Civil Service Compensation Scheme

pcsfylde News

Background

The Cabinet Office has announced that it is pressing ahead with plans to cut civil service redundancy terms despite widespread condemnation of the proposals during the Cabinet Office consultation. The union’s national executive and national disputes committees have met to consider the appropriate response to these developments.

This briefing reports on the current position regarding civil service compensation scheme (CSCS) negotiations and the activity that now needs to be taken forward in branches and amongst members. This will include awareness raising amongst members and consultation with all branches over the summer period, starting from 15 August 2016.

Introduction

In February, the government opened a consultation on the Civil Service Compensation Scheme (CSCS) which proposed massive cuts to redundancy terms. PCS made a formal submission to these proposals and thousands of PCS members additionally made individual submissions. The Cabinet Office’s formal response to this consultation has now been published and was circulate to all members on 22 July. The response shows that the government’s plans remain broadly unchanged from its original proposals and means that for the majority of members the changes will equate to cuts in redundancy pay of at least around 30% and considerably more for many others. These detrimental changes affect all members working in the Civil Service and its related bodies, including those working in the devolved administrations, as well as some members in the private sector.

Negotiations

Immediately following the closure of the consultation, the Cabinet Office minister invited the civil service trade unions to engage in talks but only on the basis that certain pre-conditions were agreed, as follows:

  • That the CSCS terms will be reformed to produce significant savings;
  • That the tariff for calculating redundancy terms be reduced from one month to three weeks per year of service;
  • That the compulsory notice period to be reduced to three months;
  • That the limits for both VE and VR exits to be set at 15 months’ salary as opposed to 21 months;
  • That employer funded early access to unreduced pension to be available from age 55 (and then track 10 years behind state pension age).

The national trade union side (NTUC) subsequently met on 7 June 2016 to discuss the letter from the Cabinet Office. It became clear from the discussion that the FDA and Prospect were prepared to sign up to the terms for further talks. PCS said that, while it was clear that the unity with which the NTUC Unions had approached this matter so far was about to fracture, there were still further steps we could take in unison before that happened. PCS proposed that we write to the Cabinet Office:

  • Seeking an explanation as to how the Minister could be minded to amend the scheme if the Government has not yet reached a decision on what changes to make to the CS Compensation Scheme, or any changes to other Public Sector schemes
  • Requesting copies of the responses to the consultation, the analysis of those responses and an explanation of what it was contained within those responses that has drawn the Minister to his view
  • Requesting a full equality impact assessment of the proposed amendments to inform our discussions going forward
  • Pointing out that it was premature to conclude what the basis of a final Government position would look like and that it was illogical to conclude what the outcome of discussions will be before those discussions have taken place.
  • Confirming that we were happy to enter discussions with an open mind and with a view to reaching agreement

PCS circulated a draft to the other unions encapsulating these points on 10 June 2016.

On 13 June 2016, the FDA General Secretary Dave Penman wrote to the NTUC Secretary stating that the FDA would be responding to the Cabinet Office on their own. This was swiftly followed by a similar missive from Prospect on 14 June 2016.

Initially, the GMB indicated that they would be consulting their members on the issue but it was unclear earlier whether or not they would be prepared to sign up to the Cabinet Office’s terms. It has now been reported that they have accepted the pre-conditions, and joined the further talks, along with non-NTUC organisations, Unison and the Defence Police Federation.

The NEC agreed that our General Secretary will write to the General Secretaries of the trade unions which have accepted the government’s terms on CSCS talks calling for a unified approach to the issue based on opposition to the proposed changes.

Common approach with POA and Unite

We have been working with the POA and UNITE on a common approach. We responded to the Cabinet Office in the terms outlined in our initial draft for the NTUC, outlined above.

The Cabinet Office responded on 21 June 2016. The letter did not provide any answers to the issues we had raised. They simply reiterated their earlier position that talks would be conditional on Unions accepting their terms; and they said that an analysis of the consultation responses and the equality impacts would only be provided after further talks had taken place.

We responded to the Cabinet Office on 4 July 2016 stating:

  • Their letter did not provide any answers on the issues we had raised
  • Their assertion that information required to inform further talks would only be provided after those talks had taken place was bizarre
  • Our concerns over the way this exercise was being conducted led us to suspect that it was a sham
  • The unreasonable restrictions and illogical sequencing undermined the entire concept of free collective bargaining.
  • No justification had been provided for proceeding with the changes
  • All of this notwithstanding, we were prepared to engage in further talks with a view to seeking agreement; but we would do so unfettered

The Cabinet Office in turn responded on 8 July 2016 simply a restating their position on the CSCS. However, they have also now invited us to enter talks on the jobs protocols as changes may be proposed following any changes to the CSCS.

PCS, with the POA and Unite, will respond reiterating our position from 4 July 2016 and inviting the Cabinet Office to confirm whether they are prepared to engage with us. We will also confirm that we are prepared to enter talks on the protocols without prejudice to our position on the CSCS.

Campaign Plan

We have held exploratory discussions with the POA and UNITE on the possibility of a joined up campaign. We have provisionally agreed for consideration the broad basis of a joint campaign including:

  • Consultation exercises with our members and activists which:
    • provide organising opportunities to build support for the campaign
    • tests the willingness of members to take industrial action
    • identifies areas of leverage where we may be able to take a more targeted and sustained approach to any industrial campaign
    • tests our organisational readiness to take such action
  • A political lobbying exercise designed to build opposition to the changes

We have consistently called upon the TUC for a co-ordinated approach across the Trade Union movement to attacks on workers. In light of the latest developments, and following the meeting on the NEC, PCS will again write to the TUC General Secretary bringing our joint campaign with POA and UNITE to her attention, and again calling for public sector wide action.

Action for members

CSCS impacts directly on all members and non-members. Our campaign is an opportunity to get existing members involved in union activity and to recruit non-members. Ask members to get involved in activity by: