MoD pays consultant £84k bonus

The Mail reports that a Ministry of Defence consultant has received an £84,000 bonus - as a reward for trying to save the "wasteful" department money.

The 'good performance' payment is, they say, enough to cover a year's pay for five squaddies in Iraq or Afghanistan. We are skeptical of that figure to say the least.

The £84,563 payout was apparently earned last year by a consultant hired by the MoD on a three-year contract to oversee the merger of two of the department's agencies.

The Mail is "outraged" and quotes others as finding this "disgusting". Of course, this pales in comparrison to the multi-million pound bonuses being paid to investment bankers with our money supposedly 'loaned' to support them... at around £45,000 from each of us! (If you want to work out the effect on you of that, estimate your likely lifespan and divide by £45,000 = how much a year you are losing from earnings, savings and pension to ensure that a wealthy minority are able to afford luxury for themselves and priveledge for their children.)

The Mail reports that just five years ago the biggest bonus in MoD was £14,340. The average bonus for senior fixed-term appointees - staff brought in from the private sector or civil servants seconded from other departments - was £31,890 in 2008-09, compared to £7,243 in 2004-05.

Read more: here.

MoD pay update 23

Pay petition

As part of our ongoing pay campaign in the Ministry of Defence, we asked members to sign a petition on the Number10.gov website asking “the Prime Minister to personally intervene to stop the Ministry of Defence from slashing the pay of their lowest paid workers.”

The petition closed on 14 October 2009 by which time over 1500 members had signed the petition. We have noted that it has taken over three months for a response to be delivered from the government, but those members that signed the petition should now have finally received an email response personally from the 10 Downing Street website.

The response (see it here) regrettably does nothing to try to resolve our dispute on pay, and instead merely restates the department’s position regarding the cut in pay and pensions of staff in the E1 and E2 Pay band.

The response is also misleading when it claims that “Everyone above the new pay band maxima has been given pay protection”. This is partly true, but this pay protection is only guaranteed for the duration of the pay award and effectively expires in July next year.

Our pay campaign therefore will now be stepped up and will continue until we have achieved fair pay for all of our members.

We continue to press the department to work with us to resolve the dispute on pay. This week PCS negotiators met with the Minister for the Armed Forces, Bill Rammell. He gave us an assurance that he would look into the ongoing dispute.

We very much welcome this and we have made clear to him that we believe a negotiated settlement is possible if the will exists to find an acceptable way forward. As ever we will keep members informed of any developments through regular updates and briefings.


Grievance Hearings

A number of members have contacted our union regarding the forthcoming pay grievance hearing, over 200 of our members have lodged a grievance and we encourage all members to attend their respective hearing.

We have agreed with the Department that all of the grievance hearings will be held in Main Building, London. They will take place on Friday 29th January 2010 and Tuesday 2nd February 2010. The hearings will be collective and will deal with a number of similar grievances at the same time.

PCS will provide full representation at these meetings by either Chris Dando or KC Jones. Members are not required to make representation but are encouraged to make any points they wish to those responsible for cutting their pay.

It is important to note that each of these grievances has been submitted under the recognised grievance procedure, therefore all travel and subsistence costs fall to the department and members intending to travel should ask their Line Manager to arrange payment of these costs.

In the meantime we are also preparing our test cases for Employment Tribunal (which will proceed if the department rejects our members’ grievances) and a case management discussion was held with a Tribunal chairman this week. Following this positive hearing we anticipate moving quickly to formal legal action once the grievance hearings have been held and the formal legal hearing is likely to be held in the Spring.

Winning justice for every member on pay remains our top priority and our dispute will continue and escalate until this is achieved.

HP Enterprise Preston - Industrial Action 22nd January

Members are advised that PCS members working for HP Enterprise Services, in Fulwood Preston will be taking strike action on Friday 22nd January and shall be picketing their workplace at Ground Floor, Fleming House, EDS Fulwood Court,1-4 Midgery Court, Fulwood, Preston PR2 9ZH.

Full details of the dispute can be seen here.

Alen Clifford, PCS Commercial Sector Organiser has invited any members from our branch able to join them on the picket line or otherwise pass by and show solidarity if possible during the day.

The branch has invited a representative from the Fulwood site to attend and speak at our AGM in February. Hopefully this will give us an opportunity to gain insight into what it is like to be a PCS member working for a multi-national for profit company.

