Public and Commercial Services Union

Members can contact the membership records team at PCS HQ if they have any queries regarding their membership or subscriptions on 020 7801 2670/2680 alternatively email Membership@pcs.org.uk

Subscription rates

Most ordinary PCS members pay their subscriptions as 0.6% of their basic pay each month via ‘check off’ – i.e. directly shown each month on their payslip. This 0.6% is subject to a monthly maximum that is normally revised each January.

Your local representative or membership records can tell you whether your employer deducts Union subscriptions from salary.

If check off is not available the member can complete a direct debit form. We request that member’s then complete the correct application form.

Members will pay a reduced rate by direct debit if the employer does not recognise the union (i.e. we do not negotiate on pay and conditions.

If a member wishes to pay by direct debit even though deduction from salary is available, then they will pay the subscriptions maximum set by the union.

Members who are on a ‘casual’ or ‘fixed term contract’, or are an 'employment agency worker', will be given six months' free membership without paying subscriptions. You should ensure the box showing your work status is ticked.

Our practice has been that members’ are only entitled to one free membership period.

Members who work seasonal periods may also be on a reduced rate. You will need to contact membership records to arrange this.

Any member paying via check off who thinks they are paying the wrong rate should contact their pay and personnel/human resources department in the first instance. Members paying via direct debit should contact membership records.

Subscriptions for associate members are different. You should contact your local representative or email our associate and retired members association via secretary@arms-pcs.org.uk for more details.

Keeping us informed

If you change employing body (department/agency/company etc) or your workplace, you should notify membership records so we can change your details and ensure you receive correct ballot papers and other union materials.

If you pay by direct debit, please notify us as we do not have any way of identifying where you work.

If you pay by check off and your new pay centre does not pick up your deductions we will send a change of employer form to the you and ask that after completion you return it to membership records to authorise deductions from your new pay centre.

A change of employer may be the reason why you would receive a missed payment letter from HQ.

  PCS change of employer form

If you change the amount of hours you work this will be adjusted pro rata if you pay by check off.

If you pay by direct debit and work for a currently unrecognised employer, you will have to contact membership records to have your subscriptions adjusted.

There is no reduced rate for members working in recognised areas who pay via direct debit.

You should also contact membership records if you change home address. All members must (a requirement in law and in the PCS constitution) register a ‘ballot address’ with PCS.

This is where you will receive statutory ballots and publication like PCS View magazine. You can choose this to be your home address or work address (you will have to supply a work address in writing to comply with legislation [TULR(C)1992 S24(5))].

To amend your ballot address you can either:

1) Make the change yourself via the website. Login and select ‘my membership’ (if you have not logged on before you will need to register beforehand), the change can be made through the ‘My addresses’ tab.

2) Contact our membership department: -

• by post to - Membership Department, PCS, 160 Falcon Road, London, SW11 2LN
• by telephone - 020 7801 2670/2680
• by e-mail - membership@pcs.org.uk
• or fax - 020 7801 2690

3) Complete the change of ballot address form and return to our membership department

  Change of ballot address form

Waived subscriptions

Members who are on unpaid parental or carers leave, career breaks or reduced/nil pay through sick absence, can have their subscriptions waived by contacting membership records.

During the period that your subscriptions are waived, as well as receiving regular PCS material (such as View magazine) membership records will write to you every six months to ensure our records are correct.

  Subscription waiver form

Cancelling subscriptions

If you are thinking about leaving PCS we would really like to know your reason why. It may be simply that you are retiring or have taken a job with an employer where PCS does not organise.

If it is for any other reason, we would like an opportunity to address your concerns and convince you to stay.

If you still wish to cancel your union subscriptions you must contact your pay and personnel/human resources department and instruct them to stop taking deductions by giving at least one months notice in writing or if paying by direct debit cancel with your bank.

It is your responsibility to check this and you should also contact membership records.

If you have not notified membership records to be removed from our database at the same time, you will be ‘lapsed’ after three months if we have not received any monies from your pay centre or bank.

  Cancellation of union subscriptions

Refunds

If you believe you have paid higher subscriptions than you should have, you can apply for a refund.

However, we ask that members observe the above requests for information to keep us up to date with your circumstances and locations.R

Refunds are only likely to be agreed where PCS HQ, your pay centre or bank has made an error.

Your local representatives can also help you with any of these tasks. You can also check the information we hold on you by accessing the ‘My membership’ pages via the members section of this website. To do this you first need to register and create a login.

Lapsing procedures

To ensure our records are up-to-date we monitor the payment of subscriptions from our members. Our present procedures were introduced late in 2004 and were published to branches via BB/66/04.

Members who have missed one payment receive an automated letter that is a friendly enquiry as to the reasons.

In many instances it may be that the person has retired, gone on maternity leave or a career break or moved job.

Members, hopefully use the opportunity to let membership records know the reason so their central records can be updated.

Where there is no response and a second payment is missed the branch secretary is sent a report.

This is intended to prompt the branch to contact the member to address any problems about continuing their membership and remind them about action required under supplementary rule 3.16, if necessary.

We hope that information supplied from branches would lead to our records being updated.

There will still be some members who will be subsequently lapsed once a third payment is missed. These members are written to again informing them of the fact and outlining they can appeal within fourteen days

Lapsing is done on a continuous basis whenever we receive and process a subscriptions tape from an employer or paysource.

Branches can access their own information at any time via the my membership section (you will need to log in first) of this website or by contacting membership records or their bargaining unit/regional office.

The available reports cover those who have missed two payments or who have been lapsed.

This continuing process ensures that our central records only hold current records for ordinary members who are paying subscriptions or where we have been notified of a waiver.

It builds in a number of checks and automated communications to identify errors. It results in us being confident we have a fully accurate count of our actual membership.