You are:

Annual report

 

 

Foreward

Welcome to our union’s annual report for 2009 – a year dominated by the economic crisis and bailout of the banks.

As a means of dealing with the deficit in the public finances, all the main political parties proposed cuts in public spending following the forthcoming general election. Most sections of the media perpetuated the myth that the only way to deal with the crisis was to make massive cuts.

We argued consistently that there was an alternative to damaging public spending cuts: dealing with the £130 billion of uncollected, evaded and avoided taxes.

It was against this backdrop that 2009 ended with the prospect of national industrial action commencing early in 2010 over the government’s attack on the civil service compensation scheme (CSCS).

The Cabinet Office published formal proposals to amend the CSCS in July 2009, which were not agreed with PCS and which if implemented would cause detriment to hundreds of thousands of our members in either a voluntary or compulsory redundancy situation.

We saw this as an attempt to pave the way for job cuts on the cheap. And our consultation exercise with members over the proposed changes returned a resounding call for a ballot on industrial action should the government press ahead with implementing unagreed changes.

Defence of the CSCS will be a major priority in 2010, not just to protect members’ terms and conditions, but as a means of defending jobs.

During 2009 we also tested out the national agreement on pay reached with the government in 2008 but were disappointed to find it proved unsatisfactory, resulting in no extra money being converted from efficiency savings into additional pay.

While bankers continued to benefit from taxpayers’ money, in many cases our members were expected to accept a pay freeze or real terms cut. The campaign to press for fair and equal pay will continue in 2010. More than 200 equal pay claims in the DVLA were progressed and we hope to have positive results on these in 2010.

We continued to pursue other equalities issues during the year and to press for proper implementation of equality impact assessments by departments reorganising work and cutting jobs and services.

Our successful Make Your Vote Count campaign was active in local, European and two parliamentary by-elections and this work will continue around the 2010 general election. At the same time, in line with decisions taken at our 2009 annual conference, we are consulting branches on their views about political representation, in circumstances when all candidates in elections stand for cutting jobs and services.

The year also saw the rise of the far right, and the election of two BNP Euro MPs gave confidence to racist thugs who disgracefully mounted demonstrations at mosques and in town centres in an attempt to whip up racial hatred and xenophobia.

PCS can be proud of our involvement in counter demonstrations, including outside the BBC when the corporation made a grave error of judgement in allowing a fascist onto Question Time.

Overall, 2009 was another very busy year for our union as we continued to campaign, organise and negotiate to defend jobs, services, terms and conditions. We held well attended anti-privatisation forums to help provide reps with information and skills to use in the ongoing fight against privatisation and we maintained our membership levels despite job losses.

At home our parliamentary group was active on behalf of members and continued to grow in size and influence. Our international work also increased and both the general secretary and deputy general secretary were involved in delegations to Palestine.

The most important element of all our work in 2009 was the dedication shown by reps at all levels battling with difficult management, and we would like to thank them for all the work they do for our members.

It is because we are led by our members and have such hard working, committed reps and activists that we are such a strong, vibrant union. We will need all that strength and more to face the challenges that will arise in 2010.

Mark Serwotka                                                 Janice Godrich

General Secretary                                            President

Civil service compensation scheme

The Cabinet Office published formal proposals to amend the civil service compensation scheme on 31 July 2009. The proposals were considered by our national executive (NEC) and rejected. The NEC agreed that members’ existing entitlements and accrued rights should be defended and that we should seek a negotiated settlement on that basis.

The Cabinet Office launched a formal consultation which ended on 5 October. During this period more than 9,000 individual PCS members copied us into their responses. The Cabinet Office received 18,000 responses in total.

We organised a series of regional briefings for reps and these were followed by workplace members’ meetings that were attended by more than 35,000 members, making this the largest ever consultation exercise the union has carried out.

While these consultations were taking place we also sought extensive legal and technical advice in case a legal challenge through a judicial review was necessary.

Broken promises

At a meeting with ministers on 22 September we were told that Cabinet Office officials would be instructed to meet the unions to reach an agreement. However, no meaningful meetings took place and, in fact, four were cancelled without explanation. It appeared to us that senior officials had undermined the ministerial commitment to talks.

On 4 December the Cabinet Office published what was described as the government’s final decision. No response had been received from either the minister or the Cabinet Office to the unions’ representations. The Cabinet Office claimed it had made changes to the proposals to protect the lowest paid.

Our NEC decided to launch legal action and to hold a national ballot early in 2010. At the time of writing, preparations were being made for industrial action with the aim of securing a negotiated agreement which would protect members’ rights. The employer had offered further talks, but an agreement was not imminent.

Meanwhile, we continued to support members who were challenging aspects of the current CSCS which we believe ran counter to the provisions of the age discrimination regulations. A number of cases were heard at employment tribunal during 2009 which resulted in the tapering provisions on early retirement being declared unlawful. Other cases, particularly in relation to those over 60, were also being pursued.

Protecting public services

The financial crisis led to calls for ever more savage cuts that would put the future existence of vital public services at risk. It was also being used by the major corporate contractors to press their demands for all service delivery to be contracted out. In 2009 PCS stepped up our anti-privatisation campaigning to both defend individual public services and functions from outsourcing, and to make the broader case that public services should be delivered for public need not private profit.

Despite the obvious failings of the private sector to deliver better quality public services, the 2009 operational efficiency programme (OEP) – released the day before the April 2009 budget – detailed the areas within the civil service to be sold off.

The OEP also made clear that many public bodies faced either outright privatisation or the imposition of commercial models to prepare the way for eventual privatisation. These areas included the Royal Mint, the Land Registry, the Met Office, Ordnance Survey, the Defence Storage and Distribution Agency, the Defence Vetting Agency, and the UK Hydrographic Office.

