are privatised, they are still paid for by the taxpayer; it is simply that a 20% premium is attached to the bill to swell the coffers of private industry and that the outsourcers will try to generate this profit by cutting even more staff. Each time one of these contracts is let the MOD wants more done with fewer people and the privateers rush to comply.

This is not the model that will assist the economy to withstand a catastrophic recession to add to the woes of Covid 19 and the cost of living. We need wages in the pockets of working people to allow them discretionary spending and this must be achieved through higher wages in the public sector by taxing properly the people that have profited from crisis after crisis.

PCS knows that MOD is already overstretched with many workers already doing the work of two people.

PCS will continue to demand full engagement on your behalf in the process of job cuts that this reckless government has started. PCS wants an engagement plan with the department, with weekly meetings and timely notifications of any outcomes or proposals. We want to be involved in the submissions made to the cabinet office so that we can fully understand what they involve.

During the DSg conference the vice president and group secretary were called to meet with the defence permanent secretary in an online meeting. The permanent secretary made it clear that the government had tasked all departments to report back to the Cabinet Office by the end of June with a plan of how they could cut 20%, 30% or 40% percent off the headcount. The formal commission has now come in and the department is complying with the instructions. All the TLBs have been asked to assess the cuts and savings that they can make and to feed into the centre with their findings.

The permanent secretary stated that the department will outline all that the things that MOD and its agencies are doing and then it is up to the government to decide what the MOD will stop doing. PCS knows that the MOD is already overstretched with many workers already doing the work of two people. We fundamentally disagree with this happening; all our members should be aware of this pressure and take steps to ensure they are only doing the job that they are paid to do.

We can be certain that privatisations will never be far from this agenda, and we will hold the department to account over every job that gets earmarked for outsourcing. We know outsourcing cannot work, it has been proven time and time again in defence by Capita, Carillion and the Deal bombing.

The UK government's threat to cut 91,000 jobs from the civil service cannot apply in UK defence, which is already facing a cut of 12.5% to staff costs because of this government's integrated spending review. The war in Ukraine has altered the priorities in defence with a stated desire to increase the capability of defence. The civil servants in defence are currently struggling with the workload from these priorities so PCS are calling for there to be absolutely no job cuts in defence as any staff cuts will have a direct impact on the UK’s defence capability; there is nothing here to cut.

Pensions

PCS members have been overpaying their pension contributions for three years; every year the losses you have incurred increase.

To date losses average over £1,000 per member.

It is important to understand that this money does not contribute towards the pension you will get, it is extra money that you pay in for no reason other than the government claims the scheme is unaffordable without it. This has been shown to be untrue: the scheme is running in surplus because of the increase in contributions you were forced to make.

There are two solutions to this overpayment: one is that the government reduces the contribution rate by 2% for all employees and the other is that they increase the pension benefits you receive on retirement. At present the government wants to take the unacceptable step of using the overpaid cash to correct the mistake they made in discriminating on the grounds of age against people in retirement schemes. The money you are overpaying should not be used to correct the mistakes of government.

So far nearly 22,000 PCS members have worked out how much they have lost by using our PCS pensions loss calculator. The average loss per month is around £53. Simply enter your gross annual salary into the calculator and it will show you how much you have overpaid.

At a time when the cost of living is rising sharply, with the energy price cap predicted to rise by 51%, National Insurance contributions increasing and the potential of interest rate rises affecting mortgage payments, PCS members cannot afford to make these overpayments.

PCS is taking legal action, along with at least five other unions, to force the government to change its decision on pension contributions. The pensions issue is a part of the overall discontent with the government as an employer, with a cap on pay well below inflation, cuts to jobs and the civil service compensation scheme, and the understaffing and overworking of departments, it is small wonder that PCS is planning action on all these fronts.

What you can do: get one person to join PCS, share Defender with colleagues, attend PCS meetings as they are called and keep your details right up to date. Get ready to play a part in the upcoming ballot on many of these issues as we seek to make the government treat us with dignity and respect.

Conference 2022

The DSg group conference returned to Brighton and a face-to-face meeting after two years of cancellation and online. It was great to see the group executive committee (GEC) in the flesh and I can tell you they had not changed a bit! There were over 20 motions to debate, guest speakers including the general secretary, Mark Serwotka, president Fran Heathcote, and assistant general secretary John Moloney, who spoke on the proposed cuts to the civil service, the need to organise and how we can get better legal outcomes for members; plus a presentation from the 1st Class credit union.

There was a session from the organising department from Pete Lockhart and a seminar on how we use health and safety to organise from Alan Dennis, which is available from DSG@pcs.org.uk as required organising material.

We had new members attending conference, with new speakers moving motions and successfully putting their positions across. Conference reiterated its position on pay, the environment, anti-bullying and harassment, hybrid working and working practices.

Bernie Pagent moved the northwest motion on victimisation, by telling delegates that the new MOD policy separates bullying from the legal definition of victimisation which has caused problems for our members. The motion calls on MOD to change this definition in JSP763. Bernie also moved the motion to protect apprenticeship posts involved in a post mapping exercise especially with the announcement on 91,000 job cuts, as well as motions on pay and excess fares. What links all these motions are attacks by the employer on you as workers.

The GEC supported the motion against the removal of excess fares and in supporting the motion Frances Lanigan said “the GEC welcomes the motion raising concerns that DBS were giving advice that excess fares could not be paid...” Frances moved the motion from the GEC that awarded the Distinguished Life Membership to Mick Mace.

Steve Robinson moved the GEC motion on OMEC saying “the incidents that we said would happen are indeed starting to happen”. Many people are leaving the MGS once they realise the true scale of OMEC. The GEC motion calls for a campaign to be organised against OMEC and its effects.

There was a low turnout for the 2022 conference which was disappointing as the same organisation is required for 1 delegate or 70. I urge all branches and reps to start talking to members now about attending next year's DSg conference and writing motions and speeches to move, second or oppose them. This is the conference where our group sets the direction for us and to do that fully we must have full representation.

Justin Thomas - Defence Sector Group Secretary

COVID-19: It's not over yet

Taken from Defender - Issue 1/21 (October 2021)

Our union has been heavily engaged in dealing with the impact of Covid 19 at all levels.

Nationally there have been regular meetings with the Cabinet Office to establish a Civil Service wide approach to the pandemic, on issues such as home working, annual leave and the impact of long Covid.

Departmentally we have had regular meetings of the joint health and safety committee, developing a suite of Defence Advice Notes laying out policy on safe working during the pandemic and with Civilian HR creating and amending policies and procedures to address issues arising from the pandemic. All these documents can be accessed online via DefNet or Defence Connect.

But our work has not ended, as Covid is still very definitely with us with infection rates of over 30k per day and deaths in the hundreds per week. So, it is important that we continue to monitor the application of risk assessments and mitigations to allow staff to return safely to the workplace where they need to do so.

We are also engaging with business units on their plans for smarter or hybrid schemes of work, to ensure that they allow all staff to work flexibly and safely in line with departmental policy.

If you are at all concerned about what you are being asked to do in relation to a return to the workplace or an option to work flexibly, please get in touch.

And please make sure that you follow all the rules around Covid. They are there to keep us all safe.

COVID-19 - MoD

We are entering a period of enormous potential change in UK defence. There is pressure on people to return to workplaces in the face of an ongoing pandemic and at the time of writing cases are increasing in the UK.

The advice in the Defence Advice Note 15 (DAN 15) is extant and should be cited at every opportunity. This can be found on DefNet.

PCS must continue to ensure that our members work in the safest possible conditions and that you know how to report any breaches in a fast and effective manner. PCS have worked with the other unions to make sure that the Defence Information Notes and Defence Advice Notes remain in place as well as working to keep the FAQs as a central reference point. It is our priority is to keep you safe, yet the situation is changing as the schools go back and pressure increases to return to the workplace.

There is much talk about newer ways of working. Many and various words are used to describe this, smarter working, flexible working, agile, and hybrid yet all the options point to a massive shift in the way work is done in Defence. Many of our members are not able to work remotely, and we are working to maintain the best terms and conditions for them in their current roles.

There are many pros and cons for both employer and employee in the move to different working patterns with the employer looking to reduce costs and the employees able to access a more flexible and manageable work pattern that reduces time away from home, offers less stress, and a better work life balance. Whatever the advantages to both parties of hybrid working, PCS expect to see any dividend shared between the employer and the employee, as desk and office space reduces so too does costs and we want that saving converted into wages to compensate for the lack of progression and pay in the last decade.

For some of our members it cannot be too late to get back into an office yet for others the chance to work from home is what they have been waiting for. People have been able to reduce their travel and undertake meetings online, the converse is that others have been forced to work in isolation and in cramped spaces with poor facilities and increasing stress levels. Clearly home working can work for well paid executives and more established workers with larger homes, for the poorer defence workers in house shares or trying to home educate it has not been a good fit. For this reason, we have had to skilfully negotiate the PCS position on hybrid working to allow those who want to work from home to do so as much as possible, to remove the risk of bullying bosses arbitrarily calling people back to the office in a test of endurance, but to allow those who want to come into office all the time the space and facility to do so.

It is always important for me to add at this point, this is the reason we join trade unions. PCS will promote home working for those that want it, we will work to maintain the status quo for anyone that needs to work in the office for whatever reason. PCS in Defence will negotiate the changes in the workplace on your behalf with care and precision, this is an excellent reason to join PCS and for you to get actively involved. PCS want to hear from you about the pros and cons of hybrid working, send these to dsg@pcs.org.uk and if you want more information about getting involved.

Justin Thomas - Defence Sector Group Secretary

COVID-19: Defence Workplace Safety

Extreme caution must be exercised about any workplace return.

PCS Defence sector group is clear that the removal of Covid restrictions in England is reckless and premature, given the rapid increase in the infection rate across the UK. PCS members in defence need not be confused by mixed messages from government and Defence. There may well be pressure being put onto individuals who have been working from home safely to return to the workplace.

In response to changes PCS has drawn up the following demands:

• National law and guidance in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland must be followed.

• There must be no arbitrary targets or dates for staff to return to workplaces.

• All relevant Departmental units must consult the unions in advance of any plan for staff possibly returning to the workplace.

• Social distancing must remain in place, face-coverings should be used in communal areas and in any setting they are currently being used,

• Proper ventilation is vital in buildings and unions must be reassured on this before any return to the workplace.

• Vulnerable employees, including those not vaccinated, to remain working at home unless on the balance of risk (impact on their mental wellbeing of working from home) it would be better for them to return to the workplace.

• Risk assessments, both individual and collective, should include travel to work and must be undertaken in advance of staff returning to the workplace and subject to advance TU consultation

These are sensible mitigations and provide measures to reduce the risk from the Covid-19 hazard to as low as reasonably practicable in line with remaining Health and Safety legislation.

In anticipation of the announced changes, the MOD trade unions called for and attended special meetings of the Department's Joint Health and Safety Committee. The employer heard our concerns; we called for full and proper consultation on any changes seeking the above demands. We were provided with a draft COO message, now published, which makes it clear that local management should not relax current Covid controls pending application of the revised Defence Notice 15 and that full consultation on any changes, including who should return to work and when must be the subject of Trade Union consultation.

The revised Gov.UK workplace guidance is very clear; despite the removal of temporary COVID 19 legal restrictions there is never a removal of Health and Safety law and the legal requirement for employers to manage the COVID hazard and this allows PCS to make and achieve the demands above. All reps and members must note all MOD announcements, ensure that Health and Safety law is applied and report any issues or concerns to us via DSG@pcs.org.uk. If there are any issues there is a laid down escalation route for safety issues and this should be used. The principle with health and safety is that the problem is resolved as soon as possible at a local level and not simply moved on up the chain and ignored.

If you can’t work from home make sure you follow the Covid-19 safety measures in your workplace. If you have any concerns about your health and safety at work, talk to your PCS health and safety rep immediately. You can find their details by logging into PCS Digital.

Check out our Covid-19 questions and answers.

Contact our Central Response Team for help.

Not a member? Join PCS online.

The Alternative Vision for UK Defence

The Defence Sector group in PCS has commissioned a report into an Alternative Vision (AV) for Defence in the UK.

This is in line with other AV reports carried out for PCS groups.

The report will be launched in Parliament on 23 February 2021 at 4 pm.

Details have gone out to DSg members to home email adresses. If you have not received an email please check your spam folder or update your details so we have your correct home email address.

The report has been written and produced by Roger Seifert, Professor of Industrial Relations at the University of Wolverhampton (BA, MA (Oxon), MSc (Econ), PhD (London); Honorary Professor, Keele University.)

PCS DSg would like to thank Roger for his hard work on this project. We also want to thank all the other contributors and all those who have contributed to get this report published.

It is the intention of the group to use this AV as a campaigning tool and as a basis for a bargaining agenda for the future but it is perhaps worth repeating the key demands for this altertnative vision from the report:

PCS key demands for an Alternative Vision

A vital difference between civilian civil servants working in the MoD and most other civil servants is the dominance of a military culture that pervades all aspects of defence sector work. This takes many forms, but two are worth highlighting here: there is loyalty to members of the armed forces from the civil servants; and endemic bullying and harassment. The former shows itself throughout discussions with PCS members and the behaviour of civilian staff in terms of going the ‘extra mile’ for military personnel. At the same time and almost in the same breath there were endless complaints and examples of serious and serial bullying and harassment throughout the MoD. PCS does its best in difficult circumstances to ensure that their members’ interests are represented. But the prevailing Atlantic wind is that of careless privatisation, moody frustration at lack of direction, denial of decline, and endless in-fighting. The Alternative Vision has led to the following key demands by PCS for our members in the ministry of defence:

1. Job security is guaranteed by a statement from the Permanent Secretary.

2. That training and promotion are reinstated to their previous levels and systems.

3. That urgent action is taken throughout the MoD and its outsourced providers to stop all bullying and harassment by line managers. This must include an extra provision on mental health. Proclaimed policies are no longer enough. Real action must be enforced through reinvigorated investigations, sterner punishments, and full opportunities for union representatives to do their job.

4. A recognition that poor quality line management often stems from careless senior managers and lack of direction. Civilian staff need greater certainty as to the direction of the service, and the sense that their contribution is fully valued.

5. Immediate action on cases of discrimination that highlight a commitment from the top that it can no longer be tolerated anywhere in the ministry.

6. Stop further outsourcing and provide an honest account of existing outsourcing arrangements with a view to returning these activities in-house.

7. Stop presenting cuts as efficiency gains, and face up to the fact that the MoD is inefficient. This is partly due to the conflicting requirements from government, but is partly due to poor management of staff.

8. Stop pretending that the MoD provides ‘value for money’, and be honest that this is rarely the case. In procurement, for example, ‘value for money’ is not the main objective and can never be put ahead of defence needs and public safety.

9. Stop selling off sites to fill short-term budget gaps. Some rationalisation may be necessary, but it needs to be carried out in a sustained and planned manner with full consultation with the unions.

10. Improve industrial relations. This is the right thing to do as a government employer, but also better industrial relations based on strong union workplace representation is an efficiency measure – it stops bad management practices such as bullying and discrimination, improves staff morale as they feel their grievances are being dealt with, and improves productivity.

11. Ensure consistency in management practices across the entire MoD province. At the moment arbitrary management frequently associated with individual good and bad managers dominate workplaces. This is arcane and makes the MoD management appear incompetent, lazy, lacking in knowledge, and totally amateurish.

12. Allow full sectional and national collective bargaining to be carried out in ‘good faith’ over all relevant issues including pay, terms and conditions, specific workplace issues, and performance management systems.

COVID-19 Update and MoD Laptop rollout

PCS members are still contacting us to tell us they are not being allowed to work from home in a clear breach of the Covid 19 legislation. The stay at home message must be reinforced by equiping staff to work from home.

During the January all-staff dial-in held last week the Permanent Secretary said the following:

"I have heard stories of local commanders, local heads of establishment, who are taking frankly—if true—the wrong definition of essential work. If you feel that your work is not essential but you’re being required to come in by local command, then feel free to raise that up the chain of command to make sure that the right decisions are being taken. The most important thing that anybody can do at the moment.... is to be staying at home and reducing the transmission of this disease. That is the single biggest message that the NHS would be sending to us if they were on the line today—please do everything in your power to make sure that fewer people come through our doors. We are in for a quite rough period, and we need to take this very, very, very seriously."

That message is unequivocal and you MUST follow that advice from the top of MOD. This directly relates to you.

To assist in this the MoD have put out a statement on MOD net regarding the lap top roll out program. Please do access it if you are being stopped from working from home by your manager.

You will see the statement says..."Deliveries will resume on 12 January 21", so we are well into this process.

If you are being forced into the office to attend to tasks that could and should be done remotely, you must raise this with your line manager, use the escalation route to highlight the breach in health and safety and let PCS local reps know.

If you are reading this and you are not a PCS member you can join online.

MOD will be delivering 140,000 to 150,000 laptops in 2021 and this must be used to enable safe continued working from home in line with the law. "By the autumn of 2021, the My MOD Laptop project expect to have delivered 150,000 laptops and 10,000 desktops and install approximately 130,000 docking stations, which will be a fantastic achievement. These devices will allow Defence to continue to work effectively and collaboratively across the world." and from home.

MGS Update

Our union continues to oppose the detrimental changes that the department is seeking to make to the contracts of both new starters to the MOD guard service (MGS) and staff who are promoted within it.

This divisive proposal would see all allowances and premium rates removed from new joiners and those who seek promotion, who instead will be expected to work a 48-hour week for little more than the minimum wage in return. This will lead to existing staff and new starters doing the same job but on vastly different rates of pay and conditions and is effectively the worst part of the 2019 pay offer brought back for new starters in the MGS.

The MOD clearly does not value or appreciate the work that our PCS members do in the MGS as they protect UK defence sites around the clock, especially during the pandemic where these staff have remained on sites throughout.

Since we last reported on this issue, we have moved into a formal disagreement with the department.

This involves formal meetings with senior MOD managers to try to resolve our dispute. We are now at the third and final stage of dispute resolution, with the department’s chief operating officer Mike Baker. We will be making clear to him that we believe these proposals are a clear threat to the security of our members across the defence estate and are also wrong-headed.

You cannot keep cutting pay and conditions for already low paid staff without doing serious damage to the service provided as well as to the wellbeing of your employees.

MGS: No to new deal

MOD Guard Service (MGS) has brought forward a new employee proposition that would create a very different working structure for the staff

The trade unions in the Ministry of Defence Guard Service (MGS) have received proposals for changes to the contract and working pattern of the MGS staff. PCS believes the proposals are hugely detrimental to the MGS, we cannot support these measures as they contain nothing but detriment for our present and future PCS members. The proposals are:

• to reduce terms and conditions around shift working;

• cuts to the overtime rate;

• cuts to public holiday pensionable overtime;

• cuts to the recompense officers receive in time off in lieu for a rest day falling on a public holiday,

• plus removal of the one and a half days privilege holiday that the MGS continue to receive.

