Supporting Young Members in R&C Group

For branches without one, we strongly encourage branch committees to co-opt a Young Members' Officer, as an interim step to a formal role. We also invite branches to send reps to a Young Members’ Event planned for 10/11 February 2024.

Giving Young Members a voice

We have almost 2,000 members in HMRC and VOA, who are currently under the age of 27. Despite this, in our branches we have just 12 branch Young Members Officers in HMRC Main and 1 branch Young Members Officer in the VOA. In addition, we haven’t been able to fill the majority of the seats on the Group Young Member's Advisory Committee, only half of our regions/nations have an HMRC Young Members' Convenor; and despite being the second largest department, we have only two HMRC young members on the National Young Members' Committee.

Considering that young members are the future of our union, there’s clearly much we can do to get our young members more involved in PCS.

What we can all do 

If you’re a young member (in PCS, that means under 27), and your branch doesn’t already have a Young Members' Officer, or some other form of young member representation, you should get in touch with your branch and express an interest in being co-opted to the branch committee (the rules allow branches to co-opt members to the local committee). We're strongly encouraging all branch committees to make sure that they give young members a real voice in the branch.

Young Members Officers event

As part of our programme of improving the voice for young members in HMRC, we are working with PCS’s organising department to pull together an event for branch Young Members' Officers aimed at providing the support and advice they need in raising the profile of young members in the office and helping to identify new bargaining objectives for this vital area of our membership.

The event is set to take place in Birmingham on 10/11 February 2024, ahead of next year’s peak period for annual general meetings; and we plan to invite each branch to send one or two young member representatives to take part. This will be an opportunity for representatives to discuss a number of things, including:

  • Looking at how young members are going to be setting the scene in terms of bargaining for the future
  • Looking at what successes we have had recently in terms of using action to win
  • Using the successes we’ve had to recruit
  • Educating young members on what they can do in their young member officer roles 
  • Educating young members in PCS’s structure, with a view to getting as many active in AGMs, writing motions, and looking to progress them to the Group Young Members' Advisory Committee, the Group Executive Committee and National Executive Committee as quickly as possible
  • Supporting Young Member Officers to see belonging to PCS as a chance to meet new people and socialise, and not just attending meetings
  • How we better communicate with young members (who may feel that the more traditional briefings are a bit outdated).

If you’re a young member, please think about getting more involved, and think about whether you’d like to play a part in the January event. 

More to follow!

We know from the engagement with the recent HMRC/VOA Pay Survey that there is much work to do (only around 2% of respondents to the survey were in the age categories solely populated with young members).

Please look out for more news about the 10/11 February event, and about how we’re planning to create a much bigger role for young PCS members in HMRC and VOA.