Members have raised questions with the Branch on specific points. We have raised these with PCS DWP Group and have received answers, the details are published below:

Question 1:

Operational Hours.

The Employee Deal agreement, paragraph 24 (below) indicates that from October 2016 the DWP business lines will operate from 08:00 to 18:00.

24. “The Department intends to offer a service to customers along the following lines:
25. from October 2016, business lines will operate from 08:00 to 18:00 (or until 20:00 in CMG, which will reduce to 19:30 from January 2017) Monday to Friday; this means that teams will need to cover across 07.45 to 18:30, recognising that we need to provide a core service from 9am to 5pm (e.g. Jobcentres).”

However the details from the Pensions Fact sheet on the ED state:

“Operating hours: the business hours that colleagues will work between

We need to change our operating hours. From October 2016, our operating hours will be 7:45am to 6.30 pm, Monday to Friday.

 What will change for Pensions colleagues?

Our current operating hours vary across centres, between 7am and 6:30pm. From October 2016, they will be from 7:45am to 6:30pm.”

Will all operating hours across the DWP be 15 minutes before the business lines open and 30 minutes after they close?

 Answer 1:

The telephony opening hours will be 8.00 to 18.00.

If someone is expected to start taking calls from 8.00 they would be given a start time of 7.45 to ensure they had logged on etc and were ready to start taking calls from 8.00.

At the end of the day if a call over ran beyond 18.00 the members would be expected to complete the call and any after call work, rather than end it at 18.00. The window until 18.30 allows for the time to do this, so