General Secretary Election 2009

Members are reminded that the branch has nominated Mark Serwotka for the position of General Secretary of PCS.


Ballot papers and members statements have been sent out from head office and should be arriving to your election address shortly. If you have not received yours please contact a branch officer a.s.a.p. as the ballot closes 17th December 2009.


Please remember to vote...and to vote Mark Serwotka.

PCS responds to the Daily Telegraph

12 November 2009

PCS general secretary wrote to the Daily Telegraph in response to its story about bonus payments in the Ministry of Defence.

Dear sir,

If civilian staff in the MoD were receiving huge bonuses, the anger expressed by families of soldiers on the frontline would be understandable, but it’s not true.
Recently over 1,000 MoD civilian staff had to receive an emergency payment because their pay had fallen below the national minimum wage and the department have this year cut the pay and pension of the lowest paid staff.
Most of our 16,000 members earn less than £20,000 per year. After years of pay restraint, the current system means that these low paid civil servants receive paltry, non-pensionable, one-off 'bonuses' of between £300 and £400 instead of fair annual pay rises.
No one is more angry than our members about the mismanagement of defence by politicians, private consultants and senior management.
Our members work directly on the frontline alongside the military providing training, security, procurement, storage, distribution and critical support.
MoD civil servants are working around the clock to support the military and will continue to do so despite the impact of the 25,000 arbitrary job cuts imposed by the government over the last six years.
Instead of disgraceful and misleading attacks on low paid staff the focus should instead be on the real waste.
For example the billions of pounds wasted in the MoD equipment programme every year, on the myriad failed privatisation projects and on the employment of thousands on non-deployable military personnel. This is the real scandal in MoD.

Yours sincerely,


Mark SerwotkaPCS general secretary

Brian Simpson MEP answers our call.

Labour MEP for our region Brian Simpson has written on our behalf to Bob Ainsworth at the MoD to protest the selling of Kentigern House.

You can see a copy of his letter here.

Conservative MEP Jacqueline Foster like Brian points out that it is a national rather than European matter, but she has suggested we refer the matter the Dr Liam Fox, Shadow Defence, which we have done.

We will keep you informed of further developments.

Update: The UKIP MEP Paul Nuttall's agent wrote "This is clearly a domestic matter for the British Government to sort out and as such it does not fall within the remit of Paul Nuttall as an MEP. However, UKIP do support the efforts to sustain your jobs in these difficult times, much of it made worse by the financial mismanagement by the Labour Government.

The Government has a poor track record when it comes to public spending and has wasted billions of pounds of taxpayers money. UKIP would seek to reform Government, introducing a lighter touch and reducing waste (on projects such as the E.U. or the Millenium Dome). This would allow proper funding of jobs for workers in this country."

So, no joy from them, we are offered is the usual meaningless rattle... I mean, the Millenium Dome? Please, that was 9 years ago!

MoD Bonuses: Part Deux

Government defends bonuses for MoD civil servants

Indeed, our esteemed Home Secretary has waded in to defend us against accusations that we are given bonuses willy-nilly, with, and I kid you not, the following explanation:

Alan Johnson told GMTV: "I think we need to find more detail about what MoD civil servants do, what they get the bonuses for, before you say this is unjustified.

"Our priority always has to be the soldiers at the frontline for equipment, for pay, for conditions." But, he said, civil servants had to go "into the frontline" to, for example, develop mechanisms to protect troops from improvised explosive devices.

"When they do that my understanding is they work 17, 18 hours in Afghanistan. They don't get overtime for that – they get a bonus to compensate."

Some are born great, some have greatness thrust upon them, and sometimes, dumb just happens.

Ministry of Defence civil servants paid £47 million in bonuses

According to the Telegraph today "civil servants at the Ministry of Defence have been paid £47 million in performance bonuses so far this year despite claims that troops in Afghanistan lack essential equipment.

There are 85,000 civil servants at the MoD — one for every two active soldiers, the highest level among the Allied nations — and about 50,000 will get a performance bonus this year.

