Public and Commercial Services Union

Below is an exchange of letters between Susan Scholefield (the director general of human resources & corporate services) and PCS. The content of the letter is self-explanatory.

As a result of the department’s decision to impose the 2008 pay offer, and their disgraceful and arrogant decision to not seek third party assistance to help resolve the dispute, the PCS MoD group executive (GEC) will meet on Wednesday this week.

At our meeting we will consider how we take forward the emergency motion on pay passed at PCS MoD group conference on 18 May 2009.

This motion, unanimously supported at conference, commits PCS to:

• Continue to oppose the MoD pay offer and any imposed award.
• Examine all legal routes to challenge the cuts to consolidated pay. The GEC is instructed to take steps to ensure that legal test cases are lodged and that the legal position of every member is fully protected.
• Step up our campaigning activity and in particular ensure that MoD pay is on the agenda of the PCS parliamentary group and is raised with all MPs.
• To conduct a detailed consultation exercise with all branches on the next steps in the pay campaign. This should include face-to-face discussion with activists and meetings to gauge the mood of members.
• Publish the next steps in the campaign of opposition to these proposals in due course, and if possible link activity to proposed MoD job cuts.
• Ensure that MoD pay is raised by the national union in discussions with the Treasury and Cabinet office and that we continue to seek their intervention in MoD pay.
• That the next steps in our pay campaign compliment and are coherent with the PCS national pay campaign.
• The consultation exercise should include considering forms of action that members could be asked to take.

In the meantime members are urged to:

1. Sign the petition protesting about the pay cuts on the 10 Downing Street website (http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/MoDpaycuts/)
2. Protest to the secretary of state (please use this attached letter)
3. All members at E1 and E2 are urged to complete and send the letter from our union drafted by our lawyers.It is essential that every PCS member at E1 and E2 completes the letter and sends it to MoD. A copy must also be sent to PCS. To potentially protect your legal position you are urged to send the letter to your employer. The letter is available from our website and is also being mailed to every member with your copy of the Defender magazine.

A further pay update will be issued after the meeting of the GEC.

 

 

 

---

 

1st June 2009

Ms Susan Scholefield
Director General Human Resources & Corporate Services
Ministry of Defence
Main Building
Level 6 Zone D
London
SW1A 2HB

 

Dear Susan

2008 NON INDUSTRIAL PAY AWARD

Thank you for your letter of 27th May 2009.

PCS is extremely disappointed that the department is unwilling to enter into further talks on pay involving third party assistance. This option, and to be clear we have not asked for arbitration only assistance at this stage, seems to us to be both sensible and the best way forward in view of the abject failure of the internal process to resolve our dispute.

PCS believes that your decision to impose a pay offer so overwhelmingly rejected by thousands of our members represents yet another breach of the Procedural Framework for Collective Bargaining Pay by MoD. We therefore no longer consider ourselves bound by its terms.

We note that in your letter – and in both of the meetings that we have to date – that the department has failed to put forward one serious proposal to resolve our dispute. PCS would draw your attention to the letter from Sir Gus O’Donnelll sent to PCS on 1st December 2008 in which he states that department’s will use ‘all efforts’ to resolve disputes over pay. This commitment does clearly not extend to the Ministry of Defence.

Instead the department has seemingly decided to adopt a position of rebutting proposals put forward by PCS MoD and national negotiators that could form a basis for ending this dispute. Contrary to what is suggested in your letter PCS has made a number of proposals, all of which you have hastily rejected.

It is extremely regrettable that the department is not willing to look again at its proposals to cut the pay of the lowest paid staff in the department. Some of our members impacted earn £17,000 per year. They are rightly livid when they hear others describe them as “overpaid”.

MoD has a budget of over £30 Billion per annum. Our members will note the £100 Million MoD spent last year on contractors and agency staff. They will note the £50 Million spent last year by MoD on office furniture. They will be aware of the lavish pay, bonus and expenses packages enjoyed by MoD Ministers and other senior staff in the Department.

Our members rightly wonder why a tiny fraction of all of this money cannot be used to protect their pay. Our members are not even asking for a pay rise – they are merely asking you not to cut their pay and to protect their pension entitlement for their retirement.

Against that background it is a disgrace that the department has failed to put forward one idea to resolve our members concerns.

Finally, and again contrary to the statement in your letter, PCS has more than ‘two’ concerns about the imposed offer.

We have made clear to you our concerns about the impact of your proposals for our members working overseas and we have set out our concerns about how scale shortening has pushed many of our members back towards the pay minima.

We note that the Department “would like to continue to explore other ways of resolving the issues of concern to your members and we remain ready to continue discussions with you”.

PCS is happy to attend such talks but only on the basis that you give a commitment that at any future discussions the department actually has proposals to try to resolve the dispute. We do, of course, reserve our legal rights and those of our members.

Yours sincerely

 

 

Paul Barnsley
National Officer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Director General Human Resources & Corporate Services
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
Level 6 Zone D Main Building Whitehall LONDON SW1A 2HB
Telephone: 020 7218 6833 Fax: 020 7218 3371
Email: DGHRCS-group@mod.uk

D/DGHRCS/2/3/4 (124)

27 May 2009

By E-mail

 

Dear Paul

2008 NON INDUSTRIAL PAY AWARD

You met with PUS on 14 May, under paragraph 17 of the Procedural Framework for Collective Pay Bargaining, to discuss a possible way forward on the issues PCS has with the Department’s 2008 non-industrial pay award. Details of the award were set out in the formal offer sent to all three recognised Trades Unions in December 2008 and PCS balloted on them in April. You explained that PCS members have two major objections to the proposals: that the Department has not guaranteed the pay protection allowance will continue beyond 31 July 2011; and that, for members below the new Band E maxima, any expectation of being able to achieve the old maxima has been removed.

At the end of the meeting you said you felt that the Department had made no proposals to resolve this dispute and asked that we now proceed to the external stage of the dispute resolution process as provided for in paragraph 18 of the Procedural Framework for Collective Bargaining Pay. You asked that the dispute be referred to ACAS for arbitration.

However, in the discussions which you have had with me and then with PUS, we offered to provide greater assurance to your members who are in the pay protection group and to work with you before the next pay round to address the pay protection issue. While the remit guidance specifically precludes us from entering into any contractual commitment which extends beyond the expiry of the remit period (i.e. 31 July 2011) and we cannot therefore give any guarantee over how subsequent pay offers will be shaped, PUS made it clear at the meeting that we have no intention of cutting individual overall remuneration once the current award expires. In addition, we have already promised to look at those staff currently above the new maxima to determine whether there are any grounds for re-grading or a Market Skills Supplement. You yourselves recognised at the meeting that by 2011 the numbers of staff in receipt of the protected pay allowance could be very much reduced because of retirements, resignations, promotions and re-grading. But I doubt very much that the numbers will reduce to zero, and I am keen that we work with you and Prospect in the run up to the 2011 pay round to ensure that there is no detriment to those who remain above the Band E maxima.

The only proposal which you have put forward is that we should reinstate the previous maxima for all current employees. We cannot do that without undermining one of the key features of the award, which we had understood PCS to support, namely the shortening of the pay scales at Band E.

You also asked the Department to delay implementation of the May tranche of changes to the pay arrangements until July. PUS and I have both explained that we were not prepared to do so. The award is a complex package, agreed by Ministers and by the other Trades Unions. We cannot cherry-pick the best bits without the whole deal falling. I can confirm, therefore, that I have authorised PPPA to go ahead with the May changes which will be reflected in the pay statements staff will be receiving very soon.

PUS and I have considered carefully your proposal to invite ACAS to arbitrate. We have decided that we are not able to agree to this. The terms of arbitration would require both parties to abide by the arbitrator’s decision. The Department is simply not in a position to give such an undertaking. There is no more money available for this pay award and the remit we have relies on delivering the shorter pay scales. Furthermore, Prospect made clear that they could not agree to any form of external assistance which might lead to their members suffering a detriment in terms of pay, bearing in mind that Prospect members voted overwhelmingly in favour of the offer. We cannot therefore agree to be bound by arbitration on this matter.

Although arbitration is not acceptable, the Department would like to continue to explore other ways of resolving the issues of concern to your members and we remain ready to continue discussions with you to find a way of settling our differences and reaching agreement on what is overall an excellent pay award particularly in the current economic climate.

I am copying this letter to Bill Jeffrey, Heather Smith, Chris Dando, Steve Jary, Alan Grey, Rupert Holderness and Alan Dennis.

 

Yours Sincerely

Susan Scholefield