National Pay Ballot - Letter responding to Gus & Bill

26 September 2008

To: All Members (1:10) MoD/MB/41/08
cc: Group Executive Committee


Dear Colleagues,

National pay ballot – Letters from PUS and Cabinet Office Secretary

Many members will have been sickened (but unfortunately not surprised) to have received letters from our Permanent under Secretary, Sir Bill Jeffrey and the Cabinet Office Secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell regarding the current PCS national pay ballot. Although they fall short of asking members not to support our union’s call for action, they also fall short of offering any solution to the problems we face.

Sir Bill and Sir Gus both have warm words about the contribution and value of civil servants to defence. Unfortunately, though no doubt genuinely meant, these offer little comfort to members struggling to make ends meet and often working two or three jobs to provide for their family.

Our leaders fail to understand that pay offers which fail to keep pace with inflation, let alone basic food and utility bills, do not indicate to staff that they are valued. And our pay claim is hardly demanding film star wages, or even film extra wages!

Sir Bill recognises that our pay implementation date is now long gone, but fails to recognise that delaying any award until 2009 will have serious consequences for staff who face rising bills and hard choices now.

Sir Gus believes that civil servants continue to enjoy terms and conditions which provide a substantial level of security both in work and retirement. He forgets to add that these were only secured and defended by concerted action from the trade unions and that further threats to both job security and pensions are on the horizon.
The streamlining and PACE proposals will see a further 10,000 jobs lost within the MOD over the next three years (on top of 13,000 lost in the last three years), with the Public Value Programme to be announced in November threatening thousands more. Meanwhile Sir Gus’s own Cabinet Office proposes ending the current civil service redundancy scheme to save money!

Both Sir Bill and Sir Gus believe that now is not the right time to take industrial action, with negotiations about to commence. However both know that the hands of their negotiators are tied by the Treasury, who will not allow the MOD to offer any pay increase that exceeds their 2% pay cap.

However, we recognise that calling for industrial action is a last resort. We have been campaigning and lobbying for fair pay. We want a negotiated settlement, as we understand the consequences of taking action on support to the front line. But talks, which have been ongoing since February, have so far not produced a positive response.

In his speech to the Labour party conference, Gordon Brown said his job would be worthwhile if it helped one person, one family or one community. He now has an opportunity to put these fine words into practice.

The government must recognise the damage that their unfair pay cap is causing to millions of hard working public servants, their families and their communities. Having found the money to bail out reckless financial institutions and city speculators, he must now relax his unfair rules on civil service pay to avoid an industrial dispute that no-one wants.

Unlike Sir Bill and Sir Gus, we believe that members understand that by negotiating, campaigning and taking action only where necessary we have defended our pensions, our sick pay arrangements and our job security. Now we need to do the same on pay, by voting YES in the ballot.

Chris Dando MoD group president

Dougie Brownlie MoD communications officer

Minister Blames Troops for JPA Failures!

Some while ago I wrote to Joan Humble MP to ask if the Government will be applying Service Level Failure charges against Electronic Data Systems (EDS) in connection with the Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) system. Joan forwarded the question to the Minister and I received a reply from Rt Hon Bob Ainsworth MP (as Duty Minister).

Bob tells me that "MOD investigates every Service Level Failure and judges whether EDS are in part or wholly responsible. If EDS is partly or wholly responsible, the Service Pensions and Veterans Agency applies all the available contract options to ensure the MOD achieves the appropriate recompense."

Unfortunately he goes on to say that, "MOD's contracts with EDS do not carry financial penalties," which seems bizarre in the least but, "they do contain provisions linking payment to performance in order to ensure value for money." However, and despite this, "disclosure of whether or not MOD has exercised its contractual rights under these provisions could prejudice the MOD's on-going commercial relationship with its contractors."

So, what he is saying is that whilst there have been service failures, and there are provisions in the contracts to deal with these, he isn't going to say so or enforce the contract because it might upset our suppliers? Astonishing, but wait, who does the Minister think is to blame for the failures? Well, Bob puts the blame squarely on our troops as he says, "when failures in service delivery relating to pay or allowances do occur, there can be a variety of causes including incorrect or late inputs to the JPA system by individuals and/or their support staff. However, as personnel become more familiar with the system, we expect problems to decrease."

PCS Pay Petition

http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/campaigns/pay-campaign/pay-petition.cfm

Farewell Richard Wright

So the world said goodbye to Richard Wright who died yesterday at the age of 65 following a short struggle with cancer.

Rather than comment myself I will simply quote David Gilmour, from his website (http://www.davidgilmour.com/index.htm), as I think you will agree he has said it all.

In the welter of arguments about who or what was Pink Floyd, Rick's enormous input was frequently forgotten.He was gentle, unassuming and private but his soulful voice and playing were vital, magical components of our most recognised Pink Floyd sound.

I have never played with anyone quite like him. The blend of his and my voices and our musical telepathy reached their first major flowering in 1971 on 'Echoes'. In my view all the greatest PF moments are the ones where he is in full flow. After all, without 'Us and Them' and 'The Great Gig In The Sky', both of which he wrote, what would 'The Dark Side Of The Moon' have been? Without his quiet touch the Album 'Wish You Were Here' would not quite have worked.In our middle years, for many reasons he lost his way for a while, but in the early Nineties, with 'The Division Bell', his vitality, spark and humour returned to him and then the audience reaction to his appearances on my tour in 2006 was hugely uplifting and it's a mark of his modesty that those standing ovations came as a huge surprise to him, (though not to the rest of us).Like Rick, I don't find it easy to express my feelings in words, but I loved him and will miss him enormously.

