Merry Christmas

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Some News

I awoke yesterday morning with the realisation that whatever I may like I cannot step away from the massive battle that my union, PCS, that I played a part in creating and building is facing. It is a fight for its life as the Tories try to financially crush us as they did with the NUM. So in the light of NEC decisions this week to suspend elections I am staying on to be part of the battle. People may have differences. Even comrades can take different angles to look at things, but one thing is clear we cannot afford to lose this fight and we all have to unite put any differences aside for the moment and ensure that we totally repel the real enemy. When that battle is won we can argue about policies and the direction that our union takes. But we will still be there to have those arguments and that is what is the most important thing to me. Forward to victory comrades. Our future is all in our hands.

Decent Jobs Week

The TUC are in town campaigning for decent jobs. Our BEC went down to support the Leicester event. See http://www.tuc.org.uk/events/decent-jobs-week for more details.


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CMG Leicester Meeting

PCS met with the Leicester Centre manager on 27 November 2014.  This is a brief overview of what we felt was a helpful and constructive meeting with

Staff Survey

This was only released earlier in the day and would cross over many of the issues. Management to examine results and meet again later.

 Annual Leave

We reported a few problems. The manager was surprised and will put a reminder out to apply some consistency  to decisions, for example, allowing two consecutive weeks in the summer except one Wednesday because the team was over its “ tolerance”. She was disappointed to hear this.

8-8 Saturdays

We had submitted questions as they wish to issue the letter announcing the start date. However, this will create a number of questions for Line Managers  who will not be able to respond until decisions are made . A separate meeting will be held with TUS in w/c 1 December to discuss the detail.

Safety Committee

No opposition and it was agreed that we would , for expediency, draft a constitution and send in some draft agenda items (already circulated to H&S leads). We wish to meet quickly . A meeting had been arranged with Cofely and requested that a PCS rep attend .

Attendance Management

Stress - We said we were disappointed that the stress awareness sessions agreed in September had not been delivered to EO & Line Managers. We said many absences could be avoided by early intervention and if a member of staff has the courage to say that they need help they should get it and complete the Stress Reduction Plan at the earliest opportunity.

Deep dive visit - No consultation locally , Regionally or Nationally , though the manager believed that there was agreement. Already escalated to each tier. We expressed concerns about the purpose of the visit saying it was outside the DWP policy, potentially outside the Data Protection Act and a DP Commissioner’s decision, and that it may breach trust between line managers and their team members. We supported her raising  managers’ awareness and helping to get the process right, but not necessarily delving into cases, particularly stressful ones, where members may be asked to revisit sensitive issues. We suggested if there was an issue it should be resolved locally.

Plan, Commit, Deliver

Already started on New Claims. We asked what value it added to the business and when staff are already stressed it may add to their concerns it not hitting their “PLEDGE”. TUS were invited to a delivery session.

TDA advert

TUS said it was run over too short a period that would exclude many off for half term, breaching Equality aims. Indeed there was no equality statement with the advert. We stated that training and support would be needed to deal with the many HR aspects. It would be sensible to avoid using TDA staff to cover on the more challenging teams. It was not considered to be a one off exercise and will be repeated in the future.

Playscheme

Letter still not issued despite being told it would be issued by 15/11/14. We pushed for this to be pursued.

Use of TU room

Work Services still “booking “the room. Possible room can be locked and keys available for TUS reps only? Further discussions to follow.

Reasonable Adjustment Passport

TUS recommended all staff with adjustments complete as a personal record and saving of business time . We agreed to forward to Management to discuss and consider. the link is attached . it was only issued via the Equality and Diversity site on the DWP intranet.

TUS requested the Equality and Diversity data for last year (2013-14) - performance ratings broken down by gender , working pattern , ethnicity , disability , age and grade.

Organisational changes announcement

We thanked the manager for taking our suggestions up and for the way she conducted the floor meetings. Members had fed back to reps that  the news was welcome and it had lifted some of the frustration around everything having arrears linked.

Disclosure of individuals’ working patterns via the template

TUS had received complaints that there was no need for that.

Central England Group Work Services Meeting

We met with CEG management on Friday 21 November 2014.
 
As you may have seen we were unhappy with a number of issues as outlined in our recent circular here.
 

The meeting was extremely productive .

The following was discussed .
 
Employee Relations – management accepted that they have not consulted on issues they should have done . We have agreed monthly meetings with them , either face to face or telekit. The first will be in December

Unipods  - They had been planning the introduction of Unipods since March and apologised for non consultation . Unlikely to be disbanded but they acknowledge the need for a bespoke DEA service , FULL upskilling of staff to cover the “Unipod Coach “following a robust skills analysis by line managers at 1;1, and a full evaluation of Unipod introduction and operation

35 Hour Jobsearch – They accepted this is not enforceable . It should not be embodied in KWO , nor should it form part of a Claimant Commitment

Busy Jobcentres – Risk assessments should have been carried out on all the new processes . They have requested examples where this has not been the case.

Hassle Factor – The document circulated was not commissioned by CEG management . Appropriate steps will be taken to address the unauthorised document.

Attendance Management – They stressed that CEG does not have its own policy and that national procedures must be followed . We gave examples of where this was not the case and have agreed to send more to the HRBP.We have suggested joint workshops on AM to which they agreed . They will come back to us

Must Improve Markings – They stated that again , there was not a CEG approach and the national criteria applies .

ESA Customers  - They have seen some of the threatening invite letters . These will be withdrawn and a more appropriate invitation will be used as the invitation to attend voluntary interviews

They will write out to managers on the issues we have raised and hopefully we will see a much improved attitude to both staff and claimants in Central England WSD

Leics & Northants Work Services Meeting

PCS met with management on Wednesday 19 November 2014 to discuss district issues.  This is a brief overview of some of the topics that we discussed.

While we did not agree on some issues, the meeting was constructive and helpful.

The district manager gave a presentation on the challenges facing the business and where we were heading.

We discussed the Unipod system and we made it clear that there was a lot of concern from staff about training and support.  Management agreed to ask every Work Coach if they had completed the advisor routeway and solution focussed approach and then ensure that any courses took place.  The dashboard would also be rolled out so that everyone had access to the support and guidance specific to each benefit.

We discussed ESA claimants and agreed that we need to ensure that we remain within the law.  We have concerns about claimants being told that interventions are mandatory when they are not and claimants being coerced to stop claiming ESA and claiming JSA instead.

We discussed staffing. We welcome promotion and development opportunities but the future staffing levels were very much unknown.

We clarified that leave levels over Christmas and New Year would be 18-25% with some flexibility as management recognised that there would be a higher need for staff in January when JSA claims peak rather than over the festive period when signing is suspended.

We had a number of outstanding health and safety issues but arranged a health and safety meeting as we ran out of time.

If you have any questions or want further details please get in touch.

PCS Midlands Meeting

A couple of our branch reps are in Birmingham to discuss issues affecting PCS as a whole in the Midlands. Guest speaker is the always inspiring Mark Serwotka.


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