The Cost of Living?

These are some of the costs of of keeping our representatives in parliament.

Bear in mind that these figures are tax free...

... and remember them when you are next asked to curtail your travel expenses whilst on official business.

Soldiers in £250m MoD pay shambles

We publish below an article from todays Metro without comment.

"Thousands of soldiers, sailors and airmen were shortchanged on their salaries because of a 'catast­rophic' new computerised payroll system, an MPs' report has found.

The servicemen and women were left out of pocket – and thousands more were overpaid – through 'truly reprehensible' mistakes made by the Ministry of Defence in bringing in the £245million system.
Some were underpaid by as much as £345 a month while a total of £28.9million was overpaid to others – money which the ministry has struggled to recover, the report said.

Liberal Democrat defence spokesman Nick Harvey added: 'Most disgracefully, service personnel themselves have sometimes been blamed for the errors that have made their own lives a misery.'

The Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) system, introduced in 2006, was inten­ded to replace separate payrolls for the Army, Navy and RAF. But it was found to hold incorrect details for one in ten service personnel – nearly 20,000 people. As a result, their salaries were paid wrongly and troops, including some on duty in Afghanistan, were left short in their pay packets for months. Others complained they defaulted on their mortgage payments as a result.
In a report published today, the Commons defence committee blamed 'basic and fundamental' errors. 'It is difficult to exaggerate the magnitude of the failure of the joint personnel administration,' the report added. 'It is, in our view, truly repre­hen­sible that such mistakes were allowed to be made by those charged with oversight of the JPA programme.' The problems might have been exacerbated by the cutting of 300 human resources posts, the MPs said.

The JPA was supplied by the Texan computer giant EDS, which has been involved in problematic public sector IT schemes including the Child Support Agency system. However, the company has paid just £516,000 in compensation for the failure of the system, the report added.

The MoD apologised for the problems but insisted the system was now working better.
It added 'We have ensured that any repayments were made in a way and at a level that minimised impact upon them.'"

WW1 Veteran Britains Oldest Man

Mr Allington will become a 'teenager' in June, when he reaches 113 years. He turned 112 years and 296 days on Sunday, surpassing Welshman John Evans who died in 1990 aged 112 years and 295 days.
It marks another record for Mr Allingham, who is one of only two surviving First World War veterans in the UK and is the oldest Royal Navy veteran.

He spent the day quietly with a few visitors at St Dunstan's care home for blind ex-service personnel in Ovingdean, near Brighton, East Sussex.
Mr Allingham, who has dedicated much of his time in recent years to giving talks to schoolchildren about his experiences, will reach 113 years on June 6.

Dennis Goodwin, his close friend and founder of the First World War Veterans' Association, said: "He has achieved another milestone in his long life and is raising the bar of longevity.
"To be honest the last two years have been littered with milestones but this one is nice for him.
"The next one will come when he becomes a 'teenager' again when he reaches 113 in June."
On Monday Mr Allingham will be made an honorary member of the Royal Naval Association during a low-key presentation at St Dunstan's.
Earlier this month he received an upgraded Legion d'Honneur in London, six years after receiving his first one.

He has held the rank of chevalier, or knight, in the Legion d'Honneur since 2003 but was promoted to the rank of officer by French ambassador Maurice Gourdault-Montagne.
Clapton-born Mr Allingham, who has lived through the birth of his first great-great-great-grandchild, joined the Royal Navy Air Service in September 1915 before transferring to the RAF in April 1918.

As well as being the last founder member of the RAF, he is also the sole survivor of the Battle of Jutland.

Story published in The Daily Telegraph

Equality and Human Rights Commission propose cuts to public service

PCS members at the EHRC are fighting plans to cut 50 posts from its public helpline, and close the Manchester helpline altogether, where 36 highly trained staff are at risk of losing their jobs.
Helpline and knowledge staff would be reduced from 115 to 65 staff, with a planned restructure in Birmingham, Cardiff and Glasgow. All staff would have to compete for jobs - no-one’s job would be safe. The plan was kept secret from the union until a 90 statutory notice of formal redundancy consultation was served on the union on 12 February, the day after staff were informed. This was a bombshell.
Helpline workers are the lowest paid in the EHRC, but they provide an essential public service advising ordinary people of their rights if they are suffering from discrimination at work or in society.
Since the recession has deepened calls to the helpline have increased, particularly from workers facing redundancy because they are on maternity leave, are disabled, black or have caring responsibilities.
Voluntary advice bodies are already struggling to cope with increased demand as the recession bites, employment tribunal claims are rocketing and there is no legal aid available. The EHRC helpline is an essential public service.
The plans come at the same time as Harriet Harman urging women to seek advice on their employment rights, as well as James Purnell looking at whether minority groups are suffering disproportionately in the recession.
The EHRC’s first response to the recession was to produce a pamphlet for small businesses on how to follow the “right processes” when making staff redundant. (But not how to retain them!)
In contrast, until recently the EHRC has refused to advertise its public helpline. A recent promotion on a small part of the service has shown call volumes triple, yet this has been ignored in the plans to cut the service.
A full Equality Impact Assessment of the proposals has not been completed, in breach of the equality duties to which the EHRC is subject. EHRC is the statutory body charged with enforcing the equality duties - so who enforces the enforcer?
Stakeholder groups, service users and staff opinions and expertise have not been sought when drawing up the proposals to cut jobs and the service.
PCS at the EHRC is well organised with a very high membership. There have been angry union meetings at every EHRC site, and we shall ballot immediately for strike action if even one redundancy is announced. A public campaign has already been launched.
We work for the Equality and Human Rights Commission. We believe in fairness. Our employers don't.