Sickness Reporting in SPVA

The trade unions were informed yesterday that reporting of sickness was to be raised to second line management. Effectively meaning that E1's and E2's will have to report their sickness to their C2's, D's to their C1's. Unless you are certain E1's who have to report to a Director, or PA's who will have to report to the CE!

Anyway, whilst we were not consulted on this, we did suggest that it be trialled in the first instance. It seems that our advice might not have been taken.

Can we ask that you let us know how you feel about this change to sickness reporting either from the perspective of the reportee or from that of a manager having to deal with, potentially, a whole lot more work. You can use the comment function on the blog or contact us directly in the TU office of 63013 or 69081.

Political campaigning - Consultation with branches

Annual Delegate Conference 2009 carried motion A72 on political campaigning. The National executive committee (NEC) was instructed to consult branches on the question of supporting trade union candidates in elections, and on the question of PCS candidates standing in elections, and then report to ADC 2010. This page sets out the issues and asks branches to respond to the consultation.

Motion A72 noted that we had raised our campaigning issues with thousands of candidates in local and national elections through the Make Your Vote Count campaign. Conference went on to recognise the need to develop this approach further, particularly within the context of economic crisis and likely public spending cuts.

The proposal, set out in the motion, is whether we take the fight to defend members’ interests into the political arena by means of direct challenges to politicians who support attacks on public services and workers’ terms and conditions. This would be an extension of our existing campaigning work. The aim would be to make a difference for members, adding to the impact of our campaigns.

This is an important question and branches are urged to ensure it is discussed as widely as possible and then to answer the consultation questions. The responses will be used to inform a motion to ADC 2010 from the NEC. Any decisions taken by conference would be then put to the whole membership in a national ballot.

A. Under what circumstances would we stand or support candidates?

There are three main, broad considerations.

First, the circumstances under which we might stand or support a candidate are not ones which we would seek to manufacture, but are ones which on balance may seem to offer us an opportunity to take forward a particular campaign.

Secondly, we would stand or support a trade union candidate because none of the other candidates would support our campaigning aims over cuts, privatisation or other government policies.

Thirdly, we would look at national rather than local elections, i.e. a Westminster Parliament, European Parliament, Scottish Parliament or Welsh Assembly election. This would allow maximum publicity and resources to be focused on the campaign,particularly if it was a by-election.

B. Will the union stand in national elections in every constituency?

No. We do not envisage PCS standing or supporting candidates across the board, or regardless of the views of other candidates in a particular constituency. Our aim would be, as it is with our existing political work, to raise the profile of our campaigns over PCS members’ jobs, pay and public services and put pressure on politicians.

C. Would Make Your Vote Count continue?

Yes. MYVC has been a successful campaign and will continue to be the major element of our political campaigning, particularly in the 2010 General Election. Standing or supporting candidates would be a limited tactic to be adopted at later elections, a targeted weaponused under certain circumstances where there would be a direct benefit to a campaign or bargaining issue.

D. Would PCS support any political parties?

No. Our strength is based on an inclusive, member-led approach that continues to value our independence above all else. It is that which unites us. It was on that basis that members voted for the setting up of a Political Fund in 2005. Candidates would only be supported astrade unionists campaigning against cuts in jobs, services and working conditions.

Would standing or supporting candidates mean union subscriptions would go up?

No. The costs would be met from our existing Political Fund.

E. What about Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?

As stated above, we would look at standing or supporting candidates in national elections. These could include elections to the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly. In some of these elections proportional representation is used instead of the ‘first past the post’ voting used in Westminster elections and we would need to consider that in making decisions on when to stand.

Questions for branches

We are asking branches for their views on the principle of standing trade union candidates in elections. Such a tactic would be added to our armoury of campaigning weapons that we could use, when the circumstances were right, to advance that campaigning work.
Please send us your answers to the following questions:

1. Do you agree with the proposal that, to extend our campaigning over jobs, pay and public services, the union should consider supporting or standing trade union candidates in elections?

2. If yes, under what circumstances do you believe we should do so?

Please discuss the issues in your Branch. Then answer the consultation questions and respond but please ensure you are responding directly to the questions above.

You can respond directly to the branch by using the comments facility below,
or by post to PCS Room 6117 Nx. All comments will be correlated and forwarded to PCS headquarters.