Other MOD shift workers (whether existing staff or new starters) will continue to receive their current terms and conditions. This will create a two-tier workforce within the MGS but also a two-tier workforce across the whole of defence for shift workers.

Most of these proposals were part of the divisive 2019 pay offer that PCS rejected outright. We see no reason why we should now agree to their introduction within the MGS.

We shall be asking for talks with their parent organisation, the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, and with the centre, around properly funding departmental security as a whole. MGS managers claim this change will be for new employees only, however in the same way that the reduction in the wider civil service terms and conditions of service in 2014 was also enforced on staff who achieved promotion, these new proposals would also be forced on anyone seeking to advance within the MGS and become a further deterrent to people to seek promotion. MGS proposes to remove all allowances.

New staff (and anyone achieving advancement or promotion) would lose their entitlement to regular shift allowance, flexible rostering allowances and to weekend and public holiday premiums. This amounts to around 42% of a current MGS officer’s salary, a pay cut that no-one can afford.

It is proposed to introduce a single spot rate for all operational officers, not just Band E2. The pay quoted is above MOD Band minimum, yet nowhere near the levels that an officer should be earning on full allowances and premiums. A new “Retained grade” of security officer would be created; retained grades are remnants from a broken system that should be phased out not created, officers on these reduced terms and salary would not be retaining anything. Unions have a long-standing agreement with the MOD that no more retained grades would be created. These changes breach that agreement, but sets a dangerous precedent for other specialisms or cadres throughout the MOD and would break the pay system that MOD is so wedded to.

Working time regulations require a 90-minute break during a 12-hour shift yet meal break times are cut to 60 minutes; reducing breaks puts even more stress on officers, contributes to burn out and is grossly unfair. Office workers doing eight and a half hours a day get a one-hour break. It is not fair or reasonable to expect MGS officers working 50% longer to have the same meal break.

A 48-hour week will be demanded as part of the new contract, the maximum permitted hours under the essential working time regulations. PCS believes that these rosters, with a mix of staff on different conditioned hours, are confusing and difficult to manage, reducing the ability to cover staffing gaps with overtime. Shift working is detrimental to health we need to create and maintain a proper work/life balance. This proposal flies in the face of all that, as the effect of this is to remove rest days. This puts more stress and strain on officers, many of whom are already maxed out.

After many years and much hard work, the MGS is now highly regarded and is the de facto unarmed guarding provider of choice within the MOD. These proposals jeopardise all that great work and should be rejected as flawed and unworkable.

COVID-19

PCS Defence Sector reps are continuing to engage across the public and private sectors to mitigate any harmful outturns from changes to the government guidance on safe working. We are also negotiating on pay in several areas and dealing with health and safety issues as well as assisting with risk assessments to keep you safe.

Holiday quarantine

We have been discussing the implications of the government announcements about quarantine after returning from overseas trips. DSg reps note that guidance is rather dynamic at this time; we are encouraging employers to keep an open mind on this subject. It is for our members to decide if they choose to travel; it is hard to make an informed choice when guidance and advice can change in the time it takes for a short flight. We are clear that members that have booked holidays, in good faith, should not be penalised in any way for doing what they were encouraged to do a few weeks ago. Members were also encouraged to take leave; our position is that we feel we want the employers to allow people to work from home if possible in the event of any quarantine arrangements applying and we want the employer to take account of caring arrangements too. If this is not possible then the employer should grant special paid leave so that annual leave is not consumed by quarantine.

Working from home

We know that thousands of people in Defence have continued working right through since the start of lockdown. Our members have been in the workplace when required and have also been at home and working; therefore PCS sees no reason why there needs to be a general return to the workplace for thousands of staff. A general return will make work even less safe, expose difficulties in recommissioning services such as water (due to Legionella) and airflow, and cause people to risk carrying the infection from one social group to another. DSg fully supports efforts for as many people to remain at home and working as possible and we are taking every opportunity to remind the employers of this position. We have therefore written to the MoD requesting the information about the plans for any general return to workplaces, the risk assessments to support this and the productivity data that the permanent under secretaries have been asked to provide to the cabinet office. PCS has been successful in keeping you safe by keeping 80% of members at home and working and in so doing have supported the effective reduction of viral spread. We do not want to see those efforts rendered pointless by a rush back to buildings that are not Covid 19 compliant.

COVID-19: MoD issues defence advice note 21

This is a copy of defence advice notice 21 (DAN 21) which has been agreed by the trade unions with MoD via negotiations, issued because of the slight alteration on social distancing guidance.

This DAN is issued because of the slight alteration to guidance on social distancing to allow pubs, restaurants and hair dressers to open.

PCS has worked hard to keep this guidance in line with the primary objectives that remain stay home if possible and work from home if you can.

Any deviation from this guidance should be reported to MoD using the agreed escalation route that was published in May. Reference should also be made to DAN 14 and 15.

DEFENCE ADVICE NOTE 21 – Changes to social distancing measures and local authority area lockdowns

1. The UK government and the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have announced or are considering easing of Covid-19 related restrictions. These changes may impact Defence activity and its personnel.

2. Defence Advice Note 15 “Safer Working in a Defence Environment” remains extant and should be followed. Personnel who can work from home should continue to do so. TLBs and EOs should decide, in consultation with trade union health and safety reps where relevant, whether it is viable for them to continue working from home. Where it is decided that personnel should come into their place of work then this will need to be reflected in the risk assessment and actions taken to manage the risks of transmission in line with DAN 15.

3. Government guidance makes it clear that the 2m rule on social distancing should be maintained wherever possible including while arriving at and departing from work, while in work and when travelling between sites. Only where it is not viable to implement the 2m rule should a ‘1m-plus’ separation be considered and only with the addition of risk mitigations. Therefore, where the 2m rule is in place in line with current risk assessments and is effective there should be no change to existing arrangements. Any proposed changes to existing arrangements should set out fully the mitigation measures to be introduced to new or revised risk assessments in consultation with trade union health and safety reps as set out in Dan 15.

4. Hairdressers, cinemas, bars, cafes and restaurants, playgrounds and outdoor gyms, places of worship, guest accommodation and some other leisure facilities will be able to reopen in England providing they adhere to Covid secure guidelines. The re-opening of any facility on a defence establishment must be in accordance with the relevant national guidance and must be subject to a risk assessment. Any decision to re-open a previously closed on-site facility must be made by the appropriate Head of establishment in consultation with their TLB/EO.

5. Separate guidance has been issued for the devolved nations; Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Heads of establishment, line managers and commanders should review the appropriate national guidance for the reopening of defence facilities in these nations.

6. Heads of establishment, line managers and commanders are to follow relevant local restrictions in the event that a local authority area lockdown is introduced. Heads of establishment and commanding officers are to review their existing outbreak plans, ensuring they are robust, flexible, readily implementable and aligned with the latest government guidance.

UK government guidance on working safely

Close proximity venues such indoor gyms are to remain closed – See DAN 6.

MDP should use national guidance issued by NPCC and College of Policing to inform decision making on the re-opening or use of facilities, specifically for mandatory training or to deliver a competency-based requirement.

Read a summary of current Covid-19 national guidelines, including devolved administrations.

Defence Pay

Taken from Defender - Issue 2/20 (July 2020)

Interim Demands

PCS has made four interim demands to help staff who are facing challenging times during the coronavirus pandemic, many of whom are key workers carrying out essential work. The demands are:

• An immediate across-the-board, above-inflation pay increase for all staff

• A 2% reduction in pension contributions

• No changes to the civil service redundancy scheme*

• A moratorium on office closures and redundancies.

*The concession on redundancy pay to keep the existing scheme in place for a year does meet one of those four demands.

A meeting with the Cabinet Office took place on 18 May 2020, to discuss pay, pension contributions and office closures. Your negotiators have raised the subject of pension contributions with all three employers, the decision rests with the government yet the departmental employers need to raise it with the Cabinet Office as we all keep the pressure up for pensions justice.

PCS is clear that these are simply interim demands and do not replace the 10% pay claim that PCS entered to the Cabinet Office for the start of this pay round.

MoD Main

Pay talks in MoD Main have still not started yet, they were scheduled for June and July, clearly that will now have to be July. Although the pay remit guidance has been released PCS still have a pay claim egistered at a national level and your negotators will work hard to get the maximum we can from the employer on your behalf. The Unions will press the MoD for a pay timescale when we meet next. The unions are keen to avoid a repeat of the hideous delays around pay from last year. MoD should settle pay rapidly this year to get pay to hard pressed workers without delay.

DE&S

Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) held pay talks with the unions and as a result issued the best and final offer to Unions in early June. The offer was then put to the DSg Group Executive Committee (GEC). At GEC the offer was rejected and this decision was then ratified by the National Disputes Committee (NDC) This is in accordance with the rule book; the NDC is comprised of lay reps as well as full time staff, the majority of the NDC are elected by you. The issue for rejection was that the overall consolidated figure was only 2.25% and this did not meet PCS National Eexecutive Committee (NEC) pay aspirations.

PCS will not oppose the implementation of this pay deal and as a result pay should be in this months pay. This DE&S pay deal will offer 2.25% consolidated pay across the board plus non-con corporate bonus ranging between 6.6% and 3.5% from level 5 (B) to Level 1 (E). This should deliver between 5.5% & 5.75% for all staff, there will be more for some.

PCS negotiators will always continue to challenge the distribution of cash, which still offers those at the top of the shop an unfair slice of the pie; they are already rewarded with higher salaries for their knowledge and skill.It should be noted that there is no individual performance element in DE&S and there is a pay rise for all staff including those who may have been forced into performance improvement. PCS have long argued and campaigned to shelve performance management and we will continue to do so. It is a pity that Covid 19 will take the credit for disposing of the discriminatory, divisive and detrimental system; PCS do not want to see it coming back.

UKHO

Talks with UK Hydrographic office (UKHO) continued last week and in similar fashion PCS laid out what we expect based on the national pay claim, we have given the employer some ideas of areas in which we would like to see changes and stressed that we want to see somthing for everyone in these difficult times.

In Summary

In general with all pay this year we are looking to get an above inflation rise for all staff, break the link between pay and individual performance, put as much money as possible into consolidated pay and have a fairer pay system. Pay in Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) should set an example for all bargaining sectors in Defence. It has been a hard battle against the DE&S pay principles in the last four years, yet finally there is light at the end of the tunnel. That light needs to extend to all pay offers.

Find PCS Defender Magazine Issue 2/20 (July 2020) here: PCS Defender Magazine for the Defence Sector Group

PCS seeks to protect members’ interests as Mitie buys Interserve facilities management

PCS is making all necessary representations to protect our members’ interests following the announcement outsourcing company Mitie is to buy the facilities management part of fellow privateer Interserve.

Both companies already control a considerable amount of central government and NHS work. Specific contracts where PCS has members, and which will be included in the sale, include; the Ministry of Defence (where Interserve operates the 25 year PFI contract which provides facilities management for Defence Digital at Corsham), as well as the Department for Transport, Defra, DWP, the government hub in Canary Wharf, Cabinet Office, DFID and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, where we have been running a long-standing campaign for union recognition.

Early discussions have taken place between PCS and Interserve today and we will aim to update members as these progress. As this is the purchase of one company by another and not a transfer of a business, it is unlikely that TUPE transfer will apply.

Uncertainty

Corporate mergers, buyouts and takeovers are a worrying time for members at the best of times. Under the current economic uncertainty, caused in part by the coronavirus pandemic, we recognise this news is going to worry and unsettle people. Things are at an early stage and PCS will be making all necessary representations to protect our members’ interests. Our key message to all our Interserve and Mitie members is this – the best chance you have of protecting and promoting your interests is to get unionised and organised. So we encourage those not already PCS members to join our union. The more people in our union the stronger we are collectively to withstand any proposed changes. If you’re already a member sign up to be a PCS Advocate to get involved.

Pay 2020 - MoD Main

Pay talks in MOD main have not started yet, they are scheduled for June and July. Although the pay remit guidance has been released.

PCS still have a pay claim registered at a national level and your negotators will work hard to get the maximum we can from the employer. The Unions will press the MoD for a pay timescale when we meet them today. The unions are keen to avoid a repeat of the hideous delays around pay from last year. MoD should settle pay rapidly this year in line with other defence civil service trading entities.

Justin Thomas - PCS Defence Support Group Secretary

Integrated Defence Review

Taken from Defender - Issue 1/20 (March 2020)

From the Defence Sector Group President

Work is now commencing on the so-called ‘Integrated Review’, the successor to the strategic defence and security reviews that we have come to know and love. The review is billed as “the largest review of the UK’s foreign, defence, security and development policy since the end of the Cold War” and is intended to define the Government’s ambition for the UK’s role in the world and the long-term strategic aims for national security and foreign policy.

But of course, no review would be complete without reforms to day-to-day business and maximising organisational efficiency, often seen as a euphemism for civilian staff cuts and site closures. The review will be conducted in parallel to the regular Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR), designed so that the CSR can provide the funding to deliver the changes proposed by the review – although it remains to be seen if this will be the case in reality.

Our union is most interested in the people elements of any review. Even the most cursory examination of previous reviews, with their crude 30% cuts to civilian staff targets, has shown that it is impossible to achieve defence outcomes without the correct number of skilled and motivated civilian staff to take forward those noble objectives. So, we will be looking to advance the interests of civilian staff as integral to delivering any successful defence programme – requiring significant investment in facilities, training and reward to ensure that UK defence is fit for purpose.

We will also be pushing back against any idea that this can be delivered on the cheap, or that crude efficiency targets can be imposed on the department to fund necessary improvements or cover funding gaps.

Our members will play a key role in this task, as they are the eyes and ears of our union on the ground. We will be looking to active members to feed in information drawn from their workplaces and ideas for improvement so that we can fight the corner of civilian staff.

We will also be looking to increase our visible presence in every defence workplace, so that management recognises our union as a key stakeholder in developing organisations fit for the future.

If you want to play a role in that conversation, contact dsg@pcs.org.uk to discuss what you can contribute and encourage everyone in your workplace to become an active member of our union.

Chris Dando - PCS Defence Sector Group President

You can find the latest edition of Defender here - Defender Magazine

Coronavirus (Covid-19)

Coronavirus guidance

What to do if you are affected by Coronavirus and how to get help from the union

Members will have concerns about their health and welfare, and questions about how they can protect themselves and others without losing pay.

There is information and health advice on dedicated pages on the government website, which is being updated daily.

Protecting your pay

We have been meeting with the Cabinet Office and have been pressing the need for pay protections for all staff, including in privatised areas, to take the necessary precautions if they are infected, have travelled to one of the affected areas or have flu-like symptoms. We will also be calling for full union involvement in safety planning and response teams.

Through our talks with the Cabinet Office we have secured assurances that no civil servant will suffer a pay detriment as a result of following government health advice for managing the virus. We want all employers, including those on outsourced contracts, to offer the same protections and are therefore calling for urgent talks with all employers to secure protections for staff working on outsourced, agency, zero-hours and part-time contracts.

PCS supports the TUC’s demand that every worker should be paid from day one and that no one should have to suffer a detriment as a result. By refusing to pay full paid time off or support to recover and stay away from work, employers are placing us all at risk of infection.

Health and safety at work

PCS’s health and safety reps have been given advice on what to do in their workplaces including asking to see risk assessments carried out by management and carrying out their own inspections. Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) regulations, the employer is legally obliged to, as far as is practically possible, reduce the risk of exposure to biological hazards amongst their staff.

Getting help

If you have any problems or questions about how the virus may affect you at work, including queries about taking time off, please contact your local PCS rep. Their contact details can be found by logging on to PCS Digital

Helpful links

NHS - the National Health website

111.NHS.UK - 111 online

PUBLIC HEALTH ENGLAND - at GOV.UK

MIND - for better mental health

GOV.UK - dedicated pages on the government website

TUC - Coronavirus

Tips for working from home

Many departments and employers have pledged to put procedures in place to enable staff to work from home during the coronavirus outbreak. While some members may look forward to time out of the office, for others working from home can be hard and some people can suffer from feelings of isolation and a lack of support.

The following advice should help members deal with the change in their working circumstances, especially if they are working from home for the first time. You should:

1. Aim to stick to the routine of setting an alarm at your normal time and getting up and dressed for work, even if you don’t dress as formally as you might in the office.

2. Try to set up a workstation, preferably somewhere where you won’t be too distracted by other things that might be going on at home. Working at a desk or table is better than sitting on the sofa, in terms of a designated area and also for your posture.

3. Maintain your regular hours. You may feel tempted to log on to your computer earlier than usual because you won’t be travelling to work, and also may be tempted to check your emails after you would normally have finished for the day. It is very important to maintain your work life balance and to differentiate between work time and your own time, even when your workplace is your home.

4. Make sure you know what work you are expected to do, especially if it differs from what you would usually be doing in the office. Tell your manager if you need any extra support or training.

5. Make sure you have all the necessary equipment needed to do your job, such as laptop, wifi and a printer.

6. If you have children at home, or another adult also working from home, you need to set ground rules so that they understand what you can and cannot do when you are working.

7. Schedule breaks. Make sure you get up and get away from your screen regularly and make sure you take a proper lunch break. If you normally take an hour’s lunchbreak, it’s OK to still do that, and to do other things or go for a walk and get some fresh air.

8. Make sure that you stay hydrated and eat proper meals during the day.

9. If you have a work phone, switch if off at the end of the working day. Don’t use your personal phone for work calls.

10. Try to stay in touch with your team and colleagues maybe via Skype or online chat. If you are feeling isolated talk to your line manager or colleagues.

11. If you feel unwell you should report it to your line manager and take a sick day.

Pay Update (MoD Main)

Text of an email sent by the non-industrial trade unions (NITUs) including PCS, to the official side.

MOD MAIN PAY AWARD (2019 to 2021) – TRADE UNION OFFER DOCUMENT 

The Non-Industrial Trade Unions note, but find strange your disappointment at our overall rejection of the Non-Industrial pay award. You are fully aware that an offer such as was presented could only have been implemented with the support of all the NITUs and the rejections by both Prospect and PCS before Christmas made it clear that the offer was unacceptable even then. Indeed, we have made it clear from the start of discussions in November 2018 that an offer based on cutting terms and conditions would not be countenanced, through to the date you presented your initial proposals that they were unacceptable. The Department has had numerous opportunities to work with us to develop an agreed offer, but instead you have sought through a process of corporate bullying to try to undermine all five Trade Unions and overturn our opposition. 

That strategy has clearly failed. Instead of allowing the FDA to undertake a nugatory ballot, you should have already reopened negotiations as requested by Prospect and PCS in their rejection letters sent on 23 December 2019. We may even have concluded those further negotiations by now. It is disingenuous of you to now try to hasten the NITUs to complete this process by an unspecified date having not provided proposals for meeting dates as we requested when rejecting the offer. It is also alarming that members have reported to us that the CDP, at a town hall meeting held yesterday, reported that the button on the 2% pay offer has been pressed. This seemingly indicates that the Department has no intention of re-opening meaningful pay negotiations but is conducting a tick box exercise. If we are going to return to any semblance of having a working relationship moving forward, you must stop treating the Trade Unions with the contempt you have shown and continue to show over this issue. 