What you can do?

Raise in your trade union, community group, equality group, and ask them to complain to Trevor Phillips at EHRC, Harriet Harman, Minister for Women, Maria Eagle, Equalities Minister, and Hazel Blears (Salford MP and minister with responsibility for race equality).
Write to your MP and ask them to sign the Early Day Motion (to be laid in the House of Commons next week).
Refer people to our helpline. The contact details are: Telephone: 0845 604 6610; Textphone: 0845 604 6620, Email: info@equalityhumanrights.com

Tax justice, not tax havens

Tax dodging costs the UK £100 billion a year - enough to fund the NHS twice over. Developing countries lose an estimated £250 billion every year as a direct result of corporate tax dodging - money which could be used to reach the UN's Millennium Development Goals several times over.
Companies should pay their fair share of tax not only here but in the developing world. Taxes collected should be used to help fund vital public services such as healthcare, education and housing in developing countries as well as in the UK.

Click on the following link to urge your MP to join the call for tax justice, not tax havens!

http://e-activist.com/ea-campaign/clientcampaign.do?ea.client.id=103&ea.campaign.id=2948

HOOT - Hands Off Our Tax offices

Reasons to give a HOOT

Office closures will leave large parts of the UK without a tax office.
The closures have a disproportionate impact on female staff who have childcare or other caring responsibilities.
Services for the public will be harder to access particularly in small towns and rural areas and any financial savings for taxpayers are at best negligible.
Better resources in HMRC could help reduce the tax gap and release billions of pounds that the government could spend on improving public services.
You can support the campaign by sending a HOOT message to your constituency MP at the following link:
http://e-activist.com/ea-campaign/clientcampaign.do?ea.client.id=103&ea.campaign.id=2493

PCS Pay Update

All members should have received their February pay packet which contains back pay to August 2008. Members will also have noticed that new MoD pay scales have been introduced where each spine point (or progression step) is worth 3%

All staff have therefore now migrated onto the new pay scale and been moved to the next highest spine point.

Following the recent round of annual general meetings, it is clear that there is some confusion about the status of the pay process. Reportedly some members wrongly believe that, as this money has now been paid, the pay offer has been agreed and implemented.

It is therefore worth stressing again that our union has not accepted the MOD pay offer.

The current position therefore is that nothing has changed - the pay offer has not been accepted by PCS and we will ballot members on the offer in due course.

The key driver over the next period will be the 2009 Treasury remit guidance. This guidance, which will be used in all civil service departments sets out the government parameters and guidance to departments on pay.

It is also worth stressing that we in the MOD group are very much part of the PCS national pay campaign and that this not solely an MOD pay campaign.

Following the change in government policy on pay agreed last December, talks have been taking place with the Treasury and the Cabinet Office about the detail of converting efficiency savings into pay improvements and the contents of new Treasury pay guidance for 2009 / 2010.

As part of the talks our union has been discussing the kind of pay changes which efficiency savings could bring about; the timing of making pay improvements and other pay reforms.

Our union is also putting to the Government proposals for the separate funding of pay progression (to achieve a level-playing field with other public sector organisations), tackling equal pay problems and unjustified pay differences, and making use of unacceptable performance pay arrangements for other pay improvements.

The key test of the new policy will, of course, be extra money in members` pay packets. When the proposed 10th November day of industrial action was postponed last year, it was done so on the basis of testing the national agreement on pay and on the basis of assurances that new efficiency savings were available to improve departmental pay awards.

The 2009 Remit Guidance is now overdue – this delay is extremely frustrating for both our union and for members who rightly want to know what is happening in terms of their pay.