Alternatively you can write directly to the General Secretary at the following address;
A72 Consultation, General Secretary’s Office, PCS, 160 Falcon Road, London, SW11 2LN
Or email to: A72consultation@pcs.org.uk

The deadline for receipt of responses is Tuesday 23 February 2010.
Political campaigning - Consultation with branches on ADC 2009 motion A72

Beware the Grimstone Reaper

Dear Colleagues,

Independent review of civilian staff - Beware the Grimstone Reaper

On 11th December 2009 our union issued a members briefing (MoD/MB/95/09) on the review of MoD civil servants announced in a letter to staff from the permanent under secretary, Bill Jeffrey.

Our union has long called for a sensible review of the work of civilian staff. We hoped that this review could help to put an end to the recent disgusting attacks on our members by discredited politicians in the media and elsewhere. We also hoped it would properly capture the value that every civil servant provides and take a strategic and coherent look at the work that our members do in support of defence.

At the meeting with the MoD finance director which took place shortly before Christmas we were dismayed to learn that Gerry Grimstone had been appointed to lead the review. Mr Grimstone was the Head of Margaret Thatcher’s privatisation unit and is currently the chairman of Standard Life Insurance and Candover Investments, the listed private equity house. Last year Gordon Brown appointed him to look at asset management under the Operational Efficiency Programme (OEP). The decision to privatise the Defence Storage and Distribution Agency (DSDA) was taken after it was ‘reviewed’ by the OEP team.

MoD is now inviting Mr Grimstone to examine the scope for ‘sourcing functions from other providers (such as the private and voluntary sector)’ where that provides ‘better value for money’ and to contractorise work currently done in house.

The Grimstone Reaper will be looking for a minimum of £180 Million of savings through cutting yet more civil service posts, but he is encouraged by MoD to look for additional reductions on top of this. This could equate to as many as 10,000 jobs being cut or privatised.

Whilst the review is also going to look at the distribution of tasks between military and civilian task the department has stated that manpower requirements for the military will be out of scope for the review. We presume this includes the thousands of non-deployable military staff doing jobs that should be done by civilian staff.

Our union therefore believes that this review lacks any credibility because it is starting from the point of seeking to cut our members’ jobs rather than to actually review the contribution and importance of the work that our members do. We believe that the department urgently needs to increase the number of civil servants and that a further significant round of cuts will be a disastrous mistake.

In addition to this we cannot have any confidence in those appointed to carry out the work – including those within MoD. These are the same people who disgracefully leaked the closure of RAF Cottismore to the media, meaning the first that staff knew about the closure announcement was from the radio and TV.

At the same time as MoD yet again seek to make savings by axing the jobs of the lowest paid the Guardian revealed that the Department’s equipment programme is forecast to waste £35 Billion. This is more than the entire annual budget of the department! The entire civil service costs just 9% of the MoD budget.

MoD still cannot tell us how many non-deployable military staff is employs. These employees cost many millions more to employ than civil servants and are doing work that in every other government department in Britain is done by civil servants, such as HR, admin, finance, commercial and clerical.

Our members in the last five years, when we have been fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, have continued to serve and to give of their best – despite MoD civilian numbers falling every single quarter from 109,050 in April 2004 to 80,000 by 2011.

We are dismayed and deeply angry at the plans being drawn up to cut yet more jobs. In a department already cut to the bone, further cuts will very quickly ensure the Ministry of Defence is not fit for purpose. Instead of supporting the front line as our members do so loyally and efficiently on a daily basis, we will no longer be able to give this support.

Our union is meeting the defence teams of both Labour and the Tories this month. We will seek to explain the work that our members do and appeal for a halt to the latest insane plan to cut civilian jobs. MoD could save £180 Million easily through reform of the equipment programme, through replacing military staff with civil servants or from coherent changes to acquisition plans. Instead it plans to throw more loyal staff onto the scrapheap.

Our union will fight to defend every job and respond to every attack on the work our members. We will ask members to consider all forms of action to defend jobs and we will stand up and fight for civilians in MoD and promote the work that they do. We appeal to MoD staff to join with us; help us fight the job slaughter and defend the vital role of MOD civilian staff.

The next period will be difficult and challenging, but standing together we can protect our jobs, our livelihoods and our communities.

Yours sincerely

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

PFI con-trick costs us all

The government and all opposition parties commitment to privatisation is putting schools, hospitals and the care of the vulnerable and elderly at risk—and it is costing us on average £8,400 each. Full details here.

