For those who could not make the meeting at the Briar Dene, here is a copy of the Chairs address to the AGM.I wonder if the crew of the Titanic felt time stretch out before them, if so then the approach into the iceberg and the subsequent wrecking of the ship probably felt a little like it feels to work in SPVA at the moment.
That slow, mad approach towards something that spells inevitable doom. The sound of metal tearing, like the sound of a once proud Agency being ripped apart. The main difference being that they didn’t have some maverick ship owner removing all the lifeboats, unlike our own maverick Government (present and, one can safely predict, future) ripping away public spending whilst keeping the greedy few afloat.
A time of doom and gloom and one feels as though the AMG want the Union to smooth the way to that iceberg by distracting the navigator, keeping everyone calm as they steer their insane course. Well, no. We shall be the warning horn, we shall be the hand that will try and turn the wheel. Will we succeed… I don’t honestly know.
Often the Chairs Address looks backwards over the last 12 months, but they only seem like a precursor for what is to come. Public Spending Cuts, pay caps, lack of staff, the compensation scheme attack continuing, attacks on our pensions and, for our own little corner of the devastation, an attempt to sell out the staff and pensioners to the lowest bidder. One Agency One Team is a Vichy term to try and soften the blow that they see as inevitable. We must come together, fight together and say with one voice, “No!”
Let us be clear Colleagues, for the third year running JPA has been viciously attacked by MPs of all parties and the National Audit Office have failed to sign our accounts off because of errors running to £268 million amongst other things. Yet our management claim we cannot look at taking JPA back in house because we do not have expertise. Lets face it, how much expertise would we need to make such a hash of things? Or do our senior managers have such a low view of us.
This is the same management who actually vocalised that they might consider giving the War Pension Scheme and AFCS under the interim contract to HP. That means they considered, against what I understand to be their own legal advice, handing your jobs over to that company without even bidding.
I would talk of the successes of the last year but more often than not they have been fire fighting victories, stopping attacks. The Branch has been inundated by personal cases from those personally caught in the downward spiral that is SPVA.
Is it all doom and gloom? Is there no glimmer of hope? Of course there is, we defeated the mad plans of the Agency in respect of Innsworth and we can defeat the new mad plans. By standing together in solidarity.
