Last autumn the then shadow defence secretary, Liam Fox met with the MoD permanent under secretary, Bill Jeffrey. Reportedly, at the meeting Mr Fox demanded MoD draw up plans to cut 20,000 civil service jobs to be enacted upon the election of a Conservative government. At the same time it was reported that the Conservatives were planning a 25% reduction in defence spending – none of which is to come from reducing military numbers, but rather by sweeping cuts applied to the 89,300-strong workforce of civilian staff employed.After his autumn outburst, we wrote to Mr Fox giving him the facts on the civilian population in our department - MoD civilian numbers falling every single quarter from 109,050 in April 2004 to 85,730 in July 2009.
Now in post as our new defence secretary, it appears Mr Fox has chosen to ignore our letter and the views of the 45,000 workers in our department that our union represents. Today the Tory/Lib Dem coalition agreement, “Our programme for government” has been published. Although there is absolutely no detail of how this will happen, it claims “We will aim to reduce Ministry of Defence running costs by at least 25%“.
It is clear to our union that further cuts in numbers can only be achieved by halting outputs, as the department’s salami slicing is now unsustainable and threatens future defence programmes. Further major reductions are already in the pipeline, leaving some parts of the department at the point of collapse.
Our union will work with any politician and political party who truly believes in quality public services, however, our union is equally clear – real lives will be damaged, real people hurt and real communities devastated by cuts of these nature. Many of the civil servants that they arrogantly call ‘pen pushers’ have dedicated the whole of their working lives to defence and all of our staff make critical contributions to supporting the front line.
The PCS MoD group conference has just concluded in Brighton. There were several motions heard regarding the threats to our jobs, sites, communities, terms and conditions. We now have a very clear bargaining agenda for the coming period -
· To meet with MoD ministers and seek an agreement on a new redundancy and pre-redundancy process that reflects national agreements on job security and where possible improves on them.
· To demand a process to ensure people management issues are treated as a priority, are properly resourced and that TLBs work together to manage surplus staff area by area.
· To negotiate an agreement that ensures that the redeployment pool is properly managed so that it does not become a waiting room for redundancy.
· To ensure that any attempts to enforce mobility moves are resisted and to ensure that an agreement is negotiated to reflect this.
· To negotiate an agreement with the department that protects members from compulsory redundancy where their work is privatised.
· To ensure that all MoD proposals regarding cuts and privatisation are properly equality impact assessed.
· Publish a series of special reports in Defender and via members’ briefings setting out our position and highlighting the damage that further MoD civilian job cuts will do to the economy, to the department and to our members’ lives.
· To clearly set out at every level the case for civil servants and to call for a programme of civilianisation of jobs and a review of non deployable military personnel.
· To campaign to ensure greater accountability and scrutiny in respect of the equipment programme that currently spends billions of pounds some of which is better spent elsewhere.
· To campaign for an end to wasteful and failed privatisations.
· To fully support action that members want to take to defend their jobs and to develop and publish an industrial action strategy to lead the fight to protect jobs and communities.
This will not be an easy fight or an easy time to be a civil servant. However, the magnificent support from members who took three days of industrial action earlier this year, alongside the judicial review victory shows that where we stand together, we can win together.
Please show this circular to any non-members who you work alongside. Ask them to join our union. Only our union and the wider trade union movement will be fighting for public services from now on.