The OEP, expanded in the December 2009 ‘Smarter government’ white paper and the pre-budget report, confirmed the fears expressed at our 2009 conference that the government would seek to impose a heavy burden on ordinary workers and the public sector in particular, to pay for a crisis not of our making while City bankers continued to pay themselves massive bonuses.

Not for private profit

Our campaign was stepped up in June with a very successful national privatisation forum. This was followed by a series of regional privatisation forums in November and December in Cardiff, Leeds, Birmingham and Belfast, with plans to run further forums in Glasgow, Exeter and Peterborough early in 2010.

The initiative focused on supporting specific campaigns, such as the defence of the Land Registry, and on arming members and branches to challenge the policies of all the major political parties which favour the privatisation of public services.

The forums supported members and activists to engage local politicians and media and forge campaigning links with other public sector trade unions in every locality. This was intended to build on the success of our union’s national campaigning profile and use the Make Your Vote Count campaign to focus on the extent to which candidates supported the retention of public services in the public sector.

We also worked jointly with the European Federation of Public Service Trade Unions and supported the campaign to promote universally accessible public services delivered by public servants throughout the EU.

We want justice

PCS worked with other unions in specific sectors to protect public services. In the justice sector we played a central role via the justice forum, comprising representatives from PCS, Napo, POA, Unison and the Police Federation.

Work done over the year included activities with the justice unions’ and the family courts unions’ parliamentary groups. The justice forum held a successful special seminar in June on ‘Crime and the recession: implications for resources and workloads’, bringing together campaigning organisations and academics.

We continued to use every opportunity to oppose the outsourcing of the minimum wage compliance advice helpline. We took the matter to the TUC and Labour Party conferences, and have lobbied at those levels for the work to be kept within the public sector, and for Gordon Brown to honour the pledge for a 50% increase in compliance officers which is essential to protect vulnerable workers.

No one forced out

The protocol agreement between the Cabinet Office and the Council of Civil Service Unions to avoid compulsory redundancies continued to protect members.

Since it was signed in April 2008, following negotiations resulting from pressure from industrial action in our national campaign, no PCS member who wanted to continue working in the civil service or non-departmental public body has faced compulsory redundancy.

Announced redundancies at the UK Council for Education and Skills had to be withdrawn to comply with the agreement.

PCS in Scotland

The Calman Commission recommendations for devolving further powers to Scotland and the debate around a referendum on independence have implications for all members in Scotland. A new national executive sub-committee will consider these challenges.

Members in the Scottish government and Scottish sector bargaining areas continue to be protected by a no compulsory redundancy guarantee until March 2011. However, Scottish ministers are now pursuing an ‘affordability review’, threatening widespread cuts of up to 7%.

We are building pressure through our Scottish living wage campaign and our Scottish parliamentary group of MSPs continues to raise our profile. We ran a successful Make Your Vote Count campaign around the Glasgow North East by-election and have been actively involved in counter protests to the far right Scottish Defence League.

Our youth and black members’ networks are growing, and foundation work is underway to build women’s and disabled members’ networks. Learning is benefiting from successful bids to the European social fund.

PCS in Wales

The year saw new fronts opened in the fight to defend PCS members’ jobs in Wales, with the Royal Mint threatened with privatisation and Land Registry facing job cuts and outsourcing.

We campaigned and lobbied against these, including a PCS motion carried unanimously at Wales TUC, but could not prevent the Mint from being vested as a government-owned company – a potential staging post to privatisation. At Wales TUC Siân Wiblin become its vice president and Revenue and Customs activist Mags Davies was named rep of the year.

In November we published research by Glamorgan University that revealed one in four civil servants in Wales have experienced workplace bullying.

We also held a joint privatisation forum with Cardiff University, with headline speeches by Mark Serwotka and Welsh Assembly health minister Edwina Hart.

We maintained our high political profile throughout the year and our assembly cross-party group recruited four more members, bringing the total to 17.5

Pay

In 2009 our hopes for improving members’ pay were undermined when the agreement reached with the Cabinet Office in late 2008 proved unsatisfactory.

Talks with the Cabinet Office about pay reform and coherence made no real progress in the early months of the year, and there was a serious delay by the Treasury in issuing the annual pay remit guidance. This guidance, which shapes the pay offers departments and agencies can make, was only available in early April and contained very restrictive arrangements for the use of efficiency savings for pay improvement.

Our conference in May noted that, having tested the national agreement in negotiations, there had been widespread refusal by management to make bids for converting efficiency savings into pay, and agreed this was an unacceptable failure to honour the agreements reached.

The conference instructed our national executive (NEC) to write to ministers, the cabinet secretary, all permanent secretaries, chief executives or equivalents, including for non-departmental public bodies, informing them that we believed they had failed to honour the agreement on pay, and these letters were sent in July.

Guidance was issued to our negotiators that stressed the need to recover losses in real pay values from the previous three years, when inflation was often 4% or 5%, and basic pay rises were 2% or less.

No to bonus culture

The guidance also covered other issues, including the need for a minimum cash underpin amount to help protect lower paid members – given the evidence that those in poorer households tended to experience higher than average inflation – and the need to abolish bonus payments and convert them into permanent, consolidated pay rises.

Also, motion A25 at our 2009 annual conference focused on attacking the big bonus culture, particularly in the senior civil service, and parliamentary questions were put to find out how much individuals received.

We took every opportunity to rebut the myths about bonuses as they became a frequent feature of media coverage during 2009.

Busting the myths

The 2009 pay bargaining round also proved difficult and unpredictable because inflation (retail prices index) fell from 5% in mid 2008 to zero by February 2009 and continued in minus figures during most of the year. This pattern was reflected in new 2009 pay offers with many members receiving no basic pay increase at all, and others receiving increases of less than 1% or 1.5%.

