News from Paul Blomfield MP Member of Parliament for Sheffield Central

For Immediate Release

8^th April 2014

Paul Blomfield MP to accuse Prime Minister of "empty words" over Sheffield jobs to be moved offshore

In a debate in Parliament tomorrow Paul Blomfield, MP for Sheffield Central, will accuse the Prime Minister of empty words over the loss of 239 civil service jobs in Sheffield. Mr Blomfield has secured a debate following the announcement by SSCL, a private company part-owned by the government, that they are shutting the Department for Work and Pensions office at Kings Court.

In a letter to Mr Blomfield the Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude has all but confirmed that the work currently done in Sheffield is to be moved off-shore. In January the Prime Minister told the World Economic Forum that he wanted the UK to become “the re-shoring nation” and that the Government would work to brings jobs back to the UK from abroad.

Speaking ahead of his Westminster Hall debate on the Shared Services job losses Paul Blomfield MP said:

“In January the Prime Minister told the World Economic Forum that he wanted the UK to become “the re-shoring nation” to bring jobs back from abroad. He even set up a new body called ‘Reshore UK’ to do this. Now the Government is letting a private company take an axe to publically funded civil service jobs in Sheffield and move the work out of the country. Unless urgent action is taken the Prime Minister’s statement will be seen as nothing more than empty words.

“Ministers have treated staff disgracefully and dishonestly. Last year they refused to tell me how many jobs would be moved offshore under this privatisation contract, now they’ve all but confirmed that the work lost in my constituency is to be off-shored. I’ll be pressing Ministers to commit to arrange for Reshore UK to meet with SSCL and the Cabinet Office to consider how these jobs can stay in the UK.”

--Ends—

Notes for Editors

1. DEBATE: Paul Blomfield’s debate on ‘Shared Services Job Losses’ will take in Parliament in Westminster Hall on Wednesday 9^th April at 11am.
2. SSCL CONTRACT: In November 2013 the Government handed a lucrative contract ‘worth in excess of £1bn over 10 years’ to a new private company Shared Services Connected Ltd (SSCL). SSCL is 75% owned by the private firm Steria and 25% owned by the Government. http://www.steria.com/uk/media-centre/press-releases/press-releases/article/steria-awarded-major-uk-government-contract-to-transform-shared-services-and-help-drive-civil-servic/
3. JOB LOSSES:

1. In March 2014 SSCL has confirmed that three of its sites – Cardiff, Leeds and Sheffield – will close later this year with a loss of over 500 jobs in total. 239 jobs will be lost in Sheffield with the closure of the DWP office at King’s Court. They have also refused to rule out further cuts and office closures in future.
2. On the day before the privatisation took place – 31st October 2013 - SSCL agreed a six month