We are seeing attempts to undermine support for industrial action by the senior civil service. Please be careful with what they are putting out. It is meant to mislead you.The facts are clear. We are facing massive cuts and the changes to the CSCS are designed to make the cutting cheaper. This branch is aware that SPVA management are right now actively considering how to make 30% cuts! Cuts that could see over 300 job losses.
Key Messages
· The government is looking to save £500 million through cutting redundancy pay, based on the number of civil and public servants it has axed over the last three years. The union fears that the cuts to the scheme could lead to the government cutting up to 100,000 jobs on the cheap which will damage public services we all rely on.
· The changes are politically motivated, with the Prime Minister announcing the arbitrary figure of £500 million worth of savings out of the blue. The government want to appear to be penalising loyal civil and public servants and have refused to accept our suggestions which would allow the savings to be made whilst protecting the rights of existing members.
· The changes will see some staff robbed of up to a third of their entitlements if they are forced out of their jobs. Almost half of our members would not be protected by the proposals.
· The government have presented the changes as a ‘reform’ to end fat cat pay-offs for senior managers. In reality, the proposals threaten to strip many lower paid civil servants of their current entitlements to compensation in the event of redundancy.
· The government is guilty of double standards. They say they can do nothing about the multi-million payouts to fat cats in the city because contracts have to be honoured. Yet when it comes to their own workforce they are willing to tear up the rights of civil and public servants and change the law to do so.
· Civil and public servants work across the UK delivering services we all rely on, from the cradle to the grave. This includes Jobcentre staff, tax workers, coastguards, border agency officials, passport workers, court staff, driving test examiners, and museum and gallery staff working in national galleries.
· We believe MoD is now awaiting changes to the CSCS rather than working with us to manage the people consequences of its programme of arbitrary cuts. Incredibly, MoD is presently adopting a position of denying what is obvious to all staff in the department. It continues to pretend it is not in a pre redundancy situation – and it continues to refuse to sit down with PCS to plan how to manage surplus staff and to avoid redundancies.
· We have the ‘independent’ review of civil servants being carried out by Thatcher’s privatisation guru – the Grimstone reaper - who is looking for 10,000 immediate job cuts along with further opportunities to transfer MoD work and staff to the private sector and we have the forthcoming strategic defence review after the next election which promises even further reductions.
Read more here.