There were also other consequences of the economic recession which PCS was determined to counter. Myths had quickly grown, encouraged by some in the media and the political world, about the better level of pay and pensions in the public sector compared with the private sector.

Our NEC agreed these inaccuracies must be challenged, and one aspect of this work was an independent report we commissioned into how civil service pay compared with other parts of the public, private and finance sectors. The main findings were:

  • That most pay levels in the civil service were low in comparison to pay outside for equivalent jobs, by an average of £5,000
  • That the process determined by Treasury for handling civil service pay had forced down pay rates over a period of time in comparison to those elsewhere.

We publicised the report and other statistics about low pay and low pension values in the public sector at a press conference in September.

Will pay freezes set in?

A ‘bidding war’ between the government and the Tories over strict controls on public sector pay broke out in October. On 5 October, the government announced a freeze on all senior salaries basic pay awards (except the senior military), and a pay cap/freeze of zero to 1% basic awards for all other public sector employees, unless a multi-year deal was in place for 2010.

On 6 October, the shadow chancellor announced at Conservative Party conference that, if elected, the Tories would have a complete public sector pay freeze in 2011 for everyone earning £18,000 or more.

The government’s announcement meant the civil service could lose out to a greater extent than other public sector groups, as a majority in the civil service do not have a multi-year deal in place. We protested about this at meetings with ministers and senior officials and further detail was expected as this report was written. The policy established in conference motion A26 about opposing pay freezes, and liaising with other unions, was being pursued.

In relation to motion A25, more detailed briefings on pay for members were being prepared. Motion A115 on improving the handling of recovery when salary overpayments occurred, was being pursued at national level.

Low and unequal pay

Our standard pay claim included a UK-wide minimum rate of £8.25 an hour. Motion A28 on London pay was partly taken forward by the campaign for a London living wage. Bargaining groups were being consulted about handling PCS claims for a London pay differential of £4,500 in future years. In Scotland, a similar campaign for a Scottish living wage was ongoing.

Our main equal pay activity focused on more than 200 Department for Transport cases – for members employed in the DVLA – which had significant implications as they sought to challenge the pattern of separate pay bargaining across departments and agencies. The 23-day hearing was due to be completed by mid-December and a decision was expected in the early months of 2010.

On age discrimination, 1,100 claims were submitted from six different areas. These cases were likely to be very complicated, with the legal argument focusing on whether and when the cases were referred to Europe. A week-long hearing set for April 2010 will examine this issue.

We were also seeking to challenge any evidence of discrimination by gender, ethnicity, disability, age, sexuality or other factors, in the data about performance assessment marks, which often have an impact on pay awards. A series of cases of this type had been put to the Equality and Human Rights Commission for investigation.

We were also pursuing conference motion A46 to improve the approach to equality-checking pay proposals, and updated guidance for negotiations was being considered.

The question of seeking a standard 365-day pay calculation method was to be pursued in further talks on pay coherence.

Pensions

We sought to raise the profile of pensions with political parties and others when good quality pension schemes came under attack. And we will continue to raise these issues in the run-up to the general election in 2010.

As part of our ongoing campaign we submitted evidence to the TUC prior to the publication of a leaflet published in September 2009 entitled ‘TUC explodes public sector pension myths’. We have also worked with other campaigning organisations such as the National Pensioners’ Convention (NPC) and the Public Services Pensioners’ Council.

Motion A64 at our 2009 annual conference called on our national executive (NEC) to aim to have unpaid periods of maternity leave regarded as continuous for pension purposes. This was being considered by the Council of Civil Service Unions in the context of revised governance arrangements, the future valuation of the civil service scheme and what might be possible to negotiate in the current climate.

Private and state

We have been vigilant in cases where members have been transferred to the private sector. Our officers have been advised to ensure they are involved before transfer and that pension issues are resolved at an early stage. The fair deal in its revised form has greatly assisted in this and has been publicised throughout the union. We continued to provide actuarial and legal support to our negotiators.

We responded to consultations about government reforms of the state pension system. As well as affiliating to the NPC we have provided financial support for its important policy and campaigning activities.

We supported a number of public events organised by the convention and will be actively supporting a major trade union and NPC joint campaign in April 2010, involving a march and rally, drawing attention to the need to safeguard the welfare state and protect public services.

Review of civil service pensions

On 18 November the Cabinet Office announced the results of a review of how civil service pensions will be delivered in future. It has been agreed that a new delivery organisation, hosted by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), will provide a full range of services to all members of the principal civil service pension scheme (PCSPS).

This is an issue which has a direct impact on every member working within the APACs and CSPD of the Cabinet Office and pensioners’ payroll. It will ultimately affect all PCS members in the PCSPS who expect to see a good quality service in protecting and administering their pensions.

For its part, our NEC set up a PCS structure to cope with the change and is in regular dialogue at national level, involving departmental representatives, to take the project forward.

Associate and retired members

Our associate and retired members section (ARMs) continued with its fundamental review of its relationship with other structures of the union. We also published four issues of the ARMs Newsletter during the year. The newsletter is now circulated to every PCS branch.

ARMs continued to play a full and active part in the NPC. At the pensioners’ parliament, with our campaigns team and DWP group, we had a display on the theme of protecting public services and hosted a small reception to draw attention to our jobs and services campaign.

The 2009 ARMs forum was held in Blackpool in June. A summary was included in the ARMs Newsletter and on the PCS website. Many of our ARMs members continued to show a tremendous amount of commitment to our work and campaigns.

