PCS Broad Left Network members
Workers in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) are under attack from the employer on three key fronts: pay, jobs and hybrid working.
The civil service pay remit allows all government departments to provide pay awards of just 3.25% (with a pitiful extra 0.5% to address ‘low pay’). This represents a pay cut, as RPI inflation in April 2025 was 4.5%. It will certainly not address years of pay erosion, which has fallen by over 20% since just 2020, not to mention years of previous below-inflation pay rises. It will not address the narrowing gaps between our lower grades, which have been increasingly pushed closer together through minimum wage increases; nor will it address the fact that the lowest-paid grades are on minimum wage for the third year in a row.
On top of this, the pay remit is entirely unfunded, meaning any money put towards pay rises needs to come from cuts. The civil service union PCS fought in the past against unfunded pay rises and refused to trade jobs for pay – we must push the leadership to do that again.
Labour’s Spending Review confirmed vicious budget cuts of 15% by the end of the decade; yet cuts will have to be made to fund this year’s pay rise. Job cuts have already been announced in other parts of the civil service, such as 5,000 in the Ministry of Defence and 1,200 planned for the Cabinet Office.
As recently as 9 June, the Cabinet Secretary sent an email to all Civil Service staff about mandatory training in the use of artificial intelligence (AI), and there are multiple news reports referring to the use of AI as a means to improve productivity or potentially replace jobs. We are already understaffed by 30,000 people; our workloads are already too high and we are already paid too little. We urgently need a job security agreement.
DWP has mandated 60% office attendance from September, despite us demonstrating over recent years that we are able to work from home to the same standard. No evidence has been provided to justify the rolling back of the present office attendance level, and thousands of members of staff will now face spending more on travel and their established work-life balance, such as childcare, will be detrimentally impacted.
The DWP needs a serious group-wide campaign to oppose the proposed changes and to extend hybrid working to all staff, including those working in Jobcentres. Increasing office attendance levels in other areas of the civil service, such as Land Registry and Met Police, has been met with strike action by PCS members. Only a group-wide industrial dispute will push DWP senior management in to restoring the current 40% office attendance.
We encourage members to attend PCS meetings where called and to talk to your union reps where meetings haven’t been planned. See bln.org.uk for a model motion.
To help win a fighting PCS, join the Broad Left Network: bln.org.uk.
