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News from the GEC - March 2010

12 March 2010

The latest news from the GEC.

The Group Executive Committee (GEC) has negotiated several important assurances for staff so far in the 14 Benefit Delivery Centres (BDC) who were due to be compulsorily transferred into the Contact Centre Directorate (CCD). The GEC wants to thank all PCS members in the 14 BDCs for their support in regular local meetings. Their determination to take industrial action unless their concerns were met put a lot of pressure on management. This pressure made it possible to achieve these important assurances in a series of intensive and detailed talks with Jobcentre Plus (JCP) management. Talks continue to make enough improvements to end our dispute.

The GEC agreed that the assurances detailed below are welcome but not enough to end the dispute. It was agreed to keep campaigning and continue negotiating to secure more improvements to the inflexible working conditions in CCD and for the retention of processing work on the 14 BDC sites.

1) More Choice

Management have agreed that all staff in the 14 BDCs will be asked to choose whether they want to transfer into CCD or transfer to another post elsewhere in JCP. They will be asked to say where else they would prefer to work and, providing a vacancy can be found, they will be allowed to transfer into that vacancy. To help this process staff in other parts of JCP, who may prefer telephony work, will be asked to volunteer to transfer into CCD in order to create vacancies for staff from the BDCs.

Staff will be offered this choice in 1 to 1 meetings with management. Where the 1 to 1 meetings have already taken place the meeting will be reconvened. Until staff are asked it is impossible to say how many will not want to go to CCD. It may be a problem if there are not enough vacancies for people to transfer into but this could be achieved if management meet their staff’s concerns and make CCD a better place to work.

The fact that staff were originally treated like numbers and given no say about this transfer was one of the main reasons for the massive anger among PCS members. Staff now have the opportunity to formally make their preference clear and to make a real choice about their future.

2) A 6 Month review

Management have agreed that 6 months after staff transfer into CCD they will be offered a review of the transfer with their line manager. This will provide staff with a further opportunity to opt for a transfer out of CCD and to raise any other concerns they may have such as a need for reasonable work station adjustments, training issues, changes to work patterns etc.

3) Protection for AAs

Management have given PCS a guarantee that no AAs will be made surplus as a result of the transfer into CCD. They have acknowledged that there is not sufficient AA work in CCD for the 430 AAs who are due to transfer. They have therefore agreed to ensure that appropriately graded AA work is made available from elsewhere in JCP for the AA members to do after they have transferred into CCD.

4) Transfers

Management say that CCD and BDC’s have too many staff. PCS doesn’t accept this for one minute. Management are encouraging staff to apply for posts outside of CCD/BFD, particularly in Jobcentres which have vacancies that it is unable to fill through external recruitment. Management have confirmed that there is no block on transfer requests out of BFD or CCD. In addition management have confirmed that the rule that says staff must work in a new post for 18 months before being able to transfer to an alternative different post will not apply to the staff transferring from BFD into CCD.

5) Band D & E Grades

Management in Jobcentre Plus say they are confident that there will be sufficient roles for all the Band D and E staff who are in line to transfer into CCD. While the exact numbers have not yet been decided there is not expected to be any surpluses in these grades.

Still pressing for mixed sites and further improvements

A key demand of our campaign has been to persuade management to retain some processing work on all of the 14 BDC sites set to transfer into CCD. Management have so far refused to agree to this, even though it is widely recognised as beneficial to Jobcentre Plus to have the flexibility to move staff from telephony to processing and vice versa to cover periods when one side of the business is busier than others on the same site. PCS is also convinced that management have over-estimated the number of staff they need to transfer to CCD and that the total number of 5, 600 is much too high and needs to be reduced by allowing some of these staff to remain in BFD. The GEC will keep pressing in negotiations with management for mixed sites.

Contact centres campaign

As well as getting these assurances for staff in the 14 BDC’s the GEC is pressing for big improvements for staff already working in CCD. The GEC has consulted PCS reps from Contact Centres and agreed the key issues of concern to contact centre staff.

The GEC is pressing in talks for big improvements to all the policies including flexi time. Management have already agreed two improvements – to maximise the numbers of leave request granted and more “tolerance” for staff around breaks and lunchtime.

The talks are making good progress. Management want to improve CCD work to encourage staff from the 14 BDC’s to volunteer to transfer. They have agreed to run some short pilots to test more flexible ways of working.

The GEC will demand real improvements and an end to the harsh rules in contact centres. The GEC will hold workplace meetings to keep CCD members fully informed. 
 

  News from the GEC - March 2010

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