Health and safety

Work in 2009 focused on preventative strategies to ensure workplaces at all levels are safer, healthier and protect members’ well-being.

We reached an agreement with the Cabinet Office on its health and well-being framework which aimed to improve the health and well-being of members and incorporate this into change programmes and training.

Worryingly though, research into bullying and harassment of civil servants working in Wales revealed over a quarter were bullied. We will continue to press for senior management to tackle this problem to ensure dignity at work and that anti-bullying policies are in place, as well as ensuring adequate training for managers, supervisors and safety representatives.

We achieved a hard-won legal success early in 2009 by securing rights for those on long-term sickness absence to accrue annual leave and to be entitled to take it upon return to work.

Prompt negotiations with government led to agreed arrangements and advice to civil service departments that sickness absences due to swine flu were not to be counted towards sick leave totals.

Keep members safe

In July, the findings of Rita Donaghy’s independent inquiry into the construction sector opened the door to a TUC-led, and PCS-supported, lobby calling for a new health and safety duty on directors to make them more accountable for their action/lack of action. Unfortunately, this did not appear in the legislative programme for 2009/2010.

We campaigned for the extension of the Gangmasters’ Licensing Authority (GLA) remit to incorporate all vulnerable workers, whether migrant or casual and sought support for early day motion 1366. We worked with GLA management and others such as Oxfam to raise awareness of the issues.

We progressed conference 2009 motions on acoustic shock, office lighting controls and work-related stress (A33–35 respectively) and devised guidance on indoor environment and facilities issues for safety reps and negotiators.

Once again a PCS delegation attended the Hazards conference which we supported financially. We responded nationally and in support of our members in the Health and Safety Executive to its consultations on its future strategy, its single equality scheme and restructure of its nuclear division.

Other issues covered by our national health and safety forum included: countering employer attacks on safety reps’ rights to time off to undertake their duties and have training; investigating health and safety issues regarding the use of the Tetra-Airwave system, in liaison with other trade unions; responding nationally to the Workers’ Memorial Day consultation; and gathering information on the introduction of software applications.

Equality

In 2008 a new equality and diversity strategy for the civil service was launched. Last year we continued to work in partnership with the Cabinet Office and other civil service unions to develop guidance and to monitor and support government departments and agencies in making progress towards creating equality of opportunity for all staff and improving representation at senior levels.

The consequences of the economic recession and government policies on job cuts and relocation, including more stringent sickness absence policies and attacks on conditions of service, had a disproportionate impact on many women, black, disabled workers.

We continued to challenge these inequalities, to brief and train negotiators on legal obligations to undertake equality impact assessments and to hold employers and ministers to account.

Fight the far right

The electoral success and profile of parties of the far right has continued to be an issue of concern and discussions have been held with senior civil servants in line with annual conference motion A71 about banning members of such organisations from working in the public sector. These discussions were continuing with the aim of establishing clear policy and guidance in advance of the general election.

PCS members were at the forefront of campaigning against the far right around the local and European elections through our regionally-based Make Your Vote Count campaign. We worked in the community in partnership with organisations including Unite Against Fascism, Searchlight and Love Music Hate Racism to expose the threats posed by parties of the far right. Many local activities involved PCS members, including three national days of anti-fascist action.

We launched a Love Music Hate Racism film and threw our weight behind a carnival in Stoke. The campaign also joined with other activity on May Day, involved union learning reps, worked with existing equality groups and networks and brought together a diverse range of people.

However, the election of two BNP members to the European parliament and its leader’s appearance on BBC Question Time demonstrated a significant shift in the political situation in the UK. The growth of the far right and mainstreaming of the BNP on a flagship political programme will increase fascist confidence and we expect an increase in hate crime as a result.

PCS, along with other trade unions, wrote to the director general of the BBC to lodge concerns that the corporation had made a serious error of judgement in inviting a fascist onto the programme.

Equality in law

Lobbying and campaigning also continued around the government’s equality bill which aims to introduce a consistent framework of legal rights on equality.

Our concerns focused on areas where we believed the law should be strengthened including the need for mandatory equal pay audits, recognition for the role of trade union equality reps and a stronger legal duty to promote equality and prevent discrimination through equality impact assessments.

The bill is also intended to require public sector bodies to have regard to equality considerations when contracting out services and we have been lobbying to ensure that religious organisations who are awarded contracts are not exempt from discrimination laws.

The PCS equality reps project continued in the pilot areas of the north west region and Department for Work and Pensions group, aiming to identify, develop and train equality reps in every branch.

The project has been well received but it has been clear from the outset that equality reps need to be supported by paid time off to carry out their duties. After a review of the pilots, the intention will be to roll out an equality reps programme across all parts of the union.

Representation for black members

We have also been active in seeking to improve the representation of black members in union elected posts and on committees, and our project aimed at tackling under representation is now into its third year. This project has focused on setting up networks for black members at regional level as a supportive mechanism towards becoming more active within the union.

Steady progress has been made in this area against a backdrop of job cuts and employer restrictions on time off, and subject to conference endorsement, it is intended that regional networks should form the democratic basis of a policy forum for black members in 2010.

Our national black members’ forum has reviewed the progress made 10 years after the publication of the report into the death of Stephen Lawrence, and highlighted the issues that still need to be addressed in tackling institutional racism.

The forum has also campaigned to raise awareness and funds for the family of Jay Abatan, a former PCS member who died following a racially motivated attack and whose killers have yet to be brought to justice.

Our union also led a campaign to highlight the civil liberties concerns about the disproportionate number of black people who have their DNA recorded on the DNA database who have not committed any crime. Currently 27% of the black population, including 77% of young black males have their DNA recorded compared to 10% of the white population. The campaign, ‘Hands off our DNA’ is ongoing.

