More than 1,300 DWP staff to lose jobs: will the service to claimants get EVEN WORSE?
Employment in the UK is a “remarkable success” says Raab – as his government makes 1,300 DWP jobs redundant in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.
Yes, some of the most hated civil servants in the UK are likely to lose their jobs in a back-office shake-up of the Department for Work and Pensions.
Offices are being closed across the country, meaning 12,000 DWP employees will be moved to different sites. A further 1,300 people will not be moved as there are no suitable sites near them; they will lose their jobs.
But these jobs are said to be going from offices in areas of high economic deprivation, making a mockery of the Tory government’s “levelling-up” agenda.
The PCS union said the offices closing with no alternative site being offered to staff are in: Aberdeen, Barrow in Furness, Bishop Auckland, Blackburn, Bury St Edmunds, Chippenham, Exeter, Gravesend, Kirkcaldy, Milton Keynes, Peterborough, Southampton, and Hanley in Stoke-on-Trent.
Labour’s shadow secretary for work and pensions, Jonathan Ashworth, said: “In closing DWP offices and cutting jobs in areas including Stoke, Burnley, Bishop Auckland, Doncaster, Southampton and Kirkcaldy, Therese Coffey has exposed the Tories’ rhetoric on levelling up to be utterly hollow.
“Ministers are today cutting quality public sector jobs from communities who need them in the middle of a devastating cost of living crisis.”
The decision seems to be motivated by a calculation that the DWP has more real estate than it needs – so this is about selling off land for money, Weren’t we all led to believe the government is making cash hand-over-fist due to increased fuel (and other) prices?
In all, 13 processing sites are set to close by June 2023, but more job losses are feared over the closure and relocation of 29 other sites.
Announcing the closures on March 17, Work and Pensions minister David Rutley said no “front-of-house Jobcentre Plus” services would be affected because “the services we are talking about are primarily telephony and digital”.
Reading between the lines, this suggests that it will take even longer than the hours it already does to contact the DWP about a claim by phone or online,
And the PCS union’s Mark Serwotka seems to be implying that this is the payoff for DWP staff who were taken on to handle the extra work caused by the Covid-19 lockdowns.
With the government winding down its Covid restrictions – despite a new surge in infections, hospitalisations and deaths – these “work units” (as the Tories describe people like you and me and especially benefit claimants) are now surplus to requirements.
“The government was quick to clap civil servants at the start of the pandemic – they’re even quicker to scrap them now they’ve declared the pandemic over.
“Our members have worked tirelessly behind the scenes, keeping the country running, paying out benefits to almost two-and-a-half million families, helping them to put food on their table and keep a roof over their head.
“But now, as food and fuel prices rise faster than ever, they’re being abandoned by the government and left to fend for themselves.”
I fear this is the truth of the Tory DWP slim-down: former employees transformed into claimants in the most deprived areas, at the worst possible time, receiving an inferior service from the organisation they used to represent,
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
Doubtless all those offices being closed will be sold to the fascist tory property developers for a pittance thereby ensuring the greedy fascist tory donor property developers reap huge profits!
Ironic that the lackey civil servants doing fascist tories’ dirty work of demonising women and men who have the ‘audacity’ to claim state financial aid will now find themselves in the same situation! Don’t worry ex DWP staff you will have just four weeks to find work before you too are sanctioned and denied your rightful state financial aid!
This is what the fascist tories have always done – exploited expendable women and men and then tossed them on the proverbial rubbish heap!
The Tories LOVE making cuts to the Civil Service, another group they hate. They don’t understand what some of them do and the ones where they DO understand they don’t want them doing it. Of course they’re not alone. Back in 2008 the Labour Party had already just reneged on a 5 year pay deal they had with HMRC and then set about making massive closures to an already understaffed organisation. Many debts under £5k were simply not being collected. Understandably the priority was larger debts but this meant lots of uncollected tax. Nice for donors of course. Now that it has been successfully hobbled the Tories have now decided that they can destroy DWP. After all, who wants to give money away, successfully. Words like destitution have already re-entered the lexicon, next we’ll be seeing workhouses..
The 1,300 staff could be retrained and the offices used, to be further offices to deal with the high backlog of pensioner ladies not repaid their under-paid housewife pension, which would also clear the backlog of 1950s ladies turning 66 and yet still having their state pension delayed in being started, when they now have that right.
So there is more than enough work as the under paid backlog is not due to all be repaid until end 2023.
The ladies born towards end of the 1950s still have years yet before turn 66, but each year sees around half a million finally retiring, half a decade late.
over50s party org