The bonus figure covers just the first seven months of the financial year. The MoD said yesterday that the bonuses would average less than £1,000, but a senior civil servant could pick up £8,000. Last year, the department had 95 employees who were on a salary of more than £100,000. A private in the Army can be paid as little as £16,681 a year, with a bonus of £13 a day for serving in Afghanistan. "

PCS say the answer is simple... scrap the bonus scheme which is unfair and unweildy and roll the pot back into main MoD pay from whence it came and where it rightly belongs.

We will remember them.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning.

We will remember them.

Unlucky for some?

On this Friday, the 13th, to 'celebrate' the start of the HP SPVA Interim Contract, HP have arranged a complimentary breakfast for all SPVA staff. (Unless of course you aren't at core sites... sorry IPPH and VWS!)

We think that this scheme smacks of corporate hospitality. (Should we enter it in the gift book?)

We also believe that we, the taxpayer, will pay for it (indirectly) if we haven't paid for it already.

We think this idea is nuts, and that there are easier and more ethical ways of getting a breakfast.

What do you think?

Kentigern House Sale

The sale of Kentigern House in Glasgow is going ahead. A 20 year lease is being sought in exchange for £47 million pounds. (We understand an offer in excess of £50 million has already been received.)

The actual cost to the taxpayer however over the 20 year lease period will be in the region of £140 million when rent and maintenance costs are calculated. We believe this to be entirely unacceptable and have sent letters to our Parliamentary representatives in protest and urge all members wherever they are based to do so.

It was stated at a PCS MoD all members meeting in Kentigern House recently that senior officials within Defence Estates and Land Forces areas have already admitted that it does not make financial sense, but such is the perilous financial situation in the MoD, they need to raise income quickly. If this is the case, there has been severe financial mismanagement across the MoD and this is not something ordinary workers or indeed the taxpayer should suffer.

The sale of the building will also threaten the security of 400 jobs in Hewlett Packard (EDS) who is a tenant within Kentigern House and SPVA’s ‘business partner’, who, if faced with a massive increase in rental costs, may look to relocate their work elsewhere. This is particularly likely to happen if the rumours are true, and it is the case that HP (EDS) currently only pay a peppercorn rent for their occupancy of Kentigern House. This fact in itself is something of a scandal, if true, as it would allow HP(EDS) an unfair advantage in bidding for contract work, undercutting civil service employees and other commercial suppliers alike, and is singularly deserving of clarification from the Minister.

The MoD has failed to properly consult with PCS, the recognised Trade Union, and seem driven by short term desperation to plug a funding gap. This is unacceptable and urgent action is needed to halt the plans which are at a very advanced stage. The existing MoD budget must be utilised more efficiently as an alternative to wasting taxpayer’s money.

The Veterans Agency branch have written to MPs, MSPs and MEPs and urge all members to do so. A draft letter can be viewed and retrieved here. Please ammend and personalize for your particular location. You can easily send your representatives an electronic letter through writetothem .

The Freeze just got colder.

On top of the expected pay and pension freezes we now have an even bleaker prospect in the guise of a massive EU climate tax.

As reported in todays Daily Express, Families face a £541-a-year rise in household bills under EU plans to fund its budget through “eco taxes”.

Campaigners warn that both householders and industry would be hit by soaring energy costs as a result of Brussels levying a controversial tax on carbon emissions.
Researchers have discovered that the cost of the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme, introduced to reduce greenhouse gases, already costs every family in Britain £117.

But according to leaked EU Commission documents seen by the Daily Express, Brussels chiefs are planning to turn the ETS into a direct tax to fund the EU’s £110 billion-a-year budget.
To raise the UK’s current £16.4billion contribution to the EU budget through the ETS would mean increasing the burden on British families from £117 to £658 – an increase of £541. Public spending campaigners warned that even if the EU raised only part of its bloated budget from ETS, it would still prompt large increases in household energy bills.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “The EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme is a stealth tax that already imposes large costs on ordinary consumers.