Disability rights

The PCS disability forum continued to address the need for reasonable adjustments to be made within acceptable time limits and to promote the use of adjustment passports.

The issue of the withdrawal of access to work funding was a major campaign and PCS led the debate on this issue at the TUC conference. Plans are in hand to campaign to raise awareness and develop understanding of mental health issues and invisible disabilities.

Women together

Our women’s forum held a fringe meeting at annual conference and launched guidance on tackling domestic violence as a workplace issue.

Research was conducted into the issues faced by part-time workers and guidance on rights at work and negotiating good practice will follow.

A seminar was held on women and the impact of the recession and the forum was developing a programme of activity aimed at encouraging and supporting more women to take up union elected positions.

Proud to be united

PCS’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) group, Proud, took forward a review of the way it organises and provides support to LGBT members and branches were consulted.

A successful programme of training for LGBT reps was developed and extended and Proud was actively involved in anti-fascist campaigning and addressing hate crimes and homophobic attacks both in the UK and abroad.

A seminar entitled, ‘PCS: positive combined strength’, was held, forging links between the different equality groups and highlighting the need to work together to combat attacks from those who seek to exploit differences and divide society.

Gender balance

PCS rules require that delegates to TUC conferences elected at our annual delegate conference should reflect the proportion of women members, currently 60%. This table shows the target figures and actual outcomes of the elections held at conference in 2009.
 

Conference Delegates Target Actual
TUC 14 7 9
TUC women 8 8 8
TUC youth 3 2 1
STUC 9 5 4
STUC women 5 5 5
STUC youth 2 1 1
Wales TUC 6 4 2
Wales TUC women 2 2 2

 

Personnel policy

During 2009 personnel policy activity centred on defending members’ rights and well-being in a period of political and media attacks on public sector pay, conditions, jobs and services.

Government rhetoric about improving workers’ health, skills, engagement and well-being has not been matched by good management practices in civil service or commercial sector organisations. Rather, it is contradicted and undermined by Lean management techniques, job cuts and under resourced services.

Data such as that gathered by our online survey of members who work part-time, together with information from groups and branches, presented a picture of managers, staff and services that were finding it hard to meet the demands placed upon them.

We identified upheavals caused by constant reorganisation and continuous threats to resources. Shared services and outsourcing are replacing on-site welfare support services with remote and sometimes harder-to-access systems.

This time of change and uncertainty brought the defence of basic terms and conditions to the centre of the union’s agenda. PCS reps found themselves having to resist attacks on long accepted flexible working and sick leave arrangements and help members deal with the distress caused by job cuts, relocation and ever increasing workloads.

Lighten the load

Annual conference motion A621 sought to address the spread of unreasonable workloads in the commercial sector, but it was apparent that this problem was now affecting members in all organisations.

We achieved progress in some areas, such as a framework agreement on apprenticeships in the civil service and in applying the principles of our call centre charter with some employers.

Officers and reps across the union, from workplaces to national talks with the Cabinet Office, continued to present a consistent message that good conditions and good management practices were vital to creating a healthy, skilled and motivated workforce. Learning, green and equality reps were developing new channels of influence and practical help for members to complement our more established structures.

Negotiators continued to seek improvements to terms and conditions including those mandated by conference decision on disability absence and time off for fertility treatment, but in general the focus had to be on protection rather than improvement of contractual rights.

Delegated departmental structures and a lack of central personnel management authority at the Cabinet Office, together with the wide range of commercial sector organisations in which we now organise, meant that statements and charters agreed nationally must be reinforced with effective bargaining at all other levels in the union. Resources and materials to help negotiators achieve this will continue to be developed for the priority areas identified by the personnel policy forum.

Many voices were raised in the trade union movement and beyond calling for this period of change to be used to explore how good work can contribute to economic recovery and help people thrive in all aspects of their lives when the recession ends.

Our vision for positive well-being and good management based on robust evidence from respected research was part of this alternative approach to the future of work.

International

Our union’s international strategy continued through 2009 – reinforcing its commitment to fight for members’ and workers rights globally. We continued our overall aim to raise development awareness among PCS members via the international development learning fund access funding obtained from the TUC.

Palestine was a key theme at the 2009 annual and group conferences, with guest speakers from the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) and Sawt el-Amel. Conference motion A39 reaffirmed our union’s policy on Palestine and Gaza, and we continued to play a key role in the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) trade union advisory committee.

General secretary Mark Serwotka took part in a trade union delegation to Palestine and Israel between 13 and 20 June hosted by the PGFTU. The purpose of the visit was to build solidarity with fellow trade unionists and workers in the occupied territories, and specifically to follow up the policy agreed at our annual conference on supporting calls for a consumer boycott of Israeli goods from Palestinian trade union and civil organisations.

We are working closely with the PSC, TUC – which in 2009 also endorsed the TUC general council statement on Palestine and the Middle East – and other unions to take forward the boycott and disinvestment campaign.

More than one year on from the suffering in Gaza in December 2008, the union has supported national demonstrations and will continue to campaign for a free and independent Palestine.

Global justice

Conference motion A327 on the use of British airports by CIA aircrafts is being progressed through supporting existing Amnesty International and Stop the War Coalition campaigns against the practice of rendition.

We have been active in Europe through the European Federation of Public Services Unions (EPSU) and Public Services International (PSI), progressing social bargaining issues and legislative changes that affect PCS members.

The merger between PSI and EPSU European operations took place in June 2009 and we actively participated in the strategic review on how the organisation operates.

Groups also played a key part in ensuring PCS continued to be active and better represented across a wide range of areas, in particular taxation, air traffic control, driving standards and prisons overcrowding.

