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Revised Service Hours in Jobcentre Plus

21 July 2010

For the last year Jobcentre Plus has been piloting a variety of different opening hours for its Job Centres, BDC's and Contact Centres. In the light of these pilots management have announced their proposals for changing Jobcentre Plus' service hours. PCS has been consulted on these changes but has not agreed them.

Job Centres

All Job Centres with either 50 or more staff, or more than 1,800 JSA claimants, will be expected to open at 8.30 every morning. Between 8.30 am and 9.00 am these Job Centres will only offer an appointments-only service. The full service will run, as now, from 9.00 am to 5.00pm. 400 Job Centres will fall into this bracket – around half of the total network. Smaller Job Centres will continue with their current opening hours of 9.00 am to 5.00pm. Management intend to have rolled these new opening times out by the end of October 2010.

In addition District managers will be able to open any Job Centres between 5 pm and 6 pm, offering an appointments only service. This should not be a permanent feature but more of an ad hoc response to local business demands, such as a large redundancy.

Benefit Delivery Centres

Management intend to continue opening until 8 pm in the 15 BDC’s that are currently open until 8 pm. At present they do not intend extending late opening to other BDC’s. While management see late opening in BDC’s as part of their future business model, the current restraints on recruitment and spending prevent any further expansion of this now.

There are 279 staff currently working until 8 pm in the 15 BDC’s (around 200 Full time equivalents). Management have announced their intention to maintain this resource to ensure late opening continues. This could include extending the contracts of FTA staff in the BDC’s where late opening is being run, though a business case would have to be agreed at national level to allow this.


Contact Centres

CCD will continue to pilot opening the First Contact service line until 8.00 pm. This was begun some months ago in Marton Mere and is now being extended to Bridgend and Newcastle contact centres, with around 12 staff required on each site. This pilot is being extended to test the impact on customer demand for late opening by advertising the extended service on Directgov. This pilot will be evaluated at the end of September.

Saturday Opening

Apart from the limited Saturday opening that has existed for some time in CCD, and which is also being reviewed, management have no plans to include Saturdays as part of the standard opening hours for Jobcentre Plus. Districts will however retain the flexibility to use Saturday opening as a contingency measure for exceptional circumstances.

Impact on Staff

In Job Centres the impact of offering an appointments only service between 8.30 and 9.00 will vary across the country. Management have set no national steer on the number or types of appointments that should be offered in Job Centres during this period. This will be a local decision for District management to decide in consultation with their District TUS. Management have made it clear that opening Job Centres at 8.30 will not mean that all staff have to be at work for 8.30 am. Instead the number of appointments booked should be restricted to take account of the number of staff who are available from 8.30 am.

We believe that many members in Job Centres will welcome the opportunity to start work earlier, and therefore leave work earlier too. The sensible operation of the Flexible Working Hours scheme in CSD should enable sufficient volunteers to be present from 8.30am to conduct the required appointments, while also ensuring cover is there towards the end of the day. However this will need to be carefully monitored by local PCS reps to ensure management do not attempt to pressurise members into changing their working hours.

In BDC’s there should be little change in the short term as management are effectively doing no more than maintaining the existing pilot teams. Staff on standard contracts who volunteered to have a temporary change of contract for the pilot have the right to revert to their standard hours. Many of the other staff have been recruited on specific terms, generally FTA’s working from 4 pm to 8pm. However there are other staff who have been compelled to work until 8pm by invoking the 8 to 8 clause in their contract. In CCD management have said that they will seek volunteers on the pilot sites to work until 8pm. However if this is unsuccessful they have indicated that they will consider invoking the 8 to 8 clause for staff with ‘flexible’ contracts.


Flexible Contracts

In recent months large numbers of staff have been recruited on so-called ‘flexible’ contracts. These contracts include a clause on working any work pattern between 8 am and 8 pm on Monday to Friday. Management’s view is that, with just 4 weeks’ notice, they can move these staff onto any work pattern within the 8 am and 8 pm window. While management say that individual circumstances will always be considered this does not amount to any guarantee that they will be taken into account.

While PCS welcomes the decision not to open every Job Centre from 8.30 am until 6pm, and the rejection of large-scale Saturday opening, we are very concerned that members may be pressurised or compelled into changing their work pattern as a result of these changes. While Jobcentre Plus have assured PCS that no one will have a change to their contract as a result of the new opening hours, it is clear that the introduction of so-called ’flexible’ contracts have effectively given management excessive authority to change members’ work patterns with or without their consent. Experience from the pilot areas, particularly in BDC’s opening until 8pm, has shown that members with caring responsibilities face great difficulty meeting these responsibilities when made to work until 8pm.


No Customer Demand

PCS also does not accept the need to introduce revised service hours into Jobcentre Plus. At a time when resources are being cut and many members, in particular FTA members, face losing their jobs in the following months we believe that management should prioritise protecting members’ jobs rather than extending opening hours to meet a non-existent customer demand for extended opening hours.


Conclusion

As management move to implement these changes, members with concerns on what this may mean for them should raise their concerns through their local PCS reps. Branch reps should also engage as soon as possible with local management to ensure there is full consultation at the appropriate level on how revised service hours are implemented in their area.

PCS is committed to providing the maximum support possible for members, especially those facing problems with caring responsibilities. Reps should raise any problems and concerns on these issues with group office through branch secretaries. While we welcome opportunities for members who genuinely volunteer to work different working pattern, PCS will continue to campaign against further extensions to Jobcentre Plus’ opening hours that lead to enforced changes to members working patterns.
 

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