We are disappointed that your offer is the worst of the five options which you tabled for discussion towards the end of October. Collectively and separately the Trade Unions have asked for option C which we came close to agreeing, to be the subject of reopened pay negotiations. To date, you have chosen to ignore that request, and have studiously avoided any reference to your tabled proposal in the Department’s updates to staff. We request that you formally and in writing explain to the Trade Unions why option C is not up for negotiation. We need to be able to explain to members and non-members why you have chosen the path of conflict rather than the path of agreement; the worst of the options available rather than the best remaining option. 

We are even more disappointed that you have, yet again, chosen to publish the offer to all staff before we have even agreed dates to start the discussions. In addition to the information given to staff by the CDP yesterday, this also indicates there is no intention to reopen negotiations in good faith. You will need to find a way to rebuild the trust which has clearly been lost by your approach. Continuing in this vein will not help that process. 

We have noted that you have reverted to a single offer which does not reflect the two separate bargaining units, and which disproportionately impacts on the lower paid. We need to understand, given you have published the offer, what scope exists for the intended negotiations to rethink the distribution of the proposed 2%, and to receive a written explanation as to why the Department is not willing to negotiate on the alternative proposal before we engage with resumed pay negotiations 

Finally, as previously requested, please provide proposals for meeting dates starting next week. It would also be helpful if you could provide confirmation that you have not pressed the button to implement the 2% pay offer, as well as clarification of the cut-off date by which you would need these discussions to have concluded. 

A message from PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka on MoD pay. 

Pay Update (MoD Main)

Pay offer withdrawn

The Permanent Under Secretary of State has issued a statement to staff stating that the employer has now withdrawn their pay offer. 

The unions representing the vast majority of non-industrial staff had rejected this divisive pay offer. The reasons for this have been explained to members, including in a video message from PCS general secretary, Mark Serwotka, which was filmed before this announcement was made. As we have already said, this offer was unfair as it would have cut pay for 2,500 members of staff by an average of 4%. 

MoD have now replaced it with a punitive 2% one-year offer designed to divert attention to the trade unions away from the MoD's failed deal. 

Despite the department's desire to have all staff balloted they have now withdrawn the pay offer before getting the outcome of the ballot of industrial staff.

The blame for this process and lack of a pay rise lies firmly at the door of the employer. As PCS has previously stated, when we started talks in April, our terms were repeatedly ignored by the employer who ploughed ahead with their own business case with no consultation.

It is good to hear the department want to "move forward", we want them to come back to the 9% offer that was negotiated in October that protected terms and conditions and gave all staff an above inflation pay increase and could be increased in later years to 11.5% or more. This is a fair deal ready to go into our members' pockets as soon as possible.

The trade unions had already written to the MoD pay team last week to state that we are available to reach an agreement and we could have talked to the Department on Wednesday. The MoD chose not to take us up on that offer. 

PCS and the other trade unions are ready to meet with the employer as soon as possible to get pay in your pockets.

Yours sincerely

Chris Dando - Defence Sector Group President

Message from the General Secretary and the National President about the MoD pay deal 2019

We are writing to you about your union’s decision to reject the three-year pay deal offered by your employer, the Ministry of Defence.

We have been asked by members and non-members to explain the union’s decision.

After suffering from over a decade’s worth of real-terms pay cuts imposed by the employer, it is clearly time MoD staff get the pay rise you deserve.

It is clear from individual responses received from members that many would have received a significant pay rise for the first time in a decade and you are understandably eager to be able to accept this. Our national disputes committee, made up of senior elected officers, considered the offer and has a responsibility to consider the collective impact of any pay offer on the entire PCS membership. 

We could not recommend acceptance or allow a ballot that would allow members to vote for a deal which while good for some, would mean that other members would lose out. For example, the current offer means that 2,500 people would lose 4% from their pay across the three years in actual cuts to take-home pay. 

We believe that following the government’s announcement that the public sector pay cap had been lifted the MoD could have funded a substantial, consolidated pay increase for all of our members. This remains the aim of your union going forward and is why we and other unions entered talks with your employer and Acas in December. Unfortunately, during these talks the employer again refused to move on its divisive offer.

It was disappointing therefore that despite making our negotiating position clear from the outset, the employer brought forward a divisive offer that ignored both of our conditions that any pay offer would be fairly distributed and could not be funded by detriment to any terms and conditions.

It was even more disappointing that while we were still negotiating, putting forward a proposal that would have meant consolidated, above inflation pay rises for all members, the employer released the offer to all staff without the agreement of any of the unions representing you.

Our national executive this week agreed an overarching approach on a national pay framework; pensions and redundancy rights in the context of the new government. It would not be appropriate to enter this new era with members in the Ministry of Defence locked into a 3-year pay deal with detrimental attacks on terms and conditions.

PCS is seeking to protect the entirety of your pay, terms and conditions.

Yours sincerely,

Mark Serwotka                              Fran Heathcote

General Secretary                         National President 

The real cost of the MoD offer 

The MoD pay offer for 2019 contains much detriment and not simply to those who are compelled to undertake overtime. 

PCS stands against the detriment in the MoD pay deal

• 2500 people will take a 4% average pay cut over these three years.

• Staff suffer detrimental changes to overtime as a result of acceptance with a lower rate of pay and an obligation to work it when instructed.

• London staff earning more than £25,000 will lose against their current take home pay.

• There is no pay progression in this deal.

• Half the headline increase comes from money you are already being paid.

At members' meetings PCS has been addressing democracy. We are a democratic union, with elections to every representative level every year for most posts. Those elected officials and reps make up the national disputes committee, which considers the consequences of industrial action for all of PCS and the civil service.

Overtime

You all work overtime when you build up flexi credit, when you accept a manger telling you TOIL is the only option and that you won’t get anything at all. This has to stop. It is the time to get you better pay, get more people employed and do away with the pressure to work harder longer for less. We had a stark choice to make as a trade union we could stand by those who gain and shed the members who lost or we could stand up against the unfairness and lose a section of the winners. We took the tough choice, it was the right thing to do.

Thousands of MoD staff won’t see an above inflation pay rise from this offer and there is detriment to future workers that will be the civil servants of tomorrow.

• We don’t want you to have to fund your own pay rise,

• we don’t want you to be compelled to work overtime,

• we don’t want members to vote to take pay from others.

• This is not how a responsible government department does business.

• Talks should start at once to get MoD to pay you what you deserve, this should come from their coffers not from money they will take from your colleagues.

We wrote to the Department last Friday (17 Jan) and made it clear that this offer is unfair, unworkable and negotiations need to start again, to negotiate a fair equitable pay rise for everyone.

PCS response to PS’s message on MoD pay 

The MoD Permanent Secretary (PS) has accused PCS of not informing the MoD of the reasons for rejecting the Ministry of Defence pay offer. The Permanent Under Secretary and the pay team have been well aware of the rejection reasons since July 2019, when they first proposed cutting TACOS and basic pay.

On Tuesday (7 Jan) the permanent secretary, Stephen Lovegrove, posted a message to MoD staff, stating that it is unclear why unions representing the vast majority of non-industrial staff have chosen not to ballot their members over the MoD’s pay offer.

The decision by the PCS national disputes committee (NDC) to reject the offer without a ballot was made because we cannot recommend acceptance or allow MoD staff to get less take home pay after three years. We cannot recommend an offer that includes detrimental terms and conditions tied to what looks, on the surface, like an attractive three year offer.

We have made it clear to the MoD why we are rejecting the offer and have done so since July when we first verbally rejected it. We have consistently made it clear to them that we could never accept an offer that gave a pay rise to some at the expense of the pay and terms and conditions of our lowest paid members. It is therefore misleading of the employer to tell staff that they do not know why we have rejected the offer.

PCS and Prospect, the unions that represent the vast majority of non-industrial members, have made the principled decision to defend the weakest in this pay situation. PCS has taken the tough choice to stand up for those who would have genuinely lost consolidated basic pay in this deal.

Rather than engage with unions, it is disappointing that the employer has consistently chosen to misrepresent the pay offer, and sent communications to staff that seem designed to create ill-feeling towards the unions. The latest message from the permanent secretary is just the latest example of this.

The employer threatened that if the unions rejected their three-year offer, which was never agreed with the unions, then they would impose a 2% pay deal on all staff. That is less than their own figures provide for, yet despite turning a pay award into a threat, the MoD still will not pay you and have not asked for further talks.

The trade unions went to ACAS in December over the employer’s failure to negotiate in good faith over pay. Unfortunately we were met with the same refusal from the pay team to negotiate on this divisive pay offer that we have been faced with for months. PCS is calling on the MoD to either pay the 2% one-year deal or return swiftly to meaningful talks based on achieving a fair deal with no detrimental effects for any staff, which has been our aim all along.

More information on the pay situation has been regularly posted on the PCS defence sector group website where the latest issue of PCS Defender magazine covers in detail why the decision was made to reject the offer.

Pay Update (MoD Main)

We rejected this MoD pay offer in December and emailed all our members to tell you that. 

I encourage you to visit the site below where you will also find the latest Defender. We have provided a narrative throughout this situation on the web which is the fastest and most equitable and collective way of doing things. Trade Unions are about the collective rather than the individual. 

https://www.pcs.org.uk/defence-sector-group-formerly-mod-group 

All members will find information on the website.

PCS have taken a principled decision to defend the weakest in this pay situation. The MoD gave us a choice; to disadvantage the weakest and lose their membership or risk losing members who feel they have been denied an above inflation pay rise. PCS have taken the tough choice to stand up for those who would have genuinely lost consolidated basic pay in this deal. It is the right thing to do and is not what the employer thought we would have the courage to do.

PCS took the decision knowing there is a high risk of losing members, it was a difficult decision and not one we take lightly. However the basis on which trade unions are founded is taking care of the disadvantaged whilst always trying to get a fair, equitable and honest outcome for everyone. We are the antithesis of the prevailing attitude that individualises pay and draws up the ladder when personal interest are satisfied. Trade Unions represent all members to get the best for all of us and certainly to not agree to pay cuts in these circumstances. Last April when we first discussed pay we set out to get an above inflation consolidated increase for all our members.

The MoD pay team stated that if any of the Unions rejected this offer then they would impose 2% pay on you all. That is less than their own figures provide for, yet despite turning a pay award into a threat, the MoD still will not pay you and have not asked for further talks.

The trade unions went to ACAS in December in good faith only to be faced with the same unhelpful dogma from the pay team that has lasted for months. The MoD can award a pay increase whenever it wishes: PCS call on the MoD to either pay the 2% or return swiftly to meaningful talks based on achieving a fair deal with no detrimental effects for all their staff.

In unity

Justin Thomas - Defence Sector Group Secretary

Pay Update (MoD Main)

PCS rejects MoD Pay Offer for 2019

I am writing the day after our Trade Unions' pay team met the employer at ACAS. The MoD pay team offered us no other options on top of 2% or the deal we cannot accept. I know how much you all deserve a pay rise and how wages have suffered over the last decade. It was essential that we delivered an above-inflation real terms rise for all members included in this offer. 

The unions entered talks in July in good faith, we were clear with the employer that it was not appropriate to negotiate a sell-off of terms and conditions as part of the pay talks. What the employer wanted to reclaim would take months of detailed negotiations, yet the employer wanted to rush this through in weeks. My view remains that this offer is unacceptable; I have tested that view at members’ meetings around the country. I understand that many of you feel you don’t work overtime and I will refer you to the article on overtime in this issue (see below).

There are people in MOD who will have their pay cut as a result of this offer. 

Trade unions stand together to protect the weak and low paid, we pool our strength to advantage everybody. 

It is disappointing that throughout this pay round the employer has continually breached the confidence of negotiations that they require to be secret. It is their rule and not ours. Each time we have responded in kind we are censured. This is not a level playing field and not the way a government department normally behaves. 

You could say the gloves are off, however we are committed to getting all our members in PCS a fair deal and we want to keep talking to the employer to achieve this outcome. 

The employer has told you that we tried to open talks up over our counter-proposal which the employer values at just over 7% (not including non consolidated) naturally this looks a long way from the advertised 11.5%. 

When you understand that the employers offer will only average 10.7% and that includes non-consolidated pay it all starts to look a little different. 

Our aim going back into talks was to agree what we can with MoD to get a fair deal in defence for all our members using all the money available with a fairer distribution so that everybody gains a sustainable, above-inflation rise. 

The shocking aspect of the MoD offer is that for around 40% of the workforce, the offer does not deliver a cost of living pay rise over 3 years.

That is what we must all agree to challenge and change for the better. Do use the MoD pay calculator on the MoD intranet to see the true impact of the pay deal on you. For some it will be good, for many it will be bad. Send the outcome to dsg@pcs.org.uk

What’s the overtime problem?

There is a feeling that many people don’t work overtime, I have encountered the view that it only counts as overtime if you get paid. This is wrong. Any time you work longer than your contracted hours is just that, overtime. If you are in a team where toil is offered regularly for working more than you are contracted to, again this is overtime. Even flexi time is overtime if you are in credit, you have worked more than you a meant to and that is to the department’s advantage. 

Trade unions have long fought battles against overtime. This is not because we are inflexible or don’t appreciate demand; it is because we want full employment, shorter hours and pay that lets people do more than survive. Overtime attacks those principles as it allows the employer to keep wages low with the carrot of overtime dangled that can then be taken away. 

Overtime encourages smaller workforces who can be called on to work longer when need arises instead of proper workforce planning and distribution of work. Lastly overtime is paid at premium rates purely to make the employer think twice about using it. The first option should be more employees, the second should be better pay so that workers don’t have to rely on overtime. Only then on a voluntary basis should overtime be used to cover for urgent need or shortfall. Compulsory overtime opens the door for you to work longer and harder for less and means that the department can employ fewer people and still get the work done. This is not want PCS wants to see from a progressive pay offer.

We want to go forwards not backwards.

From the President of PCS Defence Sector Group

So we come to the end of a bruising year, with pay as yet unresolved and the prospect of a brutal defence review on the horizon. Our union’s position on pay has been much misunderstood and misrepresented by a department determined to manufacture consent for its proposals. 

After 10 years of pay freezes, with most staff miles from the rate for the job and struggling to make ends meet, we are clear that members need a substantial pay increase this year. We entered into discussions in good faith early in the year around the business case to the Cabinet Office and Treasury. Sadly this good faith was not repaid, as the department did not share their proposals with us. 

Workshops on pay followed, where we attempted to identify ways to fund pay that didn’t involve detrimental cuts to terms and conditions. Progress was slow. Not because of obstruction by the trade unions, but because the department took months to get its remit agreed. Negotiations commenced in August, already past the implementation date, and then dragged on due to interminable delays on the management side. Now we find ourselves in a propaganda war, with accusations of missed meetings and pay demands that bear little resemblance to reality. 

Our union believes that all members should receive a substantial, consolidated pay increase this year. We are clear that this could be achieved without detrimental cuts to terms and conditions and will pursue this position through arbitration with ACAS. 

Although we have rejected this offer we will be pursing all outstanding issues early in the new year. Pay has not been the only item on our agenda. Reps across the union have been hard at work defending individual members and progressing our policy agenda across the group. I would like to thank all those who have been involved in our union this year for their participation. As we move to face the challenges of a new government, we will need more people to get involved in our union. There are a range of opportunities available, from developing our union’s policies in various areas to meetings with management to progress those policies. We can provide a package of training and support to assist and time off is available. Contact dsg@pcs.org.uk if you are interested in finding out more.

Chris Dando - President PCS Defence Sector Group

Pay Update (MoD Main)

After attending ACAS pay talks with MoD last Tuesday 17 December 2019, PCS have drawn a line under the pay talks for 2019 by taking the difficult decision to reject the offer from the employer.

PCS entered ACAS (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) talks this week with the Ministry of Defence over the employer’s failure to negotiate in good faith over pay. At ACAS the employer did not move on the offer and as a result PCS, will now reject the MoD's offer. The decision by the PCS national disputes committee (NDC) to reject without a ballot was made because we cannot recommend acceptance, or allow a vote for a deal in which the lowest paid, future workers and shift workers lose out. We cannot in principle or policy recommend an offer that includes detrimental terms and conditions for all staff (compulsory overtime) tied to what looks like an attractive three year offer. 

The unions believe that after 3 years 40% of staff may be left without a cost of living rise.

The NDC noted the position of the Prospect Trade Union to reject without ballot, and the employer’s position on imposition of 2% for 1 year. All unions have raised this issue with the Cabinet Office.

PCS, along with the other unions - FDA, GMB, Prospect and Unite, attended ACAS talks with the employer to attempt to get a deal that we could recommend to members and resolve this situation, getting pay into our members’ pockets at the earliest opportunity however since the employer refused to move on its offer the unions have decided to reject it.

A series of members’ meetings will be held in workplaces around the country in the new year. Details will be circulated by local branch representatives once dates are confirmed.

A divisive offer

The pay deal that the employer put forward to staff, without the agreement of unions, was to be funded by cuts to terms and conditions and mean cuts to take home pay for many low-paid workers. We have challenged the employer’s assertion that this was a deal that gets everyone 11.5%, when in fact the average (including non-consolidated payments) is 10.7% over three years. PCS and other unions representing MoD civilian staff have serious concerns that the department has continually misrepresented its own position over the offer.

During the pay negotiations the employer has failed to honour its commitment to work jointly with the trade unions on submitting a business case for MoD pay. It even submitted a 'secret' business case to the Treasury basing pay increases on detrimental changes to terms and conditions for staff which it knew the unions opposed. The MoD then published the offer directly to staff based on these cuts to terms and conditions.

PCS Defence Sector Group secretary, Justin Thomas said: “Over the last decade, workers who play a vital role in supporting our country’s defence have seen the value of their pay plummet. This divisive deal was designed to pit staff against each other. Some PCS members who are understandably desperate for their first above inflation pay increase in almost a decade would get a raise, but only at the expense of others. Instead of secretly trying to sell off our members’ terms and conditions, the employer should have listened to the trade unions who had identified savings that meant everyone got a better deal. PCS want an above inflation pay rise for all staff that doesn’t come at the cost to low paid workers.”

The offer

The offer from the MoD was based on reductions to terms and conditions for staff. Almost half of the three-year offer needed to be funded by:

• Reducing overtime payment rates, meaning a real time cut in take home pay for a significant number of staff carrying out key tasks in support of the department's critical outputs.

• Removing the London pay lead, which would result in London becoming unaffordable to work in for many staff by the end of the three-year deal.

• Changing how recruitment and retention allowances are paid, reducing their value and their effectiveness. The impact would mostly be felt by the lowest paid staff in the department.

• There is a huge disparity between the min and max consolidated awards (for example, those on the band D max in line for 4.74% (consolidated) over 3 years, with those on the D min due up to 13.63% including non-consolidated bonus).

Pay Update (MoD Main)

The Trade Union Side met with the MoD pay team yesterday (Wednesday 27 November) regarding the ongoing situation with pay. 

The Unions were keen to ask the employer to reopen the talks to tidy up the process and to get back on track, by removing any potential dispute. The Unions offered the possibility of commencing the initial discussion on overtime as the changes can't be brought in by the employer at this time. We also wanted to talk about the items on the MoD's list that were due to be discussed on 5th November prior to talks being pulled; these could have generated more savings to put into pay. 

The Unions were not permitted to discuss them then and we are not allowed to discuss them now; we were told by the pay team that as the offer is "out there" our attendance is not required.

The Unions are clear that we are engaging to attempt to get a best and final offer we could recommend to our members in a ballot. Sadly despite PCS' continued good faith engagement, this has not been possible to achieve. PCS remain committed to gaining our members a pay rise that they deserve at the earliest possible opportunity and we are available to talk to the department if they are prepared to return to the recognised bargaining framework.

Justin Thomas - DSg Group Secretary

Pay Update (MoD Main)

PCS has been engaged in the pay process since July and we were close to a great deal in October.

We remain committed to getting your 2019 pay rise into your pockets as soon as possible. Your reps will be meeting in Main Building on 27 November 2019.

We are also in scheduled talks with management as part of the Major Policy Committee that we attend every two weeks as a minimum. All the unions agreed that none of us would attend the meeting last Friday. We requested talks be opened again, but the letter from the Employee Relations team made it clear that they were not prepared to address our concerns on the offer and the way it has been issued. That was exactly why we asked for the meeting. The letter was clear that the Department was not prepared to talk about union concerns for your future.

We tried to respect the bargaining procedure and we don’t as a rule share details like Friday. Members would have every right to be upset with this process, and I want to stress that the unions have followed protocols and the employer has not. We are reviewing the way we communicate with you and part of this is to let you know what we are planning before we tell the employer. This week we are available as scheduled to meet the employer as we continue to inform our members of the details of this offer.

This week we will:

1. Offer to meet the MOD pay team on Wednesday

2. Reiterate our opposition to the two deals being combined into one.

3. Reiterate our position that this is not a legitimate offer, as pay talks are not complete.

4. State that the unions can only re-enter pay talks if all pre-conditions are removed including the imposition of 2% if we reject.

5. Continue to challenge the detriment in this offer. Overtime, locational allowances (still used at Marchwood for example).

6. PCS will seek to address this issue in the normal channels, but we are prepared to use ACAS to seek to conciliate this dispute.

7. Trade unions will explore the legality of what MoD have done using Kostal v Dunkley and TULR(c)A 1992 section 145B.

Justin Thomas - DSg Group Secretary

Pay Update (MoD Main)

PCS is disappointed by the misleading statement put to staff today (Friday, 22 November) by the permanent secretary about pay talks

The trade union side has put forward concerns about the pay deal and the employer responded by stating they were not willing to address our concerns.

Trade unions were invited to a meeting today with MoD at short notice and were not consulted about the date or the agenda. Due to the pay meetings we arranged for our members and other work commitments across the country, we were unable to meet the official side in London at such short notice. 

The TUS will be in Whitehall for a scheduled meeting on Wednesday 27 November as the permanent secretary well knows. 

We have entered this process in good faith and we still hope that will be reciprocated by MoD.

Big Facts - learn more about the MoD's Pay Offer

Click these links for more information:

Big Fact Check 1 - A few basic facts

Big Fact Check 2 - When is 4% not 4%?

Big Fact Check 3 - The Permanent Secretary enters the fray

Pay update (MoD Main)

Why we are not yet balloting members and how negotiations are progressing.

We do not believe at this stage that it would be the right move to rush to a ballot before explaining the consequences of the department’s offer to staff. There is time for us to consider our response, as the department is unable to pay any award until the end of January. It also remains the case that the department cannot impose any award, without going through the process currently being followed by ASDA to impose similar cuts to the terms and conditions of its staff.

PCS has been engaged in discussions with the department since the beginning of the year on the potential for a three year pay deal, funded by a business case to the Cabinet Office and Treasury to utilise efficiency savings to pay staff above the current 2% pay cap.

At the start of these discussions and at every point since, the five MOD trade unions PCS, FDA, Prospect, Unite and the GMB involved in the talks made clear to the department that we would not accept proposals that traded the terms and conditions of members for a pay rise. After 10 years of austerity driven pay restraint and substantial increases in pension contributions (for a worse pension) we were not prepared to see staff fund all, or part, of any pay increase.

Despite this clear position, the department went ahead and submitted a business case predicated on a range of cuts to terms and conditions as detailed in the offer letter. This business case has never been discussed with, or shared with, the five trade unions – in clear breach of both promises made to the trade unions at the end of last year’s pay negotiations and the direction from the Cabinet Office.

Putting this to one side, the trade unions entered into negotiations with the department on the outcome of this business case in good faith. When it became clear that the department were adamant that staff would have to sacrifice terms and conditions to pay for a significant chunk of the planned offer, we put forward an alternative (for a 2.88% offer over one year, fully funded without cuts to terms and conditions) with a commitment to work with the department to find other efficiency savings to add to the pay pot - savings such as using monies currently funding expensive consultants and contractors to support programmes across defence, which had the potential to save £100Ms over the three years.

By maintaining our principled opposition to the idea that staff should fund their own pay rises through giving up terms and conditions; explaining carefully that the department’s proposals were both unworkable and potentially dangerous and pointing out that the bulk of the cuts fell disproportionately on the lowest paid staff in the department (the vast majority of whom were on the national living wage) we thought we had persuaded the department to think again and offer a pay deal that benefitted all our members.

Pay Offer (MoD Main); your union asks you to consider carefully what the department is offering and why

On the 7 November 2019 MoD released a statement outlining their 2019 pay offer to staff, together with an employee Q and A brief explaining the rationale behind the changes proposed. 

Our union is preparing a detailed response to these proposals, before consulting members on their views through site meetings and an online survey. PCS entered this year’s pay negotiations with a genuine intention to reach a difficult but acceptable agreement to the benefit of all our members; we understand how difficult the last ten years have been. It’s apparent now that MoD came in to talks with a very different intent. We have been contacted by many members in response to our original message asking why the union is not, at this stage, proposing a ballot of members. We do not believe at this stage that it would be the right move to rush to a ballot before explaining the consequences of the department’s offer to staff. 

There is time for us to consider our response, as the department is unable to pay any award until the end of January 2020. 

It also remains the case that the department cannot impose any award, without going through the process currently being followed by ASDA to impose similar cuts to the terms and conditions of its staff. Our union has been engaged in discussions with the department since the beginning of the year on the potential for a three year pay deal, funded by a business case to the Cabinet Office and Treasury to utilise efficiency savings to pay staff above the current 2% pay cap.

At the start of these discussions and at every point since, the five MOD trade unions PCS, FDA, Prospect, Unite and the GMB involved in the talks made clear to the department that we would not accept proposals that traded the terms and conditions of members for a pay rise. 

After 10 years of austerity driven pay restraint and substantial increases in pension contributions (for a worse pension) we were not prepared to see staff fund all, or part, of any pay increase. Despite this clear position, the department went ahead and submitted a business case predicated on a range of cuts to terms and conditions as detailed in the offer letter. This business case has never been discussed with, or shared with, the five trade unions – in clear breach of both promises made to the trade unions at the end of last year’s pay negotiations and the direction from the Cabinet Office. Putting this to one side, the trade unions entered into negotiations with the department on the outcome of this business case in good faith. 

When it became clear that the department were adamant that staff would have to sacrifice terms and conditions to pay for a significant chunk of the planned offer, we put forward an alternative (for a 2.88% offer over one year, fully funded without cuts to terms and conditions) with a commitment to work with the department to find other efficiency savings to add to the pay pot - savings such as using monies currently funding expensive consultants and contractors to support programmes across defence, which had the potential to save £100Ms over the three years.

By maintaining our principled opposition to the idea that staff should fund their own pay rises through giving up terms and conditions; explaining carefully that the department’s proposals were both unworkable and potentially dangerous and pointing out that the bulk of the cuts fell disproportionately on the lowest paid staff in the department (the vast majority of whom were on the national living wage) we thought we had persuaded the department to think again and offer a pay deal that benefited all our members.

Following letters to the Permanent Secretary and a meeting with the department’s Director of Finance, the trade unions were invited to a meeting with the management’s pay negotiating team where they laid out a number of alternative proposals which respected our opposition to cuts in terms and conditions. In what we thought was a constructive meeting, after a significant period of impasse, negotiations took place to arrive at a compromise offer which was acceptable, we thought, to both the trade unions and the management negotiators. 

That offer would have delivered around 8% in the first instance over three years, without the need to cut terms and conditions, with a joint commitment to evaluate further savings that could boost this final figure over the course of the deal. The trade unions went away content that the management team were going to work this up into a formal offer, the first such formal offer that would have been received during this set of negotiations; four months after the effective date for payment in August 2019. 

We jointly agreed that we would come back on the 5 November to receive the formal offer and agree terms of payment, given the passage of time. The trade unions had determined to explore at that meeting what options could be pursued for a ‘payment on account’ before Christmas, in recognition of the delays, and also how any back pay could be treated to mitigate negative impacts on Universal Credit, student loans and pension contributions.

Instead of which, on the 5 November when we arrived at the MoD HQ, the trade unions were summoned to the Permanent Secretary’s office to be told: “in the interests of transparency, he intended to publish the original offer to all staff by the end of the week”. He acknowledged that the department could not impose the offer and that if the trade unions rejected the offer MoD would default to a 2% one year deal. It was clear that he had made up his mind about the benefits of the offer to staff and did not believe any of our concerns about the effect on operational effectiveness, the security of defence sites (the cuts hit particularly severely on the MOD Guard Service) or the impact on low paid staff.

PCS and our sister unions are well versed in negotiation. We entered talks in good faith and with every intention of achieving an above inflation deal for our members, who we understand have been badly affected by the ten year pay freeze and added pension costs. 

We believed that we had acceded to enough of the employer’s demands to get you the deal you deserved for this year, with increases to the max and the min as well as retaining our principle of not selling out hard won terms and conditions. 

Selling out terms and conditions both sets a dangerous precedent, as the department is clear that it will come back in future years for more, and delivers at best a short term gain with future pain and at significant cost to a substantial group of members. We cannot accept this as an outcome.

The employer has acted in bad faith in these talks. PCS wants to be open and transparent about negotiations; this is the first time we have been able to give you the full picture.

On the face of it the 11.5% headline offer that Sir Stephen Lovegrove has plastered across his ‘big red bus’ and is crowing about on his latest video blog is a tempting offer, yet is entirely dependent on staff funding the pay deal from money that is already paid to them in one form or another.

It’s also not worth anything like 11.5% for a substantial number of staff, as it depends if you are at the bottom or top of your range. Those at the top could see no more than 6% non-consolidated over three years, whilst those at the bottom could see a big jump this year tailing off across the next two as they get closer to their maximum. 

We would urge all members to use the pay calculator provided to see the impact not only on themselves, but on their staff and colleagues and reflect on whether this is a fair offer.

Our union had negotiated with MoD’s pay team an offer that would have delivered consolidated increases across all pay ranges, to compensate for losses in the last decade, it appears that the MOD’s pay team were not on the same page as us because under the deal MoD has outlined to you this simply won’t happen.

There are some good elements to the offer, which our union were able to accept: the use of recyclables (created when higher paid people leave to be replaced by cheaper staff); the cycle to work scheme; the removal of unused locational allowances; the consolidation of legacy pay protection into base pay; a new recall to duty allowance; the changes to the incidental expenditure allowance and reluctantly the closure of non-London allowances for new starters.

The whole scenario is however unacceptable, whatever gloss the Permanent Secretary and Chief of Defence Personnel try to put on it. Hard working MoD staff deserve better than this. 

Please call on your local reps to hold pay meetings in the run up to Christmas so that the issue of pay can be fully discussed and please look out for further communications on pay on our website, Facebook and Twitter pages and by email.

Justin Thomas - Defence Sector Group Secretary 

Disability Pay Gap

The TUC are establishing ‘Disability Pay Gap Day’ on Monday 4th November. It is a new annual campaigning day which marks the day when, effectively, given the pay gap, disabled workers stop being paid each year. To establish this the TUC are launching a new report on the Disability Employment and Pay gap. In brief the report has found;

• that there has been a small improvement in the employment gap, a 0.8 percent increase. But that means it will take another 37 years for the employment gap to close

• the current pay gap is 15.5 per cent. This is an increase in the pay gap of 0.3 per cent from last year making it impossible to predict when this gap will be eliminated.

• disabled workers work for 57 days a year without pay and the day they stop getting paid is Monday 04 November.

• disabled workers are paid, on average, £1.65 less an hour then their non-disabled peers and this equates to £3,003 less annually. (based on a 35 hour work week)

The government must do more to ensure disabled workers are treated fairly at work. To apply pressure on them to so the TUC have launched a new petition calling on the government to introduce disability mandatory pay gap reporting. 

Please help disabled workers by signing up to the petition:

https://www.megaphone.org.uk/petitions/we-need-mandatory-disability-pay-gaps-reporting

In MoD PCS are calling on the employer to publish both their disability and race pay gap data.

Andy Boylan - HOCS Lead PCS DSG GEC

Pay 2019 update (MoD Main)

Our union has been offered a 3 year pay deal in the MoD, based on the Treasury remit guidance of an upper funded limit of 2% per year with amounts above this funded through cuts in terms and conditions.

We have rejected this initial offer and have been clear that we will not accept, or expect members to sacrifice terms and conditions that the trade union side believe are contractual. We are not prepared to bargain these things away to fund pay increases. Instead PCS, with other unions, have tabled our own 1 year deal that uses the base consolidated offer (in line with the remit guidance) combined with recyclables to address the areas of pay that are most in need of attention. 

Our model continues the trend of staff at the maxima receiving a consolidated increase and those at the minima receive a slightly greater increase, with those in between getting a figure representing an element of progression. The proposal maintains that principle for the Skills Zones and Band E, but with slightly higher figures. This is to prevent the blanket application of the same figures targeting a disproportionate amount of the available monies to higher grades. As with last year, our proposal provides the same headline figure for all but with a different mix of consolidated and non-consolidated depending on the relationship with the maxima. 

MOD mentioned that implementing this alternative approach may take some months to get through DBS. TUS believe it would be relatively simple for DBS to implement. Nonetheless, we believe that a communication to staff explaining what the pay award would be, the expected payment date and assurance that back pay would be paid would be relatively well received. Our union particularly rejects multiyear deals at a time like this where there is nothing but uncertainty and doubt over what Brexit and other factors will bring. The government is only prepared to commit, at this stage, to a one year funding review, with Chancellor Sajid Javid announcing a one-year spending review to give government departments "financial certainty" as they prepare for Brexit.

The new Chancellor was speaking after the data showed the UK economy had contracted in the second quarter of the year, he told the BBC "I'll be a chancellor to make sure that our country continues to live within our means." Shadow chancellor Labour's John McDonnell said the approach "smacks of pre-election panic measures by the government". The BBC reported that the “Government departments are likely to have mixed views about this announcement”. So are the Civil Servants working hard to deliver Public services we all deserve. "If you're a head teacher or head of a police force, if you're trying to work out who to hire or whether to invest in a piece of equipment, it helps to know what your budget is going to be into the future," Ben Zaranko, a research economist with the Institute for Fiscal Studies, told the BBC. "If you have to plan this on a year-to-year basis, it's quite hard." It is even harder for civil servants after a 10 year pay freeze. 

Justin Thomas - Defence Sector Group Secretary

MOD shift to supporting absence policy 

Many PCS members in Defence will have been affected by the current punitive MoD attendance management policy. 

Since its introduction in 2015 far too many MoD staff have been issued with written warnings and been placed in stressful situations due to the unforgiving nature of the current sickness absence set-up. Many have had previously unblemished attendance records and have fallen foul of a policy that affords little discretion to line managers to manage absence in a fair and sensible manner. Across the civil service PCS members have been dismissed as a result of these policies. Now there is some encouraging news on this front as PCS has been negotiating with the department on a revised attendance management policy and has been successful in gaining improvements. 

The new policy known as Supporting Attendance (due for publication this month) will significantly increase the degree of discretion available to line managers in sickness absence cases. Other positive changes included in the revised policy are: 

•  Clarification of the trigger point (to be renamed the absence review point) as that which reaches 9 working days

•  To promote equal opportunities and a work-life balance for managers and their staff

•   To gain access to PMA training for PCS members

•   To receive regular requirement for the line manager to meet with the employee after 4 absences even if they have not             exceeded the trigger point (absence review point)

•   An enhanced focus on mental health, stress and menopausal factors

•   Agreement to changes in the wording of the revised policy, some relatively small, some more meaningful.

The new supporting attendance policy is also less harsh in tone and has an improved approach in general to sick absence. This includes line manager discretion; the new level of discretion available to line managers is a particularly welcome improvement and gives more sensible direction, allowing line managers to back those of their staff who have been genuinely unfortunate regarding their absence. We also insisted on these changes being given due prominence within the policy and the full criteria list for supporting an absence is now clearly detailed in the main body of the policy. 

The criteria in the current policy and the new criteria are outlined below for comparison. Please note that although not in the body of the current policy the new discretion criteria is already being used by DBS caseworkers and can be referenced in current absence cases. The new criteria is not a free pass for all, though, and line managers can still choose to issue written warnings if they consider it appropriate. What they must do however is to consider if it is reasonable to do so. PCS fully supports the more reasonable approach to sick absence that supporting attendance offers; there is still room for further improvement. The health and wellbeing team your defence sector group (DSg) representatives negotiated with had a limited remit and some policy changes in this area that PCS argued for were beyond the responsibility of this team. The PCS negotiating team have productive working relationship with the health and wellbeing team who have passed on suggestions and points that were made by us to the appropriate level within the department. 

There remains much in the revised policy that PCS objects to:

 •  The 9-day absence review point (ARP) is too restrictive and unnecessarily punitive 

•   The 28-day point of absence where the dismissal/ downgrading process can begin is too early and can add unwarranted stress and worry to an employee

•  Although there has been a degree of clarification on the line manager’s need for keeping in touch with the employee from day 1 of an absence PCS consider this to be excessive, and in some cases may exacerbate the absence if the employee considers the contact as a subtle form of pressure to return to work

• The introduction of reduced sick pay entitlement for promoted staff initiated via the TACOS changes of 2014.

PCS will continue to press on these matters while monitoring the impact of the new policy, and we will continue a dialogue with the department on any issues that arise. PCS firmly believe that from July onwards there will be individuals who will not face a written warning regarding their absence, when they would have under the previous policy. This is to be welcomed and demonstrates once again that PCS continues to play a major role in maintaining and improving your terms and conditions  

Defence moves to Bristol 

All defence group matters will be handled in Bristol from now on. The team is still managed by Shavanah Taj in Cardiff but Justin Thomas is now in Bristol. Any queries phone 0117 925 1600 or email DSG@pcs.org.uk  We welcome articles, news items, or stories for the next issue of Defender. 

Interserve goes into administration; rescue deal rejected

The government contractor Interserve has gone into administration. About 16,000 small shareholders have lost their investment, with the business sold to hedge funds and banks via a “pre-pack” administration which means Interserve, which employs 45,000 people in the UK, can continue trading. 

Interserve operates the 25 year PFI contract which provides facilities management at ISS Corsham.

Full story here: The Guardian 

Interserve begins its new life as a private company: MSN.com

Interserve given 'public contracts worth £660m in run-up to collapse': The Guardian

Government outsourcing firm Interserve faces administration

Interserve which employs around 45,000 people in the UK could go into administration on Friday with debts of £650 million.

Interserve operates the 25 year PFI contract which provides facilities management at ISS Corsham.

Full story here - BBC News

MoD £7bn black hole

The MoD has a £7bn funding shortfall in its 10 year equipment plan with the Public Accounts Committe criticising its lack of ability to accurately cost programmes. The shortfall could reach nearly £15bn by 2028.

Full story here: BBC News - UK armed forces 'face £7bn equipment funding black hole'

Interserve crisis deepens

Troubled outsourcing company Interserve continues to struggle as fears of another Carillion style collapse rise, with the Financial Times today running a front page story headlined "Outsourcer fights to avert collapse." 

Carillion was liquidated in January 2018 with liabilities of around £7 billion and around 15% of the workforce made redundant, leaving suppliers with debts and costs to the government. National Audit Office details indicate that about £2.6 billion in pension liabilities have to be covered by the Pension Protection Fund.

Like Carillion, Interserve provides a range of services to government including facilities management.

Interserve operates the 25 year PFI contract which provides facilities management at ISS Corsham.

Reuters: Shares in Interserve slide as it raises debt forecast

BBC News: Interserve shares dive on rising concerns over future

PCS efforts sink MOD security privatisation

PCS is delighted to report that the MOD have announced that the project to privatise the Ministry of Defence Guard Service (MGS) has been indefinitely suspended with immediate effect

After two-and-a-half years of exploring whether this vital public security function should be sold off to the private sector, it has finally been decided that there would be absolutely no justification or logic to do, so based on either cost or risk. 

This is the exact message that your PCS representatives have delivered from the very outset PCS consistently asserted that even considering outsourcing a front of house, public sector security organisation would be foolhardy but to contemplate awarding such a sensitive MOD security contract to firms with reputations such as G4S, Serco or Mitie would have been nothing short of recklessness. 

Having scrutinised the financial assumptions that were initially presented, PCS contended that they were based on fantasy. We then voiced our concerns at the very highest level both departmentally and in parliament and we also took our campaign to the media. There is little doubt that our efforts played a huge part in forcing the Defence Infrastructure Organisation chief  executive to intervene last year and demand that the project was ‘paused’, so that an ‘alternative route to market’ could be considered. 

The suspension of the unarmed Guarding Project undoubtedly removes the risk of the MGS being privatised for the foreseeable future and that is a tremendous victory for common sense.

Following that pause, the revised financial projections were re-submitted to the appropriate scrutineers and, prior to this major announcement, PCS had never been given sight of them. The DIO chief operating officer explained that the decision to now suspend the project was based, predominantly, on cost but also on quality of service. PCS had argued that this would be the case all along. Our members who work for the MGS deserve great credit for standing with their union throughout this successful campaign to fight off the threat of their jobs and futures being sold off at cut-price rates. 

Next steps 

PCS will work with MGS management to establish what efficiency savings are feasible. However, the fact is, PCS retains sole negotiating rights on pay and pay-related terms and conditions of service for the MGS. Therefore, it is highly likely that it will be PCS members alone who will have a say on what those efficiency measures will look like. We strongly encourage all non-union MGS staff to join PCS immediately. The scandalous collapse of  Carillion, which led to so many workers losing their livelihoods while fat cat bosses and shareholders filled their pockets and walked off into the sunset, was proof that the vast majority of public sector contract are handed over to private companies with a flagrant disregard for logic and ethics. These contracts will, ultimately, result in failure. And yet...as we can see even within our own department, the obsession continues. The recent award of the Defence Fire Service contract to Capita and the proposal to outsource veterans services are prime examples of why the fight against the ideological privatisation of public jobs and services must continue. Our union, as always, will be at the forefront and victories such as the one with MGS demonstrate that we can, and will, succeed.

From the PCS Defence Sector Group President

Defence Review

As report after report makes clear the depth of the crisis facing defence; with ever growing deficits, ever shrinking military and civilian numbers and ever building threats, pressure grows on the government to deliver a comprehensive response through the modernising defence programme. However the portents are not looking good. 

Launched in January 2018 (although ‘spun off’ from the national security capability review that started in July 2017), the review was meant to have delivered its outcomes in time for the NATO summit in July 2018. Instead the secretary of state provided an update, by way of a written ministerial statement, on what has become known as ‘take out your trash day’, the last day before the parliamentary recess.  

The statement, variously described as “bland”,  “disappointing”, and “singularly unimpressive”, moved us little further forward in understanding how MOD will meet these challenges without confronting difficult choices. No commitment was made to a publication date and no detail was given about potential reductions or additional funding necessary to address the estimated £20 billion funding hole in the equipment plan over the next 10 years. 

Elsewhere

Meanwhile other decisions made by the government continue to make these problems worse. Another year of below inflation pay offers for both civilian and military staff can only exacerbate the growing recruitment and retention crisis across the defence sector. 

Uncertainty over Brexit can only lead to further exchange rate uncertainty, making the equipment plan shortfall greater as many major equipment purchases are priced in dollars. And the shockwaves that went through the market following the Carillion collapse has made the department’s continued reliance on outsourcing to deliver large tranches of defence outputs look ever more reckless, as major competitors themselves teeter on the brink of bankruptcy. Carillion was successful in hoovering up substantial contracts with the MOD despite growing evidence that it was close to collapse. And yet the MOD seems unwilling to learn lessons from that implosion. 

Looking ahead

Our union will continue to remind the department of simple things they should achieve from this review. The abandonment of the 30% cut in civilian staff would send a powerful message, as would a commitment that future outputs would be fully funded, not mortgaged against ‘efficiencies’. Meanwhile learning the lessons of Carillion through a fundamental review of the risks, benefits and costs of outsourcing would build confidence in future delivery

Chris Dando - Defence Sector Group President

MoD: 2018 pay offer received 

We are now in receipt of the department’s best and final pay offer for 2018, following a period of negotiation with the trade unions.

During these negotiations, we sought to move the department towards our claim for:

• A minimum 5% or £1,200 pay increase, fully funded from within departmental budgets

• A minimum £10 per hour for all staff (or the London Living Wage for staff within the London boundary)

• Funding for increases to the National Living Wage not to be taken from the existing pay pot, but to be funded externally (by the Treasury)

• Pay progression (where spot rates do not exist) as a right for all staff

• Meaningful discussions around closing the gender pay gap across the department

• Further discussions around the In-year Reward Scheme to address emerging evidence of discriminatory outcomes

Although we were able to move the department slightly from their opening position, the constraints of the ongoing Treasury pay cap of increases up to 1.5% meant that we were unable to make much progress towards our claim.

This offer is at least fully funded, does not require monies from the existing pay pot to be used to fund increases to the National Living Wage and does utilise all the consolidated and non-consolidated monies available. As such, we acknowledge it is the best available through negotiation whilst the department is still subject to the Treasury pay cap.

However it goes nowhere near meeting the demands of our claim and represents the eighth year of below inflation pay increases for hard working members of our union.

It also does not match the pay increase awarded to the armed forces of 2% consolidated and 0.9% non-consolidated, especially recognising that the armed forces also retain pay progression. In our view this disparity will further call into question the department’s position on the ‘whole force’, when civilians are seen to be worth so much less.

Our group executive committee met yesterday to consider our position and has decided to reject the offer on behalf of members without a ballot. In reaching this decision, we had regard to a number of factors:

• The offer once again comes nowhere close to meeting the demands of our claim

• The offer represents a further year of real terms pay cuts, with inflation increasing (CPI 2.5%, RPI 3.2%)

• The tight timescales necessary to achieve payment in October (backdated to August)

• The judicial review launched by our union over the Treasury pay guidance

However this does not mean that our union has given up the fight to achieve decent pay increases for members. Our national pay campaign goes on and we will be asking all branches to set up meetings in all workplaces to consult members on pay over the autumn period. We will be entering into early talks with the department over pay 2019 and we wish to sound out all members over priorities and objectives in advance of those discussions.

PCS at the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival 2018 

As we celebrate the heroic role the Tolpuddle martyrs played in fighting for workers’ rights, PCS is balloting members for industrial action for a 5% pay rise and calling on all unions to unite together to end poverty pay for all workers.

In 1834 six farm labourers from Tolpuddle were arrested on a charge of taking part in an 'illegal oath' ceremony. Their real offence was that they had dared to form a union to defend their livelihood from exploitative masters. For this they were sentenced to seven years' transportation to the penal colonies of Australia. This harsh sentence provoked immense public outcry and led to the first mass protest in support of trade union rights. The campaign won free pardons for the six and proved to be an historic episode in the working class struggle for trade union rights in Britain. This year’s Tolpuddle Festival took place from 20 – 22 July.  

Impact on the south west

Civil servants have been particularly hard hit by public sector pay restraint and more than 180,000 civil service jobs have been cut. The south west region has been hardest hit, with around a third of jobs cut. These cuts continue with the tax office in Bournemouth due to close in 2019 with the loss of around 250 jobs. 

TUC analysis shows that 43,000 children in the south west with a parent working in the public sector are now living in poverty. Since 2010, the region has seen over 15,000 more children (up 55%) fall into poverty. 1 in 7 children in the UK in public sector working families will be living below the official poverty line as a result of the public sector pay cap, tax and benefit changes.

The South West TUC annual conference has unanimously passed our motion to support protests, demonstrations and strikes against the pay cap. 

Secretary of State holds up MoD pay talks

On 3 July the unions met with the MoD pay team in the expectation that the department would be in a position to lay out its thoughts on pay within the confines of the Treasury remit. However it became quickly apparent that they were not in a position to do so. In fact, their proposals were still sitting on the secretary of State’s desk for sign off. 

There is absolutely no possibility now of any pay increase being made in the August pay packets. This is nothing to do with the trade unions. We have been on standby, ready to talk for months. The delay in issuing the remit guidance lies at the heart of government.

Now we expect that the negotiations will be taken in slower time. PCS, Prospect and FDA have complained to the Minister for the Cabinet Office and called for the remit to be scrapped. Any offer in any department under the remit, could damage the joint union position. Therefore the failure of MoD to commence talks helps strengthen our position.

You will no doubt hear, as we hear, the excuse that departments cannot offer more than 1 to 1.5% in pay to hard working civil servants. We have previously pointed out that civil servants working for the Scottish government have been awarded significantly more. Now PCS members in Highways England working as operators in regional control centres (RCCs) and as traffic officers on the UK strategic road network have voted to accept a pay offer that will see their pay rise by 9.8% and 3% respectively, with corresponding rises to shift allowances. The deal also includes a £750 allowance for experienced staff who carry out formal on-the-job coaching duties.

This demonstrates yet again that money can be found for pay and that the PCS demand for 5% to address years of cuts in living standards is long overdue.

 If you haven’t voted, then please do so. It is vital that every member cast their vote. And if you’re on social media promote that you’ve voted and go to: https://www.pcs.org.uk/i-voted-in-the-pay-ballot-web-link and let us know you’ve voted.

Defence Sector Group Conference 2018

The Defence Sector Group Conference took place on Monday 21 May and Tuesday 22 May at the Brighton Centre. Here's what went on (in reverse order), taken from the PCS MoD Twitter account: 

Conference highlights the money being leached from defence through old PFI contracts that drain over 20% of the defence budget against long term contract that no longer deliver services to defence asking Nia Griffith's how Labour would deal with this public finance drain Nia Griffith's answering concerns around the MOD looking to outsource Veterans Services says there is no way they should be outsourcing. I am totally opposed to it. An ATOS driven model cannot be allowed to be introduced into Veterans Services.

Nia Griffith's explains the huge concerns Labour has around the management and value to the public purse on outsourcing without due diligence, also failing contracts must be addressed and acted on. Outsourcing is not working and we need radical action.

Nia Griffith's shadow secretary of state for defence highlights need for a proper defence industrial strategy that values the defence work that is delivered in the UK, rather than just looking for the cheapest contract solution that removes value from UK economy.

Nia Griffith's the shadow defence secretary joins Defence Sector group conference "You cannot do security on the cheap and you cannot balance the books by continually cutting the books".

Motion A25 DE&S training budget moved by the South West branch and carried by conference asking for training to be available on both a personal development and do their job basis. Carried.

Motion A24 on Bluetooth hearing aid technology moved by Tommy Stevens form the NW branch. Motion carried highlighting the need to ensure access for all in the working environment.

Motion A23 on smoke free environments moved by Scotland branch calling on the GEC to negotiate retention of the current smoking policy. Carried.

Motion A22 on H&S moved by Alan Dennis calling for the revitalising of Health and Safety activisim in the defence sector this starts by putting pressure on MOD to develop and support H&S at the centre of the department. Carried.

Motion A21 on Service Complaints Procedure moved by Mick Mace on behalf of the GEC and the inequality between serving/former serving mil personnel and civilian staff must be addressed. Motion Carried. We have a whole force workforce we should all be treated fairly.

Motion A9, on post mapping debated by group conference and the issues around the appeal process at stages two and three. Conference agreed this needed clarifying by carrying the motion.

Motion A20 on absence codes relating to bereavement need Modernising so that they are not simply tagged as stress related moved Tommy Stevens from the NW branch. Carried.

Motion A19 on Breast Feeing Provisions moved by Donna Start from the GEC referencing the case Otero Ramos v Servicing Galego dear Saude. Conference agreed MOD must provide provision for breast feeding mothers in the workplace.

Motion A18 on shared paternal leave moved by Sean Sweeney calls on the GEC to open negotiations on the implementation of shared parental leave. Motion carried.

Motion A17 moved by John Fury for the GEC detailing that no member should have to cover public holidays with annual leave as part time workers. Motion carried unanimously.

Motion A16 opposing outsourcing at any cost moved by Sean Sweeny for the GEC asking to build opposition opposition on the broadest campaigning base possible. Motion Carried. "outsourcing is a failed ideology" "contract vat in the commercial process is a sweetener".

Motion A15 detailed the shambles that is the defence estates optimisation where no strategic long term impact assessments have been undertaken motion carried.

DSg Conference Motion A15 on DBS estate policy moved by Tommy Stevens from the NW branch, raising concerns over no strategic estates plan, the impact on non mobile staff.

DSg conference day two starts with motion A14 on the Future Defence Civilian Programme moved my Frances Lanigan details the risks to jobs and issues around outsourcing Civil Servants must be valued as part of the defence community.

Today is day two of the Defence Sector group conference, Nia Griffith the Shadow Defence Secretary is joining us today. There will be some very lively debates around outsourcing, especially around Veterans Services.

Tuesday 22 May

Paul Bemrose, we need to reach out and rebuild our activist layer in our build up to being ballot ready.

Paul Bemrose details the failure of Carillion and how MOD fails to learn lessons around civil servants delivering better value for money, control, risk management and change. Paul explained our configuring opposition to outsourcing.

Paul Bemrose moving annual report explains the priority of pay and issues around delivering the living wage, our believe that bonus pay should ideally be consolidated into basic pay.

Motion A5 raising concerns over the introduction of pay banding in DE&S by South West branch (Phil Barns) highlights concern over E1s and 2s being disadvantaged and the need for a new level for previous Es Ds and skill zones. Carried.

Motion A4 on the gender pay gap moved by Alan Dennis calling on the MOD to reduce the gap and address the adverse effect of HSP.

Mark Serwotka, @pcs_union General Secretary tells #PCSGDC that our union should "set our sights higher" than just fighting for our members; and we should fight for government policies that are fair for everyone.

Motions A1, 2 and 3 on pay carried.

Paul Bemrose FTO on behalf of GEC asks for motion A3 to be remits to the GEC or oppose on the basis that it limits future negotiations.

Delegate Mick Bateman enters pay debate seconding motion A2 referencing that the cost of living has increased by 15% and pay has not kept pace plunging many of our members in poverty.

Conference agenda opens with pay with motions A1 being moved by South Central, A2 moved by the GEC and A3 by Scotland demanding fair pay, progression and new funding that values civilians as a critical part of defence.

Chris Baugh references the need to build and produce alternative visions in our industrial fights, explaining how supporting he was of the production of the Defence Alternative Vision to underpin our industrial strategy.

Chris Baugh details the pivitol role groups will have in devising the type of industrial action we will need in our fight over fair pay, groups must be supported in delivering ballot ready and the industrial fight over pay.

Chris Baugh "what an irony that ACAS staff are taking action" the very department that facilitates conciliation.

Chris Baugh highlights the false argument of austerity by the government and how we have we await compensation for the targeted attacks on space around check off and FT.

Chris Baugh highlights MOD as suffered more privatisation attacks than any other area in PCS, the attacks on pay, facility time and our union.

Chris Baugh addresses DSg conference 2018 highlighting the critical role of reps in the workplace, the location role of groups and the success of PCS in delivering action based on alternative visions.

Chris Dando DSg references the move of DE&S TACOS to poorer terms which fly in the face of their business model and valuing their employees, their failure to deliver an agreed pay offer and our current dispute with them.

Chris Dando DSg president references our fight to stop any outsourcing of Veterans Services. Stating the services they deliver are a core part of the military covenant and must be delivered by civil servants and the MoD.

Chris Dando references the department s outsourcing review has failed to deliver the answers we had hoped for especially in light of the failure of Carillion.

Chris Dando DSG president references our success over scrapping the hated discriminatoty PM system, the introduction of IYR and our campaign to 'Get it Spent 'Get succeeding in getting 93% of the budget spent.

Chris Dando DSg group president references that 24.3% of all absences are stress related as the MOD presses to deliver ever more with ever fewer numbers of staff.

Chris Dando DSg group president reference the continuing back drop of cuts against which we face under the Modernising Defence Program and the PCS parliamentary group writing to SoS raising concerns over the lack of engagement.

Chris Dando opens Defence Sector group conference 2018 with presidents address highlighting the success of our Get it Spent campaign, developing our organising plans for being ballot ready.

Defence Sector group conference is getting ready to start with a packed pay, anti outsourcing and equality focused agenda.

Monday 21 May

MoD Pay Award 2017 (excluding DE&S & Trading Funds)

• The trade unions have been engaged with the Department over pay for a number of months. The finalising of the pay award has been delayed because the snap election took the department by surprise and then government entered the purdah period. The subsequent election result had cast a degree of uncertainty over the future of austerity and the public sector pay cap. It is clear that austerity and pay restraint is not only unpopular with the public but also within the cabinet too. However, at the moment the Chancellor is holding the line and this has ensured that for 2017, at least, the public sector pay cap remains in place. The unions pressed the department to break out of their adherence to the Treasury’s diktat but they felt unable to do so. Nevertheless the unions have sought the full utilisation of the 1% of the pay bill and argued convincingly that all staff should receive at least an element of consolidated pay this year.

The Offer

The full details of the offer are printed in the published DIB. But the key elements are:

•   Of the available pay pot for consolidated increases 0.05% has been allocated to fund the projected increase in the National Living Wage hourly rate from April 2018 and there   has been a small adjustment to Harbour Masters’ pay;

•   The remaining 0.95% is to be used in making consolidated awards for Broader Banded staff and Retained Grades.

•   Each band has been divided into quartiles with those in the lower paid quartiles (3 and 4) receiving higher consolidated awards as part of the department’s continuing             strategy to shrink the pay spans in each grade.

  • •   Quartile 1 to receive 0.5% consolidated.

    •   Quartile 2 to receive 0.7% consolidated.

    •   Quartiles 3 and 4 to receive 1.1% consolidated.

•   In addition non consolidated awards will be received by staff in quartile 1 of 0.6% and those in quartile 2 will receive 0.4%. These payments will be non pensionable.

•   Performance awards will be paid to a maximum of 25% of staff in each grade.

•   Retained Grades percentage will be determined by a direct read across to the quartiles for the Broader Banded Group to which they are linked. Any staff above the Broader     Banded maximum for their scale will receive 0.5% consolidated.

•   Staff in E1 and E2 grades who received pay protection as part of the 2008 pay award will continue to receive pay protection for the duration of this award.

PCS view

Clearly it is disappointing that yet again the government has decided to punish hard working public sector workers for the greed of bankers who caused the economic downturn in the first place. The offer is woefully short of the national PCS claim and therefore whilst PCS believes it has exhausted the avenues of negotiation with the department, the union is unable to ballot on the offer. The MoD will proceed to implement the offer and communicate to all staff through a DIB. The department has sought to make full use of the pay pot and whilst members will feel frustrated and angry with the award, it is important to recognise who is wielding the power. It is the same government that is wielding the cuts of 30% in staff numbers through FDCP and wielding 30% cuts in the MoD Estate through site optimisation.  The political landscape is very uncertain at the moment with Brexit negotiations a shambles and a Prime Minister permanently damaged by her failure to win the massive mandate she sought.

PCS is likely to be conducting an indicative ballot on pay in the coming period and the Defence sector group will be stepping up its campaign work and commissioning an Alternative Vision for Defence.

What can you do?

• Get involved with your local branch- help develop local campaign work against privatisation, site closures or austerity.

• Make sure PCS has up to date mobile phone numbers and personal email addresses. This is crucial for independent communications from PCS to you.

• If you’re not paying your subs by direct debit already, then consider converting over.

• Consider donating to the PCS Fighting Fund- there are many battles ahead for our members in many departments. Show your solidarity and donate what you can.

• Contact PCS on paul.bemrose@pcs.org.uk to let us know what the impact of the continued pay cap is having upon you so that it can be used to build our narrative on the effects of pay restraint upon public sector workers.

Chris Dando - Group President  

Paul Bemrose - Group Secretary

www.pcs.org.uk/dsg

www.defencecutscost.blogspot.com

www.twitter.com/defencecutscost

Pay Update

MoD delays pay negotiations (MoD excluding DE&S)

 We have today been informed that the department has further delayed the commencement of pay negotiations with the trade unions, while it awaits further guidance from the Treasury.

 As a consequence of this delay, they will be unable to implement a pay award in August or authorise the payment of performance awards that related to performance year ending March 17.  On receipt of the necessary guidance from HM Treasury, and following direction from the Secretary of State, they intend to work with the Trade Unions and DBS to implement the award as soon as possible. The award will be backdated to 1 August. 

Our union will be making clear to the department just how unhappy members are at this further delay. It is clear from the reaction of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the government has no intention of ending the public sector pay cap. We are therefore unclear what further guidance the department needs before commencing negotiations on what will be how to distribute around 1%.   We are also extremely unhappy at delays to performance awards and will be seeking further discussions with the department on how to address this issue.

Chris Dando                            Paul Bemrose

Group President                      Group Secretary

www.pcs.org.uk/dsg

www.defencecutscost.blogspot.com

www.twitter.com/defencecutscost

DE&S pay ballot outcome and next steps (DE&S Members only)

Following the close of the ballot on Friday 7 July, 44% of eligible PCS DE&S members had participated in the vote. We thank all those who took the trouble to vote.

The result was: 

• 79.5% voted “Yes” in favour of accepting the pay offer

• 20.5% voted “No” to reject the offer

• 19 members sent in invalid ballots

 As a consequence, we have advised DE&S management that PCS has accepted the offer. We understand that the offer has also been accepted by the other non-industrial unions by a similar margin. Unite has rejected the offer, whilst GMB is still balloting.

We are now seeking an early meeting with DE&S to discuss how the offer will be taken forward and critically how we can address our ongoing concerns around the use of the current performance management system to deliver non-discriminatory pay outcomes. Members should be meeting on a 1:1 basis with their FDO later this month to be personally advised of their salary increase and to be given sufficient information to determine broadly how their pay award was calculated.   We will update members further on progress.

Chris Dando - Group President 

Howard Barr - Industrial Officer

Commercial Professionalism Programme (CPP) – Update

From: Defender Issue 2 - 2017

As Defender reported in 2016 there have been significant changes introduced for PCS members working in the MoD’s commercial function following the recent introduction of the commercial professionalism programme (CPP).

Although welcoming most of the CPP initiatives PCS registered concerns relating to the mandatory requirement for all staff to attain a professional qualification (CIPS) by September 2020. In addition CIPS attainment we were told would be linked to the issuing of commercial licences, an essential staff tool across the commercial function.

Commercial management’s initial response to PCS concerns on CIPS was confused and appeared to place some doubt on the ‘mandatory’ nature of the qualification. In short, the issue was kicked into the long grass.

However, in November 2016 PCS received a proposal suggesting a complete change to the licencing and delegations process. Also included in the proposal was an explicit statement that staff ‘must’ obtain the CIPS qualification by 2020. PCS responded, highlighting the concerns of members and activists regarding the perceived shortcomings of the new system and the evident lack of reward associated with it.These concerns included:

•  The decision to exclude Band Ds and E’s from holding a licence

•  The need to re-assess existing licence holders

•  The lack of a formal grievance procedure

•  The stress and anxiety being caused by the proposed introduction of this policy

•  The outcomes for those who remain ‘unlicensed’ at the end of the process

•  The lack of financial incentive/rewards on offer to our members being subjected to the new process

•  The detrimental effects the new process may have on recruitment to the function.

Legal advice

In subsequent discussions with management there appeared to be a lack of willingness to compromise on any of these issues and a move to impose the new process unchanged. Given this approach,and the mandating of the CIPS, PCS sought legal advice on the legitimacy of the MoD imposing these changes to members’ terms and conditions. Although the advice we received is multifaceted and complex PCS is confident that should any of our members lose their jobs as a direct result of these changes we could successfully pursue an employment tribunal.

Emboldened with this knowledge PCS representatives met with the CPP team earlier this month with a view to concluding the licensing consultation. PCS made it clear to the team that we remained unconvinced of the need to re-assess existing licence holders and as a result could not sign up to the proposals at this point. As the first indication of compromise PCS reps were informed that:

•  The original plan to exclude Band Ds and Es from holding licences was to be reversed

•  Staff should not feel threatened by the proposals and that there was no plan to alter the duties of those who remained unlicenced at the end of the process

•  A grievance process for those dissatisfied with the outcome of their personal assessment would be put in place

At the conclusion of the meeting, and as required by the MoD employee relations policy, PCS in turn agreed to provide a ‘way forward’ to help conclude the consultation. PCS formally asked for the following assurances:

•  That there will be no detrimental effect to the commercial roles of our members who remain unlicenced at the end of the process

•  That members successfully obtaining their licence will be automatically recommended for a bonus payment under the new performance management in-year reward scheme

•  That PCS receives details of the grievance process that will be adopted.

As a positive start to concluding consultation PCS is now in receipt of the grievance process and we await developments on the other issues.

Progress

Despite the ongoing concerns with the licencing proposal PCS has made progress towards making this a more acceptable initiative. If management responds favourably to all the assurances we are seeking we may be able to formally ‘sign-up’ up to it. It is also worth mentioning that PCS will be making a separate submission to MoD commercial on the issue of CIPS in the next few weeks.

Once again the value of committed PCS reps, backed by members, is demonstrated. Who knows where we would be now if PCS had not intervened to try and bring some sense to these proposals.

Note: As Defender goes to print MoD Commercial has just announced that the licensing proposals have been ‘paused’ without any indication as to why or for how long. An update will be provided in the next edition of this publication.

PCS Toolkit for the new In-year Reward System 

You will be aware that PCS has successfully brought about the demise of the much hated, Cabinet Office inspired, performance management system. This scheme with its relative assessment, forced ranking and huge expenditure in time, effort and human resource was unpopular with staff and their managers and we suspect parts of the MoD’s senior management too. In addition the system was proven to be discriminatory to people with protected characteristics. Despite this, the Cabinet Office did not direct departments to abandon the system but effectively delegated that responsibility. MoD was one of the six departments to ditch the scheme early.

PCS has been negotiating the new arrangements that bring an effective end to performance management, although not to all aspects of performance related awards.

To help members understand the new system PCS has produced a toolkit. It can be found at: In-year reward scheme toolkit

The toolkit provides information on:

•  Reward and Recognition

•  Nominating for a Reward

•  The Reporting Year

•  Objective Setting

•  The Mid-Year Review

•  The End of Year Review

•  Eligibility and Exceptions

•  Raising a Performance Management Grievance

The new system has a number of unique features that include the ability to award a number of rewards throughout the year and the concept of a Team Bonus. One of the most divisive aspects of performance management is that it does not reflect the collaborative nature of much work in MoD. Members should seek to take a lead to bringing teams together to discuss how they might co-operate and achieve rewards for all team members.

The new scheme does represent a big step forward in our union’s long campaign against performance pay. It is not an outright defeat of the ideological commitment by government ministers to the concept, but it is a significant success.

PCS is aware of the limitations of the new scheme and will be monitoring it closely at both TLB and departmental level. For example the following issues are potentially problematic:

•  Unconscious bias against people with protected characteristics.

•  TLB governance of the scheme and achieving consistency across TLBs in decision making.

•   How the pot will be managed in each TLB to ensure that there is a consistent reward strategy that ensures money is available in month 12 of the reward year, but also    

•   ensuring that all the money is spent.

•   Lack of advice on Team bonuses in TLBs.

PCS will be studying the out turns of the rewards during the year to pick up emerging themes and problems.

What can you do?

•  Seek out other PCS members in your team and discuss how you might go about demonstrating suitability for a team bonus.

•  Discuss with other team members and suggest they join PCS too. Show them this briefing as evidence of the added value membership of a trade union brings. Non-members can join on line at  https://join.pcs.org.uk/

•  Let us know of your experiences in shaping a team response to in-year rewards.

•  Give us your honest opinions on the new scheme and any problems with it as the year progresses.

•  Consider becoming a PCS advocate. More information can be found here

PCS will continue to report back to you during the year on progress with the new in-year reward scheme and any further improvements we are able to achieve.

Paul Bemrose - DSg Secretary

Pay Briefing (MoD)

The Defence Sector Group, in line with national PCS policy, submitted the national pay claim to MoD (this claim excluded the Trading Funds and DE&S who have different pay arrangements). The purpose of the national pay claim is to unite all sectors of the civil service into a cohesive block making the argument to end austerity and the 1% pay cap.

PCS Pay Claim

The pay claim sets out the PCS position in relation to the need to end the pay cap and is attached for your information. The main demands within the claim are:

a)    An end to government imposed pay restraint

b)    A significant pay increase, above the rate of inflation, to compensate members for the cut in their living standards, of 5% or £1200, whichever is the greater.

c)    A Living Wage of at least £10 per hour on all pay policies and contracts. MoD to seek additional funding through the presentation to the Treasury of a business                           case that recognises the impact of the Living Wage on salaries and pay structure.

d)    A business case be prepared for the Treasury to fund a new pay strategy, above and beyond the 1% cap.

e)    National bargaining at Cabinet Office level on pay for all staff in the Civil Service and its related bodies in order to:

• •  Establish a common pay and grading structure across the service

  •  Establish equal pay for work of equal value across the service

  •  Eradicate the inequities caused by the delegated bargaining system

Negotiations to date

PCS has commenced discussions upon our claim in MoD, however the snap election called by Theresa May immediately halted the process as departments moved into purdah and no further progress could be made. The election result has brought further uncertainty to the process and PCS awaits the unfolding of the Queen’s speech. The Tories are under enormous pressure to bring an end to austerity. The Health Secretary indicated last week that he supported lifting the 1% cap for nurses. There are also the possibility of opposition parties coming together to seek to support a substantial Labour amendment that would include an end to austerity.

The proposals made to date have followed broadly the Treasury’s three line whip on pay. The Government has reaped the benefit of low inflation over the last few years which has had the effect of dampening down pay settlements across the economy, however the latest CPI figures of 2.9% inflation suggest a return to higher baseline cost rises and therefore pay restraint in the public sector is even more unsustainable as it continues to drive down living standards, effects consumer confidence and effects purchasing power.

What actions can you take to support the PCS campaign?

Recruit colleagues and friends to PCS

Become a PCS advocate 

Support the PCS Fighting Fund

Paul Bemrose - DSg Secretary

Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign

Visit the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign website here: https://otjc.org.uk

The Guardian: The Scandal of Orgreave

Why is Orgreave in the news now?

Orgreave and Hillsborough are part of the same story. Both cases have at their heart South Yorkshire Police, although Orgreave involved officers from many other forces  as well. The Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign (OTJC) is pressing for a full and independent inquiry into what happened, just as the Hillsborough campaigners demanded an impartial investigation into the causes of the Hillsborough disaster.

The Independent Police Commission (IPCC) decided in June 2015 that, partly because of its limited terms of reference, it would not carry out a full investigation into Orgreave, although its report contained some serious criticisms of the actions and attitudes of South Yorkshire Police, implicitly suggesting that a wider inquiry was called for.

Both cases, Orgreave and Hillsborough, involve serious wrongdoing by South Yorkshire Police. At Orgreave this involved the assaults, wrongful arrests and false prosecutions of the miners and perjury in court. At Hillsborough the inquest jury has now found that the 96 fans died as a result of criminally serious gross negligence by the police, and that the police told widespread lies to try and unfairly blame the fans.

Why does Orgreave matter?

Orgreave represents one of the most serious miscarriages of justice in this country’s history, and it has never been adequately addressed. It is important that the truth is established and that the police are brought to account. Many of the miners have been left with ongoing physical and psychological problems.  Many lost their jobs and their marriages and were left with a sense of grievance at their unjust treatment that haunts them even today. Orgreave led to a massive breakdown of trust in the police in the former mining communities  (and indeed more widely) and this continues today among the children and grandchildren of the miners. Orgreave marked a turning point in the policing of public protest. It sent a message to the police that they could employ violence and lies with impunity. It was only a year after Orgreave that the so-called “Battle of the Beanfield” took place, with violent and unprovoked  attacks  by the police on New Age travellers, followed by large-scale wrongful arrests. And more recently there have been examples of police “kettling” demonstrators  in London for several hours – a kind of pre-emptive  imprisonment. With the Government’s Trade Union Bill aiming to further restrict picketing, the right to protest in public is in serious danger.

What needs to happen?

In December 2015 the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign provided the Home Secretary, Theresa May, with a lengthy legal argument, calling on her to set up an independent public inquiry into the policing of events at Orgreave 0n 18th June 1984. Such an inquiry could take the form of a panel-type inquiry, like the Hillsborough Independent Panel, which reviews all the documents, a full public inquiry which can call witnesses, or something in-between. The Campaign wanted to discuss with the Theresa May the scope and terms of reference of any inquiry set up.

By the time of EU referendum vote Theresa May had not made a decision on the legal submission despite growing pressure from OTJC, the media and supportive MPS. In the event she was appointed Prime Minister in July 2016 and Amber Rudd became Home Secretary.  An OTJC delegation met Amber Rudd, September 2015 for what the campaigners thought was a positive and constructive meeting where she gave a deadline for an announcement of the end of October. But on this date she announced there would be no investigation of any type on the grounds there had been no deaths, no convictions, no miscarriage of justice and no new lessons for current police force s to learn.

The Campaign is also asking the IPCC to disclose a full, unedited copy of its 2015 report into what happened at Orgreave, so that the public can see whether any of the officers involved in the manipulation of the Orgreave evidence were responsible for anything similar in respect of Hillsborough. This release could take place in January 2016 when the IPCC investigation should be complete into whether a case will be forwarded to the Crown Prosecution Service for assessment on whether the evidence gathered would stand up in a court of law.

Where can I find out more?

Email: Orgreavejustice@hotmail.com

Facebook: OrgreaveTruthAndJusticeCampaign

You Tube Films

Orgreave Justice

Battle for Orgreave

Orgreave truth and justice campaign

Lesley Boulton

Defence Services Value For Money Study

One of the many strands of work brought together under Future Defence Civilian Programme (FDCP) is the Defence Services Value For Money (DSVFM) study. This study has made its recommendations to ExCom. Those recommendations have now been accepted. 

What was covered in DSVFM?

There were essentially three aspects to the study. The first two potentially have more impact on civil servants in industrial grades and other unions. However the third strand in the study has potentially larger consequences for grades represented by PCS.

 1) Storekeeping / Warehousing – this looked at the current delivery of these services. It is the view that structures within this area are reflective of systems pre internet. As such the project team believed that the systems and processes were no longer adequate for the 21st century. The project team therefore recommended that the existing privatisation project be expanded to sweep up storekeeping/warehousing. This would initially involve rationalising these services across TLBs. There are approximately 1500 people in these areas, with 986 of them within DE&S. This project strand will be progressed by ACDS (Log Ops)

 2) Driving: The project team looked at this work and determined that 90% is passenger movement. MoD is one of the last departments with such arrangements and the project studied various ways passenger movements are handled across TLBs. This includes private contracts and directly employed drivers. The project team has recommended that a further project is required. The first objective will be to define the requirement of what is needed and driving down demand for passenger movement. The future shape of the service provided is likely to be either maximising the use of existing private sector contractors or erecting new local contracts outside the departments staff footprint.

This project again is likely to affect industrial grades and UNITE members. The DSVFM project team advised there were 857 people identified on HRMS. The expectation is to reduce this number by 600 – 700 by outsourcing and driving down demand.

3) Business / Admin Support.  This area is the largest with the potential to impact upon PCS members. However, the DSVFM project team came to recognise that there are a great many variations within, and between, TLBs in how such work is categorised. For example there are 20 job categories within what is termed “administration” and the largest is the “miscellaneous” bucket. This lack of understanding on what is defined as business support and what it delivers means that MoD’s understanding is incomplete and therefore this area is not “mature enough” for a Hestia style solution.

The recommendations from the project team are therefore:   

•   TLBs to rationalise their business support structures.

•   In parallel there will be a new PRG on what activities are to be stopped and what will replace them.

•   After this work is completed there should be a single business support organisation under DBS by 2020.

The initial phase however requires further scoping and a new project team is to be set up to work with TLBs on what business support actually is.

There are approximately 8,500 people in scope with another 4,000 working in this area according to HMRS. The expectation is to reduce the identified potential circa 12,000 staff in scope. The department intends to reduce their number by 4,900 to 7,300. This will represent a reduction of 40% - 50% over the next 3 to 5 years. This project will form part of the tier 3 work that’s examining 22,000 posts not covered in tiers 1 and 2. The programmes will be looking at the whole force i.e. not just focusing on civil service posts. It is recognised that a wider examination is required, including military posts.

PCS Position

PCS will continue to:

       •   Challenge the assumptions made by MoD regarding reductions in civilian posts within the department through its combination of job losses and privatisation.

       •   Press the department to develop new policies on TUPE Plus, and civilianisation of military posts.

       •   Campaign against the cuts in the media and through parliament and its devolved assemblies.

       •   Seek to overturn the FDCP job cull within the department.

PCS has campaigned and worked hard on behalf of members through diligent engagement with MoD and the press.

 PCS has:-

•   Ended the hated performance management system.

•   Seen off the latest privatisation threat in DBS

•   Posed significant questions to MGS’s value for money project so that it is currently paused.

•   Pushed back in DE&S their intention to continue with the now utterly discredited PM systems.

•   Argued hard to allow for team bonuses within the new in year reward scheme.

These and in a hundred local situations PCS demonstrates the need and usefulness of trade unions within Defence. You too can help PCS achieve further success by:-

•   Encouraging non members to join.

•   Becoming a PCS advocate (See website for details)

•   Becoming a local rep.

•   Taking part in PCS campaign activity.

Disingenuous or Ill-Informed?

Whilst PCS welcomes the Permanent Secretary communicating with staff on the FDCP, we do question the lack of any form of substance and also the propaganda that is being peddled trying to convince staff that privatisation is a good thing.  An example of this happened on the 20 March 2017 teleconference was the statement made by DG HOCS. Her views at best could be characterised as ill informed. The statement was so at variance to the experience of CSC staff whose jobs are under threat, that it has left PCS bemused. Many staff in defence will not have been reassured by her comments.

What she said was: “It is quite common for us to find areas where we can add a lot of value by using a partner organisation rather than doing it ourselves."

If you want an example in Defence, can I suggest contacting staff who were previously working for Defence and are now working for CSC (Computer Sciences Corporation), who are great fans of this as a proposition. They still feel fully part of the whole force. They still feel very, very much committed to the Defence agenda and the Defence mission, but they now feel they have the tools for the job, and they’re working with a company that really understands their specialism and what they’re doing. That is the underlying reasoning.” 

Actually if you ask staff, previously from defence and now working for CSC, they will tell you a whole other story. For those who do not know, CSC undercut other bidders for the SPVA military pay and pensions contract. This was after the, then, Prime Minister David Cameron stated: “There are no plans to sign any new contract with Computer Sciences Corporation until the National Audit Office report has been reviewed and until the Public Accounts Committee meetings and the Major Projects Authority reviews have taken place.” What we have ended up with is – due to exorbitant change cost elements – a contract that is widely touted as the most expensive contract in Whitehall.

However, it is the way that CSC treat their staff that is the most distressing element of this story. CSC have, more than once, offered 0% as an annual pay settlement. Let us reiterate that they call this an offer despite there being no monies involved. This has led staff, in previous years, to vote overwhelmingly for extended strike action. They are currently cutting staff, ostensibly due to a business merger and a fall in required services, but their cuts are deeper than sensible when it comes specifically to the MoD contract.

They are selecting staff in the smallest groupings possible to try and bypass meaningful redundancy negotiation. They appear to be aiming specifically for staff who are on non-CSC contracts – the very staff DG HOCS suggested you talk to – whilst ignoring Agency staff. We can only say that this is because Agency staff are cheaper and easier to dismiss at a later date.

They are aiming for staff whose roles are not directly billable to MoD – what use, for example, does CSC have for business continuity in this ever-changing world, when their contract is currently under renegotiation? PCS are aware that CSC know this culling of staff will likely weaken their business resilience but are prepared just to pay any penalties – there is no loyalty in the company for staff, for defence, for those serving personnel who need to be paid on time or for provision of veterans’ pensions.

Paul Bemrose - DSg Group Secretary

Future Defence Civilian Programme – what future?

From: Defender Issue 1 - 2017.

The latest acronym doing the rounds and which relates to civilian job losses in the MoD is FDCP, the Future Defence Civilian Programme. Just how many civilians have a future within the MoD is of course dwindling by the week.

In short, 15,000 current staff will no longer be on the MoD's books by 2020. Of that number 3000-4000 will exit defence altogether, with the remainder sting in defence but not employed by MoD. The thrust of FDCP was covered in online statements by the Permanent Secretary (PS), Stephen Lovegrove, and the national dial-ins that took place recently. There is little sign of a coherent, over-arching plan but some numbers have been established.

Outsourcing

Outsourcing is the way ahead, apparently, and we should all be thankful that we will continue to be part of the wider defence family. Although the majority of these roles and the tasks associated with them will still exist PS claims that ‘they may be moved to outsource companies who have greater expertise in this area than MoD’. What? Greater expertise than in areas currently undertaken by MoD staff, in MoD environments, on MoD sites, and under MoD direction? It is an illusion to pretend outsourced services are inherently more efficient, or motivated by anything other than profit. Many of these successful bidders take the money when the going is good and run a mile when the going gets tough. The public sector is then left to pick up the pieces, having already been hollowed out by the outsourcing process itself. An outsourced supplier can go bust, or  decide to cut and run, but the requirement for the public service remains.

Wise up

Too often there is not enough homework done on the true cost of outsourcing and/or monitoring of such contracts once in place. The National Audit Office (NAO) has repeatedly warned of the dangers of poor value for money, and deterioration in the service, regarding outsourced contracts. A 2015 NAO report urged government to insist on greater access to, and make better use of, information regarding the running of these contracts. In short, wise up. Has the MoD got sufficient systems in place that make it an intelligent customer in such scenarios? Does our employer outsource in the confidence that the service will be maintained? That costs will not rocket? And that it can step in if things go wrong? Examples abound (see overleaf) of this not being the case and which do not inspire confidence.

What can you do?

PCS needs everyone to stand together, now more than ever, in facing up to these outsourcing threats:

•  Recruit your colleagues to the union.

•  Become a PCS Advocate and help get our message out in the workplace.

•  Get active and support PCS campaigns.

       •  Take part in the PS dial-ins or drop the PS an email. Let him know you are not falling for the blatant nonsense of his SDSR message.

Fears over privatisation of nuclear guards

PCS has expressed serious concerns over plans to privatise the Ministry of Defence Guard Service (MGS), many of whom guard the nuclear submarines at Faslane and the Trident warhead storage site at Coulport.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is considering attracting bids from private security firms, such as G4S and Mitie, to run the service which currently employs 2,100 civilian staff, many of whom are PCS members. The MGS provides unarmed guarding duties at MoD sites throughout the UK but the key sites on the Clyde are undoubtedly the most high profile and pose the most notable security questions.

The MGS was formed following the Deal Barracks bomb attack in 1989, in which 10 soldiers died, after the subsequent report identified serious failures in the private security firm provision at the site and recommended an in-house MoD guarding set-up.

We believe that this is an extremely dangerous path that the MoD is pursuing, risking the security at such important sites for negligible financial saving. We’re all aware of the appalling record of private security provision, including G4S’s inability to provide basic steward cover for the London Olympics in 2012, and their charging, along with Serco, for the non-existent tagging of offenders. There are also licensing and security clearance issues that are unique to the MoD and which will complicate matters further.

Possible lapses

The case for going to the market and inviting bids is awaiting Cabinet Office approval and the expectation is that this will be granted. The MoD has its own in-house bid team which will compete against the private firms seeking to run the service and which is backed by the MoD trade unions. We remain sceptical, however, at the resources that will be allocated to this team and just how serious an effort the MoD will make to retain control of the service. We further maintain that any dilution of the crucial service provided by MGS could cause future serious security lapses at sites where nuclear hardware and material are present. No one wants to see someone guarding Tesco on a Monday and nuclear subs on a Tuesday. These sites need a dedicated and professional guarding service and many of our MGS members have previous military experience. The simple question is – why put the safety of these sites at risk for the peanuts savings on offer?

Don't play fast and loose with security

MP Brendan O'Hara (SNP, Argyll and Bute), whose constituency includes Faslane and Coulport, met with PCS last week to discuss our concerns. In an article on his website this week he said: "Coming only days after promises to plough further public money into the Trident renewal programme and the increase of personnel to be transferred to the Faslane base over the next few years, we cannot – must not – play fast and loose with security at the base. The local community and the staff at both Faslane and Coulport must have absolute confidence that the facilities are secured by the very best security services available. This must be matched by the investments that are being placed in the renewal of Trident."

Commercial Professionalism Programme (CPP) – worrying developments!

From Defender Magazine - Issue 4/2016

In 2014, the National Audit Office (NAO) published a detailed report criticising the MoD’s commercial function and questioning its ability to cope with the many challenges it faced in the 21st century. The report focused on technical elements, including poor contract management but also highlighted the ‘low status’ of staff, referencing serious shortcomings in ‘pay, incentives and training’.

In response PCS argued that, like all other public services, the capability and staff problems were a direct result of savage government cuts and a chronic lack of investment. Expecting the usual government ‘austerity’ response, PCS was pleasantly surprised when the MoD’s reaction was to acknowledge that investment was required and that, in the main, this should be put in to improved staff training and up skilling.  As a direct result, the Commercial Professionalism Programme (CPP) was launched in the spring of 2015 with a number of work streams targeted. Training and an increase in professional qualifications were at the heart of the CPP plan, with the re-introduction of career management also seen as a positive step in improving overall functional professionalism.

Responding to the CPP proposals, PCS broadly welcomed the programme but expressed some concern regarding the legitimacy of making the attainment of certain levels of (CIPS) qualifications mandatory. CPP proposed that these qualifications should be directly linked to the issuing of commercial ‘licences’, without which commercial staff cannot do their jobs. Reacting to PCS concerns the MoD, until recently, appeared to be adopting a fairly liberal approach, stressing that staff were not required to achieve the qualifications until 2020 and that a number of routes (including a non-academic option) were available to achieve the qualification.

Answers required

However, in late November 2016 PCS received a consultation document that proposes to take the issuing of commercial licences down a radically different route. Instead of CIPS qualifications determining suitability, the MoD is now proposing to introduce a qualification and licensing process that will have sole control over the issue of licences and those who receive them. This will see our members subjected to an undefined system that could, at the MoD’s own admission, leave experienced commercial staff ‘unlicensed’ at the end of the process and, in turn, facing an anxious future.

Added to these genuine concerns the new process also proposes to set the C2 grade as the minimum appropriate licence holder.

This curious development offers no recognition of the many Band Ds and E1s currently holding licences and what this means for them. Although these documents describe what the MoD intends to do, they offer very little, if anything, in terms of why these changes are necessary and/or what benefits they will bring to the commercial function. PCS is extremely concerned about this development and what it means for our members, and the wider staff, working in the commercial function.

Senior PCS representatives have arranged to meet with the CPP team in mid-December 2016 to discuss the proposals and will be seeking answers to the following:

•  Why the need to move to this licencing process?

•  The shortcomings of the current licencing process?

•  Why the award of licences will be limited to C2s?

•  The implications for those Band Ds and E1s currently in receipt of licences?

•  What will happen to those who remain ‘unlicensed’ at the end of the process?

•  The format and content of the online assessments and licencing boards?

•  The need for, what appears to be, an element of ‘relative assessment’ within the licencing boards?

•  What incentives, if any, there will be for staff being subjected to this process?

Get involved

Through the pages of Defender and other communications PCS members working in the commercial function will receive regular updates on how this issue develops. In the meantime if you are working with any non-members please encourage them to join PCS, as we face a difficult fight ahead. If you require any additional support, information

or want to get active in PCS please contact the PCS commercial lead, Gerry Burns at gerry.burns670@mod.uk

Unacceptable stress levels continue in the MoD

From Defender Magazine - Issue 4/2016

PCS is concerned about the number of stress-related cases we are dealing with in the MoD and the latest ‘Your say’ survey results do not give much cause for comfort in this area.

Given the way members have been treated over the past years – drastic cuts in staffing levels, pay reduced in real terms, and for many in cash terms too, and the divisive performance management system, it is no surprise that the number of members on sick leave and suffering from stress has increased dramatically. Members are being asked to do more and cover for increasing gaps in the MoD workforce. Incrementally the pressure increases until filling not just one job but two, or even three, is thought unremarkable.

Watch out for the signs

Stress manifests itself in different ways. It can cause mental health issues but can also exacerbate existing health problems and cause physical symptoms such as:

•  Depression and anxiety

•  Weight problems

•  Auto-immune diseases

•  Skin conditions, such as eczema

•  Reproductive issues

•  Pain of any kind

•  Heart disease

•  Digestive problems

•  Sleep problems

•  Cognitive and memory problems

Our members who work in the MoD have a ‘can do’ attitude and feel that if their line manager asks them to do more they don’t want to say they can’t, but you can only do so much work in any given day. If you are repeatedly trying to squeeze more than a day’s work in to a day then something, eventually, has to give.

Protect yourself

If your line manager, many of whom are also facing unacceptable workload pressures, is asking you to increase your work load to unreasonable levels, then you have to ask them what they don’t want you to do, to enable you to undertake the new tasks they have given you.

Please don’t wait until the stress you feel is at breaking point. You can also speak to your local PCS Rep and ask for help.

If you do go off sick with work related stress, then you should fill in an Accident Form (or your line manager can do it on your behalf), to ensure that it is recorded and depending on the time you are off sick, you should also fill in HR Form 113: Civil Service Injury Benefits Scheme – notification of injury/ disease/condition.

The starting point for tackling the high levels of stress within the MoD is to accurately capture where and when it is occurring. Don’t help mask the problem by putting absence down to factors that do not tell the full story.

Permanent Secretary gives cold comfort to Defence Civilians

Introduction

Permanent Secretary Stephen Lovegrove has updated staff about the Future Defence Civilian Programme. The main points are: 

•   MoD is not good at managing change.

•   Reconfirms MoD’s commitment to slashing 30% of civilians from direct employment by 2020.

•   That cuts should not be “thoughtless”.

•   Individual changes will be announced quickly and staff are requested to be involved in designing outcomes.

•   Decision making will largely take place in single services, bases, functions and in teams.

•   Effectively there is no master plan.

•   The Department more than ever needs value for money from taxpayer’s pennies.

•   Outsourcing will form an integral part of SDSR solution.

•   Some new roles for civilians will be created going forward.

However well-intentioned the message it will give cold comfort to loyal, hardworking civil servants – especially in the run up to Xmas. Having confirmed that for many staff their future lies outside the department, the statement that “for some people, it (outsourcing) will provide better outcomes for them in terms of pay, training and career progression” will add insult to injury.

Perhaps this is making virtue out of necessity. The Tories have trashed public sector pay, they have shrunk the civil service affecting people’s opportunities to progress, they have sought to destroy directly employing front line staff. He now sees a future for the department in cyber space and as a commissioner of services provided by, where ever possible, the private sector. The concept of the ‘Whole Force’ is to be radically reconfigured. The forces elements is likely to stay largely the same; the use of the private sector will burgeon and the civil service will shrink to a rump of those currently employed.

In contrast, our union believes:

1. That the department isn’t good at managing change- despite having plenty of opportunities to get better at it. The failure of MoD in this area is in part due to its failure to recognise the concerns around value for money in government contracting highlighted by the Public Accounts Committee and learn from its own mistakes, linked to an unwillingness to undertake post project reviews.

2. The SDSR cuts are arbitrary and based on nothing other than an ideological whim to reduce the size of “government”. The statement doesn’t even pretend there’s any other logic. The work, targets and outputs of the lost 30% will not go away. It will still need to be done. Just not by civil servants. Enter Serco, Capita, Babcock, Carillion – stage right.

3. The cuts are inevitably “thoughtless” as they are based not upon requirement but upon an arbitrary figure. If the MoD assessed its requirement, extrapolating future defence needs, at least then it might be argued there was some thought going into the strategy. Starting with a target of 30% of jobs to go and working backward to identify and justify getting rid of them is both strategically inept but utterly “thoughtless”. Thoughtless to staff, thoughtless to the security of the nation, thoughtless to communities and families whose lives are trashed by unemployment and thoughtless of the needs of the front line.

4. The wish to know outcomes quickly and to be involved in designing solutions is laudable, however this cannot take the place of due process and involving the staff and their trade unions meaningfully. There must be no attempt to circumvent full and proper union engagement, consultation and negotiation. 

5. With the suggestion that decisions will be taken mostly at service or base level, how will MoD ensure any coherent defence strategy?, consistency of treatment? and consistency of service delivery? This suggestion in reality is a recipe for disaster.

6. If the MoD is so concerned about value for money, then it needs to ensure fair, fully funded, level playing field in-house options are stood up and all its privatisation programmes actually deliver meaningful savings. That means the ideological preference for the private sector as a future provider must be halted.

7. The contracts awarded to private sector “experts” is a proven mixed bag of increased costs, amended service level agreements and the non-application of penalty payments. MGS was created after the failure of private sector security guards in Deal who wouldn’t patrol the perimeter because they were afraid of the dark. If the private sector is so efficient why was DBS left in such a poor state after the so called professional management of it resulting in it being brought back in house? How many houses has the private sector built upon ex MoD land? Why was the National Audit Office so critical of DIO’s private sector partner? Why was the Defence Animal Centre brought back in house years ago? It’s an illusion to pretend these organisations are efficient, or motivated by anything other than profit.

Shock and awe is meant to demoralise the opposition - these statements are exactly that: You have a bright, shining future within the “defence community”…just not this part of it and besides, you will be better off, looked after better, receive better training etc. outside the MoD than within it. Branches need to be active among their members. Members may be feeling bruised and uncertain. Its our union’s job to counteract the insidious underlying message that nothing can be done.

Paul Bemrose - DSg Secretary

Cuts to MoD Civil Service numbers causing serious damage to Defence

As staff stuggle to cope with the ever increasing workload following the departure of many colleagues on VERS or by other means and more and more posts are cut, things look set to get considerably worse with the government expecting to hit a target of 41,000 by 2020. This equates to a  further cut of more than 20% of remaining MoD civilians.

MoD Civilian Numbers

Further Site Closures Announced Under DIO Footprint Strategy

Today, 7th November, Minister for Defence Personnel & Veterans Mark Lancaster announced the closure of another 91 Ministry of Defence sites as part of the austerity cuts that will see 18,000 civilians lose their jobs and 91 defence sites close removing any form of job security for thousands of our members.

The move continues the drive to deliver £9 billion savings in defence set by Michael Fallon in a speech at the Institute for Government and follows the announcement in November 2015. Well known Ministry of Defence sites, including Woolwich barracks and the historic Fort George in Scotland, are among sites earmarked for closure today. We believe the plans, which will happen between now and 2032, would severely hit support to our armed forces and further damage morale.

The government today announced the closure of 91 sites, some of which had been previously indicated, as part of austerity cuts that will see 18,000 civilians lose their jobs. The announcement removes any form of job security for thousands of our members. The move continues the government's drive to slash £9 billion from the defence budget, set by defence secretary Michael Fallon in the strategic defence and security review last November, which outlined plans to cut 30% of the civilian workforce, to 41,000 by the end of this parliament. Not only will these cuts have a devastating personal impact on people who will lose their livelihoods but their extent seriously undermines the government's claims to be committed to defence.

Read more here - BBC News: Defence Review to see dozens of sites close

Little rationale

There appears to be little rationale behind which sites are to close and the cost of moving staff and infrastructure appears to be completely ignored. Without it, closures based on the potential profits made from turning their defence-enabling footprint into housing can only undermine defence capability in the future and burden defence with additional costs. PCS full-time officer Paul Bemrose said: "This is yet another body blow to public sector workers across the UK who work tirelessly to support our armed forces. Their role while often unsung, and clearly undervalued by this Tory government, which has put a for sale sign up against a significant part of its estate and the civil servants who work there. "We predict the sale of these sites coupled with the MoD’s plans for the civil servants it currently employs will see morale hit an all-time low, the cost of defence outputs increase, an ever increasing use of consultancy firms milking the public purse and defence capacity decrease as delivery risk and failure increases." We will continue to press the MoD for no enforced relocations or redundancies.

Opposing cuts

While strongly opposing the closures and job loss, we have also reiterated our call that where it does sell off land, particularly for housing, the MoD learns from its past mistakes and should maximise returns and guarantee developers build affordable homes. Members in affected locations should contact their PCS representatives to ask for a meeting to discuss the proposed closures and relocations. We are also asking them to build our strength to oppose these changes by recruiting any non-members in their workplace. We are also urging members to vote yes in a PCS ballot, launched today which runs until 28 November, to reject the government’s cynical proposals to further cut our civil service redundancy pay, at a time when ministers are announcing mass relocations and site closures across the MoD and wider civil service. Our general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "We are opposed to these closure plans that throw the future into doubt for thousands of staff. "The MoD has a poor track record on selling off land for homes and this again exposes how the Tories are simply paying lip service to the urgent need to address the housing crisis."

The announced closures

• Royal Marines Condor Airfield, near Arbroath, Scotland

• HMS Nelson Wardroom, Portsmouth

• Royal Marines Stonehouse, Plymouth

• The Royal Citadel, Plymouth

• HMS Sultan, Gosport

• Chivenor airfield and barracks, near Barnstaple, Devon

• Norton Manor Camp, Somerset

• Buckley Barracks, Wiltshire

• Chalgrove airfield, Chalgrove, Oxford

• Copthorne barracks, Shrewsbury

• Somerset barracks, near Cheriton Kent

• Abercorn barracks, Ballykinler in County Down, Northern Ireland

• Craigiehall, Cramond, Scotland

• Catterick town centre parcel, North Yorkshire

• Harden Barracks (Duchess of Kent Psychiatric Hospital), Catterick, North Yorkshire

• Burgoyne Barracks, Shepway, Kent

• Claro Barracks, Ripon, North Yorkshire

• Fitzwygram House (Royal Army Veterinary Corps Centre), Aldershot

• Commander and staff trainer (North), Catterick, North Yorkshire

• Cavalry barracks, Hounslow, London

• Kneller Hall, Whitton, London

• Parsons barracks, Donnington

• Prince William of Gloucester barracks, near Grantham Lincolnshire

• St George's barracks, North Luffenham, Rutland

• Venning barracks, Donnington, Telford, Shropshire

• Middlewick ranges, near Colchester

• Chilwell station, Nottingham

• Queen Elizabeth barracks, Strensall, North Yorkshire

• Sir John Moore barracks, Winchester

• Towthorpe Lines, Towthorpe, York

• Thornhill barracks, Aldershot

• Clive barracks, Ternhill, Shropshire

• Fulwood barracks, Preston, Lancashire

• Kinnegar logistic base, Holywood, County Down, Northern Ireland

• Meadowforth barracks (HQ 51 Highland Brigade), Sterling, Scotland

• Redford cavalry barracks, Colinton, Edinburgh

• Redford infantry barracks, Colinton, Edinburgh

• Dale barracks, Upton near Chester

• Aldershot distribution outlet

• Cawdor barracks, Haverfordwest, Wales

• Leighton House (ASOB Westbury), Westbury, Wiltshire

• Southwick Park, Fareham

• Brecon barracks

• Beachley barracks, close to Chepstow, Wales

• Invicta Park barracks, Maidstone, Kent

• MOD Woodbridge (Rock barracks), Suffolk

• St David's barracks, Graven Hill, Bicester

• Vauxhall barracks, Didcot, Oxfordshire

• Woolwich station, London

• Buckley barracks (Hullavington barracks), Wiltshire

• Dalton barracks, including Abingdon airfield, Oxfordshire

• Azimghur barracks, Colerne, Wiltshire

• Carver barracks, Saffron Walden, Essex

• Dishforth barracks, North Yorkshire

• Imphal barracks, Fulford, York

• Robertson barracks, Norfolk

• Fort George, near Inverness, Scotland

• Glencorse barracks, Scotland

• Swansea airport, Fairwood Common, Swansea

• Moat House, Reading

• Newtonards airfield, County Down, Northern Ireland

• RAF Colerne airfield, Wiltshire

• RAF Henlow technical site and airfield, Bedfordshire

• 1300 Parkway, Bristol

• RAF Barnham, Norfolk

• RAF Mildenhall, Bury Saint Edmunds, Suffolk

• RAF Halton airfield, Buckinghamshire

• RAF Molesworth, Old Weston, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire

• RAF Alconbury, Alconbury, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire

• Amport House, Andover, Hampshire

• Defence Geographic Centre, Feltham

• Ministry of Defence Police Wethershield/Wethershield airfield, Essex

• Defence Business Services finance, Liverpool

• DBS Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire

• DBS Tomlinson House, Norcross, Blackpool, Lancashire

• Defence Infrastructure Organisation, Aldershot

• Lodge Hill, Chattenden, Kent

• DIO Warrington

• DIO head office, Sutton Coldfield

• Deverell barracks, Ripon, North Yorkshire

• Fort Blockhouse, Gosport

• Athena House, Swindon

• MOD Caledonia, Dunfermline, Scotland

• Clayton barracks, Aldershot

• Sennybridge storage compound, Powys, Wales

Outsourcing Defence Business Services (DBS) puts veterans' welfare at risk

Originally posted on 17 June 2016 on the PCS DSg site.

PCS has warned against the risky and inappropriate outsourcing of the Ministry of Defence body which looks after armed forces pensions, MOD HR and payroll, veterans' welfare and notification of casualties.

In April 2014, Defence Business Services merged with the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency (SPVA) to create one organisation for shared services across the Ministry of Defence. DBS is one of the largest shared services centres in Europe and it carries out a particularly complex and sensitive function, with a presence at nearly every MoD site. The MoD announced on 11 February that DBS would face the market under a new model called ‘corporate services integration and innovation provider’ (CSIIP), where the MoD would bring in a contractor they can transfer their responsibility to for running DBS as a whole. The MoD is expected to issue a formal Defence Contract Notice in the Official Journal of the European Union in July, and subsequently an 'invitation to negotiate' in late summer, with the contract award anticipated for Summer 2017.

Wide implications

The implications for the future of DBS and the MOD as a whole are much wider. DBS employs more than 2,200 people, both military and civilian and has an operations budget in excess of £170 million. It manages payroll and pensions worth £20bn and delivers welfare to 900,000 veterans and their dependents worldwide. It also handles more than 1.1m customer enquiries a year and processes more than 4.2m invoices worth £26bn annually. There are more than 450,000 security files managed by DBS each year and it also issues 130,000 medals every 12 months. It also operates the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme and War Pensions Scheme and manages casualty notification and administration 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In addition, DBS operates the contract, purchasing and finance system for all MoD commercial contracts.

We believe it would be risky and inappropriate to transfer management of this to a private company which will look to make profits by cutting staff and resources, offshoring work and opening up further areas of DBS to privatisation.

Conflict of interests

Whichever contractor wins the DBS CSIIP contract would have oversight over which subsequent parts of DBS to open up to the market. At the current moment, MoD has not excluded the possibility of the CSIIP contractor being able to bid for these future DBS contracts, creating a serious potential conflict of interests. The CSSIP contractor would also be responsible for the management of MoD wide corporate services. This would leave the MoD with little to no influence over the delivery of its corporate functions and the future costs in delivering them. 

Repeating past mistakes

A National Audit Office report last month gave a damning verdict on past privatisations of shared services in government, concluding that “the programme has not achieved value for money to date”. 

The MoD’s own experience of private sector involvement in DBS also signals alarm bells, yet the MoD seem intent on pushing ahead with privatisation. In 2012, the MoD agreed a 4-year contract with Serco and Accenture as management partners, running DBS on a gain share basis where they were paid for running the organisation but additionally received 40p for every pound saved via ‘efficiency gains’. The use of ‘gain share’ generated perverse incentives and meant excessive cuts, asset stripping and manipulating performance measures took place. In some areas of DBS, jobs were cut to generate a saving (and profit for Serco and Accenture) but were then reinstated at a later date. The Serco/Accenture ‘management insert’ contract was not extended in April 2016, because it demonstrably did not offer value for money.

Sign the PCS petition to call on defence secretary, Michael Fallon, to halt the plans to privatise any part of DBS.

From the President of PCS Defence Sector Group

Taken from Defender Magazine - Issue 3 2016

Our union is anticipating some significant challenges over the next few years, as the scale of the changes necessary to deliver 18,000 less civilian staff in the department by 2020 become clear.

Unfortunately the scope of those changes is still unclear, as the department struggles to put flesh on the bones of a political decision. We know that there will be more privatisation, despite increasing evidence that privatisation doesn’t work and in many cases threatens defence outputs. We know that there will be plans to relocate staff across the country, despite increasing evidence that this harms service delivery as experienced staff are unable or unwilling to uproot their lives for little or no benefit to themselves or the department.

We know that there will be a continuation of the pay freeze and further attacks on terms and conditions, despite clear evidence that this is counterproductive. Significant parts of the department are now facing skills shortages and retention problems, while an ageing demographic foretells that substantial problems lie ahead over the next decade as staff ‘retire’ without replacement. We know that all this is causing a significant morale problem, as staff loyalties to defence are tested as never before.

So, what is our union’s response? While we will clearly develop detailed plans to oppose privatisation, enforced relocations and redundancies, we need to go further. Our opposition to performance management will be developed into a new charter for civilian staff. We will be pressing the department to spell out why staff should remain with the MoD and what remaining loyal to defence will mean to them in real terms. We are also developing a narrative around the importance of civilian staff to defence. We believe that civilians provide  better value for money for the taxpayer, retain most of the corporate knowledge of the department and act as an impartial and intelligent customer for defence.

Civilians are focussed on the needs of defence, rather than on shareholder value or profit targets and are both accountable and flexible to deliver effective defence outputs. But we also need our members to add to that narrative. Tell us what the pay freeze has meant to you; why your job needs to be done by a civilian; or why your experience and knowledge is vital to defence. Get involved in our campaign and lend your voice to our efforts, so that together we can secure our collective future

Chris Dando - President Defence Sector Group

Save MOD’S shared services: No privatisation in Defence Business Services

Veterans’ welfare, armed forces war pensions, national security and vetting and the handling of casualty notifications are all at risk as the Ministry of Defence (MoD) plans to outsource its shared services organisation – Defence Business Services (DBS).

DBS employs over 2,200 people and is responsible for MoD armed forces and civilian pay, pensions and HR, delivering welfare to 900,000 veterans and their dependents, handling casualty notifications and administration 24 hours a day, UK wide security vetting and making payments to all defence suppliers.

MoD’s track record with private companies in DBS generates some big concerns. In 2012, Serco and Accenture were brought in as management partners where they were paid for running the organisation but additionally received 40p for every pound saved via ‘efficiency gains’. This led to reckless cuts, asset stripping and manipulating of performance measures in a profit grabbing frenzy. In many areas of DBS, jobs were cut to generate a saving (and profit for Serco and Accenture) but were then reinstated at a later date.

When the Serco-Accenture contract was brought to an end this year, it was hoped that common sense had prevailed. Yet now the MoD want to go one step further by fully privatising the running of DBS. The MoD argue that this will bring them savings but history tells another story. Instead, it will result in cuts to services, putting those who rely on DBS, like veterans, MoD staff and army personnel at risk. It could also open the door to offshoring of work and defence sensitive data as companies seek to maximise profits.

The alarm bells don’t stop there. A recent National Audit Office report has revealed that privatisations of other shared services across Whitehall has failed to deliver value for money to taxpayers, with long delays and rising costs. Read the report here: https://www.nao.org.uk/report/shared-service-centres/

DBS is one of the largest and most complex shared services organisations in Europe, carrying out sensitive and critical services to the MoD, its staff, the armed forces and veterans. The MoD should safeguard this by keeping DBS public.

Please support our campaign and sign the Petition

"We call on the Secretary of State for Defence to listen to the National Audit Office and take stock of past privatisation mistakes by halting plans to privatise any part of Defence Business Services (DBS)."

Sign and share the PCS petition saying no to the outsourcing and privatisation of DBS here: www.bit.ly/DBSpet

2016 Pay offers received

PCS has now received pay offers covering both the main Ministry of Defence (MoD) and Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S). They broadly follow the 1% cap on pay settlements imposed by the Treasury, being worth 0.89% to staff below the pay band maximum, with staff at the minimum receiving an extra 0.31% of their salary. Staff at the maximum will receive a 1.5% non-consolidated payment, paid monthly.

Bonus payments will also be paid up to 25% of MoD staff and up to 40% of DE&S staff.

As this does not meet the basis of our claim, the defence sector group executive committee will be rejecting the offer but will not be balloting members at this stage.

Civilian staff cuts

The Permanent Secretary has written to all staff 'Planning for the Future Civil Service in Defence' outlining his plans to achieve the 30% reduction in civilian staff by 2020.

Regrettably he is not able to put much flesh on the bones of those plans, other than to confirm that the new military Chief of Defence People will oversee work on business changes, whilst a new civilian workforce strategy will map out a vision for civil servants in defence.

The Permenant Secretary doesn't rule out future outsourcing and militarisation of civilian roles as a route to cutting civil service numbers and doesn't commit to reducing workloads and targets to meet these declining resources.

PCS remains opposed to outsourcing and militarisation, as we believe that they do not provide value for money, increased efficiency or effectiveness. We are also opposed to the arbitrary reductions in civilian numbers proposed to meet Treasury targets.

Despite this we are prepared to engage with the Ministry of Defence to ensure that members are not the casualties in this process. We would also encourage members who have concerns about what is happening in their area to approach their local branch, or to email dsg@pcs.org.uk 

Further Site Closures Announced Under DIO Footprint Strategy

Introduction

Today, 24th March, Minister for Defence Personnel & Veterans Mark Lancaster announced the closure of another 12 Ministry of Defence sites as part of the austerity cuts that will

see 18,000 civilians lose their jobs and 68 defence sites close over the life of this parliament.  The move continues the drive to deliver £9 billion savings in defence set by Michael

Fallon in a speech at the Institute for Government and follows the announcement in November 2015.

Previous sites announced

• Kneller Hall -Military School of Music (Twickenham)

• Claro and Deverell Barracks (Ripon)

• Lodge Hill (Kent)

• Craigiehall (Edinburgh)

• Nelson Wardroom (Portsmouth)

• Hullavington Airfield (Wiltshire)

• RAF Barnham (Suffolk)

• MOD Feltham (Hounslow)

• RAF Molesworth and Alconbury (Cambridgeshire)

• Mildenhall (Suffolk)

The latest announcement

• Burgoyne Barracks (Part of Shorncliffe Barracks, Folkestone)

• Clive Barracks (Tern Hill, Shropshire)

• Fitz Wygram House - Royal Army Vet Corps (Aldershot)

• Army Officer Selection Board Westbury (Wiltshire)

• Defence Training Estate Land near Cove, East of Fleet (Farnborough)

• Rylston Road Army Reserves Centre (London)

• MOD Wethersfield (Essex)

• Chetwynd Barracks (Chilwell, Nottinghamshire)

• Thornhill Barracks (Part of Clayton Barracks, Aldershot)

• MOD Cheadle Hulme (Greater Manchester)

Most of these sites are earmarked to close by 2020, although Thornhill is to close a year later and Cheadle in 2022. The MoD has not provided a more detailed brief to the trade

unions at this stage. PCS continues to press MoD for more specific information regarding site closure and indeed for MoD to stop drip feeding their footprint strategy in a cynical

attempt to bury bad news under as many stones as possible.

PCS view

There appears to be little defence rational behind which sites are to close. Without it, closures based on the potential profits made from turning their defence enabling footprint into housing can only undermine defence capability in the future. Nor is the housing likely to be in the affordability range of many PCS members even where their future in the

Department is secure. The full list of site closures needs to be published now. What is clear is that the suggestion that the footprint strategy will deliver the 18,000 staff head count reduction is wishful or misleading thinking on the part of the Department. PCS already knows the footprint piece of work extends further into the future than the timeline for SDSR headcount reductions. The Government has made a great play on the “Northern Powerhouse” and the importance of economic development outside the South East, but this

aspiration does not fuse with strategies that strip often high skilled jobs from the localities. Any MoD civil servant could point out to the PUS or Minister that defence sites are often

in remote areas and the local economy reliant upon them. Site closures have an impact on local and satellite businesses and thereby compound the negative economic

consequences.

PCS bargaining demands

PCS is clearly interested to understand the rationale behind site closures and challenge them where possible. PCS will continue to press MoD to obtain:

• No enforced relocations

• No enforced redundancies

Paul Bemrose - DSg Group Secretary

Job losses and attacks on Terms and Conditions