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

 At UC, Ryscar House, the line managers have chosen to use an excel spreadsheet rather than the official DWP Team Planning Tool to try and match people’s preferences for the tentpoles before members input onto the TPT. This must be commonplace in large areas.

However rather than then having team meetings if the percentages aren’t met and gaining a team agreement to cover the tentpoles, the preferences were amended by the management and we were told to put the details that were no longer our preferences as if they were our preferences on the TPT.

This appears to be a way of avoiding the team meeting stage and also means that the Equality act and caring arrangements aren’t considered.

The question is do we have a right to say that we don’t want to complete any excel spreadsheet and that we want to use the DWP’s official form –  the Team Planning Tool to input our preferences in line with official DWP policy and procedure?

Answer

 The TPT should be used but we have no principled objections to teams developing other tools as long as they follow the principles of team discussions and allow for equality considerations to be made.