Public and Commercial Services Union

PCS members face increasing threats from the Governments' programme of privatisation and outsourcing.

It is PCS policy to oppose all privatisation of civil service functions. We do not believe these functions transfer well to the private sector, or are performed more efficiently by private companies.

The terms and conditions of staff transferred to private companies are often worse than those within the civil service.

Protecting public services

PCS will always argue that the function in question should be remain in-house.

If necessary, we will mount a national campaign to ensure this.

At the same time, PCS representatives will negotiate hard to ensure that should the transfer go ahead our members ' terms, conditions and job security are as protected as possible.

Campaigning against privatisation

PCS has great experience of campaigning against privatisation and protecting members interests before, during and after a transfer.

This toolkit is to help PCS representatives. It includes:

• Privatisation, an introduction
• The private sector option
• How to protect jobs and conditions
• An in-house bid
• The bidding process
• Key questions for contractors
• Protecting members
• Annex A: “Good practice for managing the people consequences of outsourcing and privatisation”
• Annex B: TUPE
• Annex C: A two tier workforce
• Useful contacts