Activities undertaken under the international development learning fund project provided valuable experience when it came to bid for funding from the Department for International Development in November. We discussed with groups and forums particular issues, campaigns and activities they can get involved in which will be followed through by the development awareness fund bid.

Developing the link between public services and tax justice, we worked with War on Want on the ‘Global problems, public solutions’ theme for a properly resourced and fairly administered tax system to benefit the UK and globally.

The PCS/WoW union aid scheme provided funding for a project in Palestine to build the capacity of youth and other groups to engage in the boycott, disinvestment and sanctions campaign. The scheme has its own charity number with a separate trustee board scheme.

Commercial sector

In 2009 Siemens lost a contract to Barclays Bank which resulted in more than 400 members losing their jobs. On the whole more than 2,000 compulsory redundancies and pay freezes affecting a majority of our members strained industrial relations, stretched our resources and put our activists under massive pressure.

It was a reminder of how difficult it can be to organise in the commercial sector and why we needed to strengthen our activities in this area knowing the challenges which lay ahead.

Despite the scale of the challenges we faced the whole of the commercial sector team pulled together and we went on to deliver notable successes during 2009.

We saved thousands of jobs and broke through some proposed pay freezes by campaigning in the workplace and the media. We prevented the off-shoring of public sector work by HM Revenue and Customs and Capgemini. We balloted in support of strike action, something we have rarely been able to do in the past. This was a sign of the growing confidence and strength of PCS in the commercial sector.

Recognition breakthrough

We improved union recognition in major companies including Capita and Balfour Beatty, and gained recognition for many standard contract staff in Fujitsu which was a real breakthrough in the growing and competitive IT industry, one with little trade union tradition. We negotiated collective bargaining for our members in ISS.

We secured national learning agreements with Fujitsu and Balfour Beatty and created a network of more than 40 union learning reps in the commercial sector. There were none 18 months ago.

We recruited new activists in many employers and raised membership density in Balfour Beatty and Atos Origin.

We were the first union to reach a ‘concordat’ agreement with the eight major IT companies in the UK which we aim to implement in 2010.

We also secured a joint understanding with IT Skills to help improved access to skills training for members in the future.

We held our most effective annual forum in Brighton, introducing motions, elections and a higher level of participation than ever before.

We finished the year having completed the commercial sector review which created new structures, a radically different communications strategy, improved our external profile nationally and internationally and laid the foundations for a better, stronger commercial sector.

By the end of the year we were no longer just a sector but a fully functioning part of PCS and an effective union in the private sector.

Social and economic

In 2009 PCS led the way in denouncing all attempts by the government both to undermine public services and make low paid public sector workers pay the price for the deficit in government finances. Our delegation at the TUC spoke repeatedly on these points. As well as seconding the motion on public services, PCS spoke in the debate on the financial crisis and other related debates.

This generated an increase in press interest and a platform for the union to speak up for the public service workforce. We continued to press the case and initiated campaigning work through the TUC and through our parliamentary group.

Welfare not workfare

We led opposition to the government’s welfare reform bill and made a major contribution to the TUC’s ongoing work on welfare, particularly in relation to privatisation, the declining real value of benefit levels, and the need to expand guaranteed jobs for school and college leavers.

We argued the case that the government’s job guarantees and minor concessions on the national minimum wage (NMW) for apprentices were still completely inadequate and continued to expose attempts to exploit young people or claimants by forcing them to undertake unpaid work.

Despite the high profile of our campaign, the welfare reform bill passed into law but the early and consistent warnings we made about the implications of the Freud review were borne out by its author switching sides and preparing the Tory policy to introduce full scale workfare, based on the US model, starting with a plan to force all long term unemployed jobseekers under 25 to take work at levels far below the NMW.

Fair and just taxes

Throughout 2009 we took forward the issue of tax justice. In press releases and speeches, meetings, parliamentary events and at annual conference, tax justice as an alternative to public sector cuts was put forcefully onto the political agenda.

Domestically we argued against cuts and closures in HM Revenue and Customs and called for more resources to close the tax gap, estimated at over £100 billion. We argued for wealthy individuals and companies to be taxed properly and pushed forward the idea of an anti-avoidance principle together with a Tobin, or transaction, tax to plug the public deficit.

Our international committee worked on issues of tax justice around tax havens and we worked with the Tax Justice Network and War on Want to link up the issues of public spending with the need for tax justice.

In 2010 we will continue to argue that there is an alternative to slash and burn in the welfare state and public sector – tax justice and a reverse of the job cuts in HMRC.

Campaigns and organising

Work was ongoing to take forward the recommendations in our national organising strategy 2009. A full progress report will be provided in the 2010 strategy.

In particular we have seen good progress in increasing the number of workplace distributors and in working with groups to develop their organising action plans. Membership was holding up well and showing a slight increase on the December 2008 figures. We will continue to link our recruitment message to the PCS campaigning approach.

A strategy to inform our work in ‘greenfield’ sites was being developed and part of that was the development of a toolkit. The main area of greenfield work in 2009 was the campaign to recruit and organise in Mitie and win recognition. Talks were taking place with the employer.

We reviewed membership and organisation among cleaners, messengers and security staff in the civil service and non-departmental public bodies that have been privatised. This included our support and related grades section and the London Living Wage campaign. A meeting was due to be held early in 2010 to review progress.

We are now also actively engaging with the Cabinet office to pursue a national framework agreement for call centres and have encouraged groups to set up call centre forums, something that was taken up by a number of groups.

Future of the union

Our young members’ network continued to grow and develop campaigning work around the young members’ charter. Group young members’ structures played a key role in bringing specific campaigns to the fore.

The national young members' committee developed an organising strategy and delivered successful training events across the country. The network encouraged a significant number of young members to participate in campaigning for improved rights and conditions for call centre workers and was actively involved in PCS initiatives around learning, climate change, anti-fascism and promoting the PCS credit union, as well as working with the TUC on the trade unions and the national curriculum project.

In line with national policy we have encouraged groups to set up young members’ networks and this had been done very successfully in some cases.

A successful young members’ week was held again in 2009 around the theme ‘Young workers and recession’. The network was actively involved with the Youth Fight for Jobs campaign. Four PCS young members held elected positions on the steering committee and helped build attendance at the national demonstration in London in November which attracted more than 1,000 young people.

A PCS young member won the TUC award for youth and the young members’ charter was reviewed and updated and will be relaunched early 2010.

Skills for life

The recommendations of the trade union education review were implemented and as part of that a new strategy for lay tutors was due to be launched in early 2010. We were also developing bite sized courses to be used by branches in their workplaces.

The review of lifelong learning was received and a strategy for implementation was being developed. A further bid was submitted to the union learning fund to support our work around the development of the union learning rep network.

In response to a conference motion on the victimisation of trade union reps we initiated a joint project with the Institute of Employment Rights. A detailed report, along with guidance for full-time officers and branches, was due to be produced in early 2010.

The provision of counselling services was discussed with the TUC. The PCS stress helpline number was to be relaunched and included in all personal case courses. Discussions were taking place with the provider to ensure it can meet the needs identified in the motion. A training course is now available and this will be part of the regional education programme, and bespoke courses for groups will also be provided on request. We were also in the process of developing written guidance for all reps on this issue.

A full report will be available for annual conference on the work being done around green issues and further information can be found on the green section.

A campaigning union

Pay, job cuts and changes to the civil service compensation scheme (CSCS) dominated PCS’s campaigns and communications in 2009. To support the campaign around changes to the CSCS the PCS campaigns team facilitated more than 1,000 workplace meetings – attended by in excess of 35,000 members – an MP letter-writing campaign, a successful parliamentary drop-in and a wide range of campaign literature. At the time of writing the campaign was ongoing.

Other campaigns ranged from working with PCS groups to other campaigning organisations, including:

  • Welfare reform bill – PCS led a coalition of more than 60 charity, non-governmental and campaigning organisations around issues raised in the bill, achieving significant concessions from the government
  • Maritime and Fisheries Agency – thanks to a sustained campaign, members transferring from the MFA to the Marine Management Organisation had their terms and conditions protected. Staff were also assured they will have access to the civil service-wide vacancies through the civil service gateway
  • English Heritage – we secured a better pay deal for members following our campaign and the threat of industrial action
  • Revenue and Customs’ Hand Off Our Tax offices (HOOT) campaign saw a mass lobby of parliament in February with more than 200 members lobbying over 100 MPs in response to a programme of more than 200 office closures, many of which have now been postponed. In March HMRC announced it would not go ahead with plans to privatise its existing in-house security after a series of days of campaigning action
  • Land Registry – there was an announcement in October that 1,500 jobs in the Land Registry would be at threat from cuts and privatisation. This included the closure of five offices. National press coverage was followed up with local lobbying of MPs, parliamentary group meetings with the minister and an online petition that received more than 2,500 signatures within one month. A mass lobby of parliament and the launch of our alternative vision for the Land Registry were planned for early 2010.
  • Borders, citizenship and immigration bill – we urged the secretary of state not to designate anyone other than civil servants to undertake immigration and customs functions, therefore safeguarding our members from privatisation
  • Forensic Science Service – PCS led opposition to the business transformation programme which would strip the organisation of skills, close three sites, stream work and lead to redundancies or forced relocations, and restructure the staff pay and reward systems
  • The National Archives – we developed a campaign against the 10% budget cut, which would see staff made redundant and displaced, the personal welfare service closed and a telephone helpline introduced, closing access to the reading rooms for the public one day a week. This involved working with archivists and trying to gain support from past participants of the BBC show 'Who do you think you are?'.

Make Your Vote Count

Building on the 2007 and 2008 campaigns, our Make Your Vote Count campaign for 2009 took our union’s concerns to candidates in the European and local elections. We challenged candidates from across the political spectrum, excluding the far right, by writing letters and organising candidates’ question time events.

While we did not recommend voting for any party or candidate, we used the campaign to increase awareness and understanding about the elections so everyone could make an informed choice.

In the last phase of the campaign we had more than 1,000 MYVC volunteers and co-ordinators. There were 4,282 visits to our MYVC web pages and 2,865 visits to the candidates’ responses pages. We had 117 responses to the online EU candidates' questionnaire and 412 people sent 6,003 emails to candidates. PCS hosted 34 candidates’ question time events across the UK in most major towns and cities.

In 2009 we ran the MYVC campaign in two by-elections, again attracting a large amount of publicity: in Norwich North on 23 July and in Glasgow North East on 12 November.

In 2010 we plan to consult members about the campaign and we will focus on the general election. The MYVC campaign has been an extremely useful way of challenging prospective candidates in elections on issues of importance to our members. We have encountered many situations where all candidates have the same views and are in favour of jobs being cut or privatised. In the coming year we will take forward the consultation on whether PCS would stand or support trade union candidates in elections in line with annual conference motion A72. A motion will be put to the 2010 conference by our national executive.

How we communicate

We celebrated PCS’s grassroots publications with the first branch communications awards. Nationally we continued to publish View for all PCS members, Activate for PCS’s activists and produced 22 different magazines for PCS’s groups and associations.

Our communications were recognised at this year’s prestigious TUC communications awards (previously TUC press and PR awards) where we won two of the seven awards – more than any other union. Although we have been frequently highly commended and commended this is the first time we have won an overall category since 2003.