The government’s Private Finance Initiative (PFI) scheme is the main way that it funds the building of new hospitals and schools.
A new study of 641 PFI projects by the GMB union reveals that we are locked into paying out £250 billon on PFI projects that are only worth £64 billion.

The PFI debt is equivalent to £8,400 per person who pays tax.
A regional breakdown shows that Scotland is making the biggest overall loss. It has debts of over £30 billion on PFI assets worth £6 billion. That is equivalent to a PFI bill of £12,000 for every taxpayer in the country.

Wales, meanwhile, has the biggest debt balloon. It owes more than six times the value of its PFI assets.

For the government, a key advantage of this method of privatisation is that the debt resulting from PFI projects does not appear on its public spending balance sheet.

It is obvious who else benefits from PFI—the private sector contractors, their shareholders and investors. Winners include big banks, accountancy firms, construction companies and private equity firms.

The losers are ordinary people.

Waste report - MoD

Members will be aware of a new wave of civilian job cuts being planned by MoD. We believe a minimum of 10,000 jobs are at risk. It is imperative therefore that we all play our part in countering the arguments by the main political parties that justifies their plans to slash our jobs.

The Guardian newspaper on 6 January reported that the MoD Equipment Programme is £35 billion over budget and five years behind schedule. This is the real waste that needs to be cut in MoD and our union believes that MoD can find many ways to make savings that do not involve yet another round of site closures and job cuts.

Our message regarding procurement is clearly having an impact.

Billions of pounds have been wasted by MoD with an over reliance on contracting out and privatising services. The Hadden Cave report released at the end of 2009 directly criticised the department’s obsession with privatisation and cuts. Our union is telling the government loud and clear that we are not prepared to sit back while members' jobs are cut and the vital services provided to the frontline are run into the ground.

We are now looking to build a dossier to support our messages of where savings could be made in the MoD. This will give all members the opportunity to report where they see real waste in the Department. The message we want to continue to get across is that the Government should not be looking to cut jobs and services but should improve efficiency by addressing the waste issue.

Examples might include high costs and delays for services supplied by contractors, expensive consultants and IT failures.

If you have any stories please feed them by email to wastereport@pcs.org.uk. All entries will be treated with the strictest of confidence.

Please help our union build our case and protect our jobs, sites and communities.

PCS pressure forces MoD U turn on sale of Kentigern House

As we go into what could be the most difficult year ever for MoD members, our union starts the New Year by welcoming the news that the department have done a complete U turn regarding the sale of Kentigern House in Glasgow.

Our union has campaigned from day one to have this sale stopped, as although it would have netted approximately £40m in the short term, the estimated cost to the taxpayer over the 20-year lease would have been in the region of £150m. Our union quite correctly pointed out that this was a complete waste of taxpayer’s money and another example of MoD’s irrational short term thinking.

Although our union was told there was nothing we could do to stop the sale going ahead, we campaigned on a number of fronts:

Members in both the PCS MoD and PCS EDS/Hewlett Packard branches in Kentigern House petitioned their local MP’s to stop the sale.

The PCS Scotland committee lobbied MSP’s, both in writing and in face-to-face meetings
The MoD GEC arranged via the PCS parliamentary group for parliamentary questions to be raised in Westminster concerning Kentigern House.

The MoD GEC members in Defence Estates have brought up the proposed sale at every opportunity in recent months.

The sale of Kentigern House was one of the main topics of discussion at the Make Your Vote Count (MYVC) hustings event for the recent Glasgow North by-election.

Our union is in absolutely no doubt that all of this campaigning work has put pressure on the Ministry of Defence.. Our union will continue to ensure that any further MoD proposals like this have true value for money for the taxpayer; if not, we will fight them vigorously.

In 2010, we face the continued national threat to our redundancy terms; we face £180M of job cuts as a result of the current spending round and plans (PR10)) and we face a general election with all mainstream parties seemingly on a path of public sector destruction and devastation.

Our union will continue to fight all of these threats. As we have seen with the proposed sale of Kentigern House, if members are up for the fight and if we campaign in a co-ordinated, determined manner we can and will win these battles ahead.

PS - The proposed sale of neighbourhood five in Abbeywood has also been cancelled as part of this decision.

Conference Season?

I know it is only January and the PCS Group and National Conferences take place in May, however, motions need to be written and members standing for the Group elections need to ensure their nominations and election statements are prepared in advance.

Full details of this and a timetable for MoD Group Elections and Conference can be seen at this link.