After the general election, 40,000 civil servants still face redundancy the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the largest civil service department. The biggest loss of jobs proposed is in London where 20 per cent of the workforce may go in the next year.
The PCS, the main civil
has done a sennice unlon, tremendous amount of lobbying in an attempt to defend DWP members jobs London.
Ken Livingstone, the Greater London DOUl Party and the South East Regional TUC have all called on the government to nalt this jobs massacre.
Blair shares the Tories' concept DWP 'Downsizing With Privatisation'. Although he denies he
wishes to privatise the
Jobcentreplus part of the
DWP, he ominously
how Jobseeker
reviewing
functions are delivered.
New Labour has already
sold off the remaining stateowned DWP buildings. It has support services.
It has squandered millions of pounds on projects by private computer companies to reduce people's chances of successfully claiming credits, child support and other allowances.
It has given other private companies (like Reed and Working Links) a taste for providing Jobseeker functions and making profits out of the unemployed by giving them civil servants' work.
In London, many local DWP offices have been closed, as the processing of benefit claims is sent to a few large understaffed centres or shipped out of the capital altogether to distant processing sites.
Incidents
Reports of incidents in
DWP offices have increased
markedly this year,
claimants become frustrated
with this system.
Civil servants are regularly
the victims of claimants.
wrath and surprising
number of claimants have
attempted to commit suicide Tunes
The government often says it only wants to cut backroom jobs.
But it also plans to devastate "frontlines' in Jobcentreplus (JCP) offices, thereby depriving jobseekers of the support of matching clerks and signing staff to help them to find jobs.
Parliamentary Select Committees investigating the Pension Service and Child Support Agency have recognised that these parts of the their objectives with less stati and have recommended no further job cuts there at this time.
The government's reforms to the DWP are particularly problematic for some of the people it claims it is doing most to help.
Claimants of Incapacity benefit or with language difficulties suffer through the loss of services at local offices.
Lone parents working for
the DWP find it extremely
difficult to transfer offices if
their work is centralised elsewhere. severely impact the employment ethnic minorities as they make up a large proportion of the DWP worktorce.
The PCS has raised the possibility that the DWP will breach the Race Relations Amendment Act by ignoring this aspect of their. redundancy programme.
Despite huge strike against job cuts organised by the PCS across the civil service last November, New Labour is pressing ahead with its plans so the PCS is now balloting its London members in the DWP for further strike action.
Already the threat of a local strike at an office in Harrow has brought some concessions
from management.
The London wide dispute
will have enormous implications for the battle to defend
jobs across the whole of the
civil service.
Thus the stakes are higher
for both sides and it is
unlikely to be a short dispute.
Public support for the civil
servants will be vital.