Of the seven awards open to all trade unions PCS won: best feature, for our in-depth seven-page article arguing the case for better civil service pay; best website.

All the major unions enter the annual awards and PCS was the only union who submitted entries to all of the seven categories: best journal or magazine; best feature; best use of a photo or illustration; best one-off publication; best campaign; best website; and best use of electronic communication.

In the press and in parliament

We continued to cement our position as a leading union voice in the media, leading the debate around the growing UK tax gap, tackling job cuts in the public sector and proactively exposing media myths around the civil service. Across all media PCS was mentioned more than 12,000 times.

Our parliamentary group met five times over the year in addition to a series of drop-in briefings, meetings with ministers and a well attended annual parliamentary reception. We also held a second Northern Ireland reception for MPs at Westminster and our second official meeting with members of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

This was supported by successful fringe meetings on the future of public services at the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat party conferences, where our general secretary spoke alongside leading ministers and shadow ministers. Again we also had a presence at the Green Party conference.

Our union online

Following the successful relaunch of the PCS website in 2008, we continued to expand and build the site, adding a Twitter feed, the ability to submit conference motions online and a new Google-based search engine.

In addition we completed a website accessibility audit and set up a series of Facebook groups to support PCS’s campaigns.

PCS structures and services

The provision of quality legal advice and support for PCS reps on handling personal cases is a vital service that can improve conditions of members and the standing of the union in the workplace.

In 2009 we issued guides on many different aspects of personal case handling, including the ‘Law at work’ booklet – distributed to each branch annually – and the revised personal case folder. Branches received all Labour Research guides covering a range of employment law issues.

PCS reps could also access advice and guidance through the Resources section of the PCS website. This contained the various guides, details of training courses, and the employment law scheme with Thompsons solicitors where designated and trained union reps can directly access legal advice and support. A branch briefing summarising all these resources and the work of our legal and personal case department was issued to all branches and conference delegates.

We also continued to represent members, their partners and dependent children who had suffered personal injury at work and recovered substantial sums. A legal advice contact card for non-employment related advice was issued to each member with View in April.

Branch delegates at 2008 conference had called on our national executive (NEC) to examine arrangements with legal providers and in pursuit of this the NEC conducted a review of legal services that encompassed all aspects of support provided by us, plus the services and relationships with each of our legal advice suppliers.

A report of this will be published to branches and the 2010 annual conference. We established a legal telephone helpline for reps, and this was due to be advertised during early 2010.

Credit to our union

Work to establish a PCS credit union continued with a number of roadshows across the country during 2009, getting more members signed up and expressing interest in volunteering to run the credit union.

Detailed work preparing the case for presentation to the Financial Services Authority (FSA) was progressing well. A decision was due to be taken on the official launch date for the credit union in 2010 once the FSA gave authority.

Plus for PCS

Under the PCS+ badge, we continued to offer a range of membership services which were well received and used by members. These also provided a useful income through commissions and advertising.

Our annual ‘Essential guide’ was sent to members with the February edition of View magazine and to new members with their membership card. Copies of the current edition are available from branch secretaries. This guide sets out all the services and discounts available.

National executive committee attendance 2009

In accordance with PCS rule 7.22, this table shows the attendance record of national executive committee (NEC) members at meetings of the NEC and sub-committees between 1 January 2009 and 31 December 2009.

The figures in brackets show the number of occasions on which the members attended. Absence could be due to other urgent union business, sick leave or domestic leave.
 

NEC

Meetings Possible (actual)

Sub committees Possible (actual)
Janice Godrich 26 (24) 12 (11)
Dave Bean 26 (24) 8 (8)
Sue Bond 26 (26) 13 (13)
John McInally 26 (26) 19 (15)
Glenys Morris 26 (21) 8 (7)
Ian Albert 26 (22) 14 (7)
Mark Baker 26 (24) 7 (5)
Diane Breen 14 (9) 2 (1)
Alan Brown 26 (26) 9 (8)
Paula Brown 12 (12) 9 (1)
Christine Chorlton 14 (14) 3 (3)
Steve Comer 26 (14) 17 (3)
Tony Conway 26 (24) 8 (7)
Michael Derbyshire 12 (10) 4 (0)
Alan Dennis 26 (25) 8 (2)
Joy Dunn 26 (18) 9 (4)
Mary Ferguson 26 (18) 7 (0)
Derrick Gartshore 14 (13) 2 (1)
Cheryl Gedling 26 (26) 7 (7)
Kevin Greenway 26 (22) 7 (4)
Sam Hall 12 (12) 1 (1)
Zita Holbourne 26 (23) 11 (11)
John Jamieson 26 (17) 9 (7)
Emily Kelly 12 (11)   8 (6) 
Adam Khalif  26 (22) 6 (5) 
Neil Licence  26 (22)   12 (8)  
Marion Lloyd  26 (18)  12 (7) 
Dominic McFadden  26 (25)   15 (12)  
Kevin McHugh   26 (26)   17 (12) 
Lorna Merry 12 (11) 1 (1)
John Moffat  14 (1)   0 (0) 
Chris Morrison   26 (23)   7 (2) 
Andrew Reid  26 (25)   9 (7)  
Dave Richards  14 (6)   3 (1) 
Victoria Steeples  26 (25)   10 (8) 
Hector Wesley   26 (26)   12 (6) 
Jake Wilde  26 (11)   4 (0) 
Paul Williams  26 (24)   8 (2) 
Rob Williams  26 (22)   5 (1) 
Garry Winder  26 (20)   9 (4) 

Annual report PDF

The annual report is also available to download as a PDF

  Annual report

Related documents

  PCS financial report

Social Bookmarking

How to use social bookmarking