Today’s
date will live in the memory of all MoD employees as the day the MoD threw open
its doors and invited the private sector into the heart of the department.
MoD’s
corporate shared services are currently run by Defence Business Services (DBS),
managed under a strategic business partner contract by Serco.
They
provide key services in areas such as finance,
procurement, IT and HR; but are critically also a key enabler of whole force
management and directly support defence capability and delivery.
Background
The government is in the process of privatising corporate
shared services (CSS) across government in stages, with no regard of risk to
the services they provide to government departments or the sensitive data they
hold.
Defra and DWP CSS have already been privatised under
Shared Services Connected Ltd (SSCL), and our members there are currently
facing the threat of office closures, job losses and the offshoring of jobs and
functions.
Only last month staff in the Ministry of
Justice’s CSS who work in payroll, personnel and finance covering the courts,
prison services and Home Office were informed they face being handed over SSCL.
The
threat
Bringing together shared services across
government departments and then potentially offshoring that data holds serious
risks for defence, where that data includes the personal data of serving and
retired military personnel and civil servants.
The MoD, in progressing how the private sector
could be further involved in its CSS, is obviously ambivalent to the potential
risks to defence sensitive data and the role DBS plays in supporting the front
line. Our union is not.
To date the civil servants in DBS have delivered
flexible and cost effective services, hitting every key performance indicator
placed upon them. The proposals announced today are directly at odds with the
DBS vision and place uncertainty at the heart of the organisation.
Our
response
Our union believes that the threats of
outsourcing and offshoring far outweigh any potential benefits that the private
sector will claim from privatisation.
The department’s proposed ‘pick and mix’
approach, to invite the private sector to pick over the work of DBS and bid for
what they fancy, will not lead to greater efficiency.
We will be pressing for a fully resourced
in-house option to be developed, as well as stressing that the department needs
to understand what it is contracting before inviting the private sector to bid.
And we will be working with other groups and
organisations to identify and publicise the risks of flirting with the
offshoring of nationally sensitive defence data and jobs.
We will also be pressing to ensure that any
outcome avoids enforced redundancies or moves and site closures.
Our union is not willing to let DBS or the data
it manages and holds be sold off to the lowest bidder, or stand by while nationally
sensitive information is at risk of offshoring.
Actions members can take
now to support our campaign
Please
make sure that you have done the following:
ü Sign our petition
Our union has a petition against the offshoring of
shared service jobs and data. Please encourage all your friends and workmates
to sign and circulate: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/p/ourdata.
ü
Get ready for direct debit
We are asking all members to do something very
simple but very important – get ready to switch payment of your subs to direct
debit.
It only takes a few minutes, but if our employer
imposes any changes to how our subs are collected, you will remain protected by
your union's membership.
Registering is easy - switch
to direct debit now.
ü
Get the message
The government is trying to stop us communicating
with our members, by blocking PCS emails to work email addresses and limiting
access to our website.
This means we can’t keep you posted on vital union
business - like our latest campaigning work on pay, pensions and terms and
conditions.
Get the message - update
your contact details now.
ü Recruit a non-member
Our campaign will be stronger if we speak for all
staff involved in shared services. So please take a moment, if the person sat
next to you is not a union member, to encourage
them to join PCS.
Their
non-membership and non-participation in our campaign to save our shared
services could lead to your job being privatised.
ü Save our shared services –
a national issue
The
latest news on shared
services can be found on the PCS website.
Please
make sure that you bookmark this page and follow the suggested actions.
By campaigning together we can protect our vital
shared services and stop our jobs and sensitive data being sold off to the
lowest bidder or offshored. Please get involved.
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