The PCS National Executive Committee (NEC) met last week to discuss progress on the national pay agreement. That meeting of the NEC made clear that we are very concerned that a planned meeting to talk about new pay guidance had been postponed by the Treasury several times.

This had led to a further delay in holding a PCS pay forum for our pay negotiators. This meeting will provide critical advice for PCS pay departmental negotiators, including MoD pay negotiators. Our union will be watching the situation carefully and a special NEC meeting will take place soon to review the situation.

Once the 2009 Treasury remit guidance is released we intend to seek further dialogue with MoD.

A further update on pay for PCS members will be issued shortly.

Yours sincerely

Paul Barnsley Group Secretary
Chris Dando Group President
KC Jones Group Vice President

Where's the Justice?

It is International Womens Day on the 8th of March.

This year the PCS focus is to take action to close the gender pay gap. Women who deliver government services and contracts have a pay gap above the UK average. Please take a few minutes to email your MP via the following link and ask them to end this injustice: http://e-activist.com/ea-campaign/clientcampaign.do?ea.client.id=103&ea.campaign.id=2723

Find out more about IWD here: http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/equality/womens_equality_toolkit/index.cfm
and here;
http://www.internationalwomensday.com/

Update on the National Pay Campaign

A message from Mark Serwotka








http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/campaigns/national-pay-campaign/pay-campaign--members-briefings/

The Cost of Eating

It has come to our attention that as from Monday 2nd March, the price of all chocolate, crisps and some cans and bottled drinks supplied on the trollies have been increased suriptitiously. We think this is particularily outrageous given that the economy is effectively in stagnation... meaning inflation is a thing of the past, and given that prices had already been raised and only a few months ago!

The trolley ladies have asked us not to blame them and we do not. We put the blame firmly on the shoulders of the greedy catering company that is exploiting our members. If like us you feel agrieved at this outrage you can make your feelings felt by faxing Mr Andrew Holt the catering manager on 63325. But please, spare the ladies.

Give Us A Break.... But In Our Own Time.

Part time staff will be aware of a recent change to the MOD Statement of Civilian Personnel Policy on Working Patterns and Defence Instruction Notice 2008DIN01-231 in which it stated:
"Part time staff are not entitled to a paid meal break (except MDP part time officers). If you work over 6 hours in a day you must take an unpaid break of at least 20 minutes in accordance with the Working Time Regulations."

Members had raised this as a matter of some concern as it impacted directly upon their childcare arrangements. The branch is pleased to report that this issue has been (temporarily*) resolved and SPVA HR Business Partner team have issued a new note to procedure which states the following:

"All part time staff are entitled to an unpaid break and staff should be encouraged to take a break if at all possible. However, taking care arrangements into consideration and to offer flexibility, it has been agreed with Director CTLB HR Business Partner Team and supported by Kim Humberstone DCS, that SPVA can adopt a pragmatic approach in the interim, pending a review of the MOD policy. This means that if you work part time in SPVA, you are not required to take a meal break. However you are entitled to take an unpaid break of at least 20 minutes if you work more than 6 hours per day. There is no change to the arrangements for full time staff."

*Motion A11 'Part Time Lunch Breaks', agreed at the AGM refers. The motion calls on the GEC to ensure that the rules are changed to become compliant with the law and that lunch breaks for part time staff below daily full time hours are an entitlement but not obligatory.

Everyman Theatre Ticket Offer

The Everyman Theatre on Hope Street, Liverpool (opp. Metropolitan Cathedral), would like to offer all PCS members a 2 for 1 offer on all tickets to see the Hounding of David Oluwale showing between the 3rd and 7th March at 7.30pm.

Any PCS member can call their Box Office on 0151 709 4776 and quote PCS Offer - and they will get 2 tickets for the price of one. This works out at about £6.25 each ticket.

http://www.eclipsetheatre.org.uk/

Goodbye Pat! Goodbye Royal Mail?

It seems that our current government is conspiring with the future one to the disadvantage of us all! (Not that this is surprising I suppose, given the Tories quick agreement with Jack Straw over the non disclosure of Cabinet minutes under FOI last week.)

If it is possible to do this with the post, what price OUR pensions and OUR jobs?

Meanwhile hundreds of billions of pounds of our money have been handed over free gratis to the bankers to pay their debts, their bonuses and their pensions. Yet apparently, £1.5 billion over the next 5 years is too much for us to invest in OUR Royal Mail?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/02/royal-mail-privatisation-unions

If you wish to show solidarity with colleagues in the Communications Workers Union in their campaign "Keep The Post Public", they are holding a public rally on Friday 6th March in Albert Square, Manchester:

10.15 - Event Starts
10.30 – Speeches
11.00 - Balloon Launch
11.15–13.30 - Campaigning To Keep The Post Public