Save our shared services

Say no to shared services privatisation and offshoring

What is shared services?

Shared service centres provide corporate services that are required across a government department, or sometimes, across several departments and linked organisations), in areas such as finance, IT or HR, from a centralised or single unit.

The privatisation of shared services is being done in stages. 

The government is in the process of privatising these services, which are currently part of the civil service. Where privatisation has already taken place in Defra and DWP there is now the added threat of offshoring jobs and functions.  

Latest threat

The lastest privatisation threat is in the Ministry of Justice (MoJ); the department announced the privatisation of its shared services to Steria/SSCL.

MOJ had previously contracted Steria to create an IT platform - Steria failed to deliver and reportedly wasted between £120 million and £200m of taxpayers’ money.

Say 'no' to offshoring

David Cameron says he wants companies to bring jobs to this country. Yet his government has agreed Steria’s plans to cut jobs, close offices and offshore the work done by our members in DWP and DEFRA to India.

Union campaigns work 

We have launched a high profile campaign to protect jobs and security of data from the threat of off shoring. This includes political, media and industrial action to fight this attack. 

What can you do: 

• Sign the petition to stop offshoring our jobs and data
• Send our e-action to your MP opposing offshoring
• Send any responses you get from MPs or important points of support that you think we should know about to SharedServices@pcs.org.uk
• If you want to be a union rep or want to get more involved with the campaign, email SharedServices@pcs.org.uk
• Follow this campaign on Facebook (facebook login required to join this group)
• Join PCS
• Look out for union circulars and notices of further members' meetings in your workplace

Timeline of attacks

In June 2013 our members in the Department for Transport (DfT) were the first to be privatised and transferred to multinational company Avarto.

A strong union campaign, including strike action, won agreement that staff who wanted to stay would be found jobs in the DfT and a commitment to no compulsory redundancies for a year.

In November 2013 staff in DWP and DEFRA were privatised and transferred to a new company called Steria/SSCL owned by a French multinational.

Again a strong union campaign with members taking action won some protection against redundancy, site closures and off shoring for six months.

Our shared services members in HMRC and Ministry of Defence are next in line to be threatened with privatisation.

The threat posed by shared services privatisation is two-fold.

It is clear that privatising shared services is a key part of the government’s plans to cut jobs in the civil service. But it also means that if we do not stop offshoring the personal data of thousands of civil servants will be sent abroad raising serious questions about the security of this data.