David GilmourMonday 15th September 2008

Mod Pay 2008 Update & National Pay Campaign

PCS Mod Pay Update & National Pay Campaign Meeting – Wednesday 24th Sept. 10:30, Room 6201A Tomlinson House.

Members are advised that PCS are holding a meeting to discuss Mod Pay 2008 and the National Pay Campaign in the conference room, 6201A at 10:30 on Wednesday 24th September 2008. Facility time of one hour has been allowed by management for all members to attend this meeting.

Dougie Brownlie from Mod Group will be on hand to give members the latest update on pay 2008 and will detail the national pay campaign.

The PCS national pay campaign is critical. PCS are calling for:

A cost of living award in line with inflation
Reform of the Treasury Remit Guidance so that progression is funded in the same way as the rest of the public sector i.e. outside of the pay cap.

This is because the inadequacy of MoD pay directly arises from Government policy of limiting public sector pay increases to well below the rate of inflation. This pay restraint policy also applies for 2009 and 2010. The Treasury are strictly monitoring all pay offers, agreeing the award with Departments in advance of any meetings with the unions, and are insisting that they cannot be altered without their permission.

The Treasury require any pay offer to be worth less than the rate of inflation, making nonsense of the concept of genuine negotiations between management and unions.

This approach punishes all of the public sector, but in fact is particularly bad for the Civil Service and related bodies. In our case the overall increase allowed by the Treasury includes the cost of funding pay progression, whilst for the rest of the public sector pay progression is resourced from outside the pay cap. This is inherently unfair and reform of the Treasury Remit Guidance is at the heart of the national campaign.

I hope to see many of you there.
Yours fraternally
Ian Melvin
VA(NB)PCS Secretary

National Industrial Action Ballot

The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS)has announced that it will be balloting 270,000 members across civil and public services on a programme of national industrial action over the government's policy to cap public sector pay to below inflation.

Anger has grown over the government’s policy which is disproportionately hitting some of the lowest paid in the public sector and has already led to a number of pay strikes by coastguards, immigration officers, passport staff, driving examiners and jobcentre staff.

This year has also seen PCS members co-ordinating their industrial action over pay with other public sector unions, including NUT, UCU and Unison.

In the strike ballot running from 24 September to 17 October, members will be asked to back plans for a national civil service wide strike followed by a rolling programme of targeted industrial action that will extend into the new year.

The union will also step up its work with other unions in co-ordinating campaigning and industrial action where appropriate.

With a quarter of the civil service earning less than £16,500 and thousands earning just above the minimum wage, the government’s policy of capping public sector pay has hit some of the lowest paid in the public sector the hardest and led to pay cuts and pay freezes.

Forty percent of staff in the Department for Work and Pensions, which includes Jobcentres will have no pay rise whatsoever this year, 30% of staff in the Identity and Passport Service are in the same situation, whilst coastguard watch assistants received a special pay rise to keep their pay above the minimum wage.

Pay in the civil service is worse than other parts of the public sector because ‘progression’ (moving from the minimum to the maximum of the pay range) is included in the government’s pay cap.

Hence there is less money available to fund basic pay awards.Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said:"The government says it is on the side of hard pressed families, yet compound the financial misery for hundreds of thousands of hard working people by pursuing an unjust pay policy.

The government is out of touch with the people who keep this country running and who deliver the everyday things we take for granted.

Our members have grown increasingly frustrated by the government peddling the myth that they are the causes of inflation when they see their food, fuel and housing costs soar".

"Faced with pay cuts, pay freezes and increasing financial hardship, civil and public servants will not tolerate the government’s approach to pay which is disproportionately hitting some of the lowest paid in the economy".

"There is still a window of opportunity though, for the government to recognise the hardship it is causing, by reviewing its unjust and unfair policy of below inflation pay."

While MOD fiddles fuel burns!

While MOD fiddles with our pay claim our members still have to pay increasing amounts for food and fuel. In todays Independant an article by Mark Steel highlights some of the realities of todays economic climate.

Mark Steel: Don't die of hypothermia until March

Wednesday, 10 September 2008

"The government tells us it wouldn't make sense to impose a one-off tax on the energy companies, as this would be a short-term measure that fails to address the long-term problem. And, to be fair, there's a logic to this. So, a decent compromise that might get round this difficulty would be to impose a tax on the pigs EVERY year, or if that still didn't sort it, every week – or maybe every 25 minutes.

The energy companies have objected that if they have to pay any more tax, they won't have enough money to invest in new projects. That's because the £1.64bn they've paid to shareholders in dividends this year has all gone on investment, hasn't it. The odd chairman may have suggested he was tempted to spend a bit of his money on a treat, such as a packet of biscuits, but then his conscience would return and it would be "invest, invest, invest".

The previous year, when they only paid out £1.38bn in dividends, there was no money for investment at all. And yet, while Macmillan cancer nurses and paraplegic sportsmen are revered for their selfless fighting spirit, how many of us stop to spare a thought for these brave energy executives, as they somehow stretch £1.38bn to last the whole year?"

To read the rest of the article please follow the following link: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mark-steel/mark-steel-dont-die-of-hypothermia-until-march-924459.html