Whitehall focus - Unions team up to tackle unequal pay

08 April 2005

Whitehall staff this week launched a joint national pay claim for the civil service, urging ministers to address growing gender disparities.

It followed an admission from the Cabinet Office that the pay gap between male and female staff widened by as much as 3% last year, leaving many female civil servants earning an average of 25% less than their male colleagues.

The Public and Commercial Services trade union, which represents civil servants up to middle management, and Prospect, which represents professionals, joined forces to present a national pay claim for 500,000 staff across 200 government departments and agencies.

The claim, presented to the Treasury and Number 10 on April 7, outlines the unions' 'pay aspirations' without demanding specific salary increases. It calls for minimum standards on pay and conditions and an end to 'grossly inefficient' fragmented pay negotiations via new national pay frameworks.

Perhaps the most pressing issue unions want to see resolved, however, is the growing disparity between gender pay rates.

A Cabinet Office study released without fanfare last month outlined the widening gap between male and female earnings. Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS, said the trend was 'alarming'.

'The government [has] recognised the need for greater pay coherence, but with pay inequality getting worse and people increasingly receiving below the cost of living increases it is time for real progress on achieving pay coherence,' he said.

Pay inequalities also exist between people doing the same job at different departments, with some staff earning £3,000 per year more for almost identical work, the PCS warned.

Cabinet Office minister David Miliband responded to wider concerns over public sector pay by publishing new 'pay and reward principles' on March 31. 

These outline the key principles and parameters within which all pay and rewards systems will be developed in future. 

The document states that 'it is unacceptable for women to be paid less than their male counterparts' and urges all employers to 'have in place action plans to close any unjustifiable pay gaps'.

Other commitments include investing in workforce skills, new performance-related pay systems, and the retention of 'modernised' pension systems.

But, although it has backed a national pay coherence framework for the civil service, the Cabinet Office has little appetite for the sort of national bargaining demanded by trade unions. Miliband's new principles stress that 'sufficient flexibility' should be retained in pay bargaining 'to allow response to local issues'.

Legal work outsourcing causing crisis, claim staff

Civil servants this week warned of a 'deepening crisis' at the Office of the Legal Services Ombudsman, involving an alleged backlog of work outsourced to a private firm.

Olso staff voiced concerns that the performance of the government body, which oversees complaints about solicitors, had been 'seriously undermined' by the failure of a private partner, Safecall, to complete work effectively.

The Public and Commercial Services union, which represents 90% of Olso employees, claimed that the number of unresolved complaints had risen following a 40% decline in internal casework capacity. Olso completed a third fewer investigations between April and December 2004, compared with the previous year. 

The union also claimed there has been a 'lack of safeguards' on work outsourced to Safecall, including a failure to monitor complainants' satisfaction with the ombudsman service.

PCS officials also attacked Olso executives for failing to fill crucial posts and for shifting in-house resources away from frontline services. The ombudsman, Zahida Manzoor, was criticised for failing to discuss the problems with the union. 

PCS branch secretary David Vincent said: 'We are gravely concerned about the negative impact that flawed recruitment practices and dubious outsourcing is having on Olso's performance.'

But the Department for Constitutional Affairs, which oversees Olso, claimed the ombudsman's office was poised to meet its 2004/05 performance target of 90% of all reports issued within six months.

A spokeswoman added: 'It is for the legal services ombudsman and her management team to oversee the throughput of work in the office and to secure appropriate resources. Any recruitment issues are a matter for her. The DCA is working to support all staff at Olso.'

DWP holds back £13.3m from CSA IT company

The Department for Work and Pensions has withheld £13.3m from EDS, the company managing the troubled Child Support Agency's computer system, because of continuing problems with the IT network.

 

The move was revealed as part of Work and Pensions Secretary Alan Johnson's formal response to a select committee report on the CSA, which attacked the agency and EDS for failures relating to a £465m computer network. 

 

A report by MPs last July found that the agency had a backlog of more than 250,000 unprocessed claims, left £720m in payments uncollected and had written off £947m in potential child support.

 

Johnson said there had been some improvements at the CSA since the MPs' report, but revealed that some significant problems 'continue to slow progress'.

 

In a statement released last week, Johnson added: 'Between January 27, 2003 and January 16, 2005, the agency retained £13.3m of payments otherwise due to EDS.'

 

EDS is disputing the withholding of the funds. 

 

Johnson has warned that he would consider closing the CSA unless its performance improves.

 

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