Public and Commercial Services Union

The Total Reward Statement (TRS) combines your salary with the benefits from your pension plus the worth of your annual leave and other items to give you a figure for your “total” reward.

Clearly the real intent behind giving you such information is to persuade you that things are better than your salary would suggest.

In 2010 the current Government wants pay increases to be limited to the range 0% to 1%. If elected, the Conservatives state they will introduce in 2011 a public sector wide pay freeze for all those earning over £18,000. We strongly suspect DfT in 2010 and 2011 will keep reminding you of your “total reward” even if your salary is frozen and inflation decreases your standard of living.

Aside from the propaganda of such statements, we have worries as to the data security.

Your data will be sent to a private company for processing and the TRS will be posted on the firm’s external website. This increases the risk of unauthorised access to your personal data. In discussions with DfT we have persuaded them to reduce the amount of data they will send to the company. They still insist though that even if you do not wish to view your own TRS they will still send your data to the company to produce such a statement.

DfT is also offering cash back and discounts on certain products. Even if you do not purchase these products data will be sent to the company.

The department’s position is set out below:

"Your Reward is an exclusive service, available to all DfT staff, to help them take advantage of a number of money saving offers with a wider choice and flexibility in the overall reward package. In particular, the Total Reward Statement (TRS) has been designed to help staff understand and appreciate the value of the employment package better.

We have appointed Benefex, a third party administrator, to process the personal data for Your Reward because they have been able to build a much more robust and value for money system than using an internal Shared Services application. The system has been fully accredited to the HMG security standards, which provides the same level of data protection as any other Government system.

We will only transfer data to Benefex which is required to populate the TRS, i.e. HR and payroll fields. The same data will be used for the TRS as it will for flexible benefits and Discounts and Cashback. None of the sensitive personal data such as date of birth, home address, national insurance number or bank account details will be passed to Benefex. Any other data required by suppliers will only be provided with the explicit consent of the member of staff. If a member of staff does not use any of the facilities, no additional data processing will take place, other than that used to populate the TRS and flexible benefits.

There is currently no opt out facility for Your Reward because we believe that we have a legitimate right to deliver this facility in pursuance of the employment contract. Nevertheless, staff should be aware that the consequences of opting out of Your Reward will be a potential loss of savings from the discounts and cashback and the flexible benefits."

If having read the department’s assurance you still don’t want your data used by a private company to produce a TRS, or you do not wish to access flexible benefits, discounts etc then please send the following email message to Louise White (Head of Pay in DfT(C)) at stuart.hood@dft.gsi.gov.uk. (You can use your work computer and cut and paste the text below).

Dear Stuart

I am writing to you as an individual Crown employee.

All staff within DfT will have access to a Total Reward Statement (TRS) if they wish.

Whilst no doubt many staff will welcome such a statement, I have no need for one. Such statements will be produced by a private company. To do this the company is being given my personal data which increases the risk of unauthorised access to my personal data. Further, the TRS will only be accessible via an external website which also increases the risk of unauthorised access to my personal data.

I do not wish my data to be processed for the purpose of a TRS. I do not wish the private company to have access to my data. Nor do I wish to have my details on this external website. Therefore, I would like a guarantee please that:

(a) my data will not be passed to the company;

(b) that they will not process my data to produce a TRS, and;

(c) that my data will not be on or accessible via the external website.

I understand that if I am opted out then I will not have access to any possible discounts and cashbacks offered under the flexible benefits scheme.

Up until now DfT have refused to allow staff to opt out of having their data sent to the private company. Any person sending the above e-mail to Stuart Hood will have read the department’s assurance, and will be made aware of the consequences of opting out. Given this we hope that DfT will respect your strongly held view as to how your data should be treated and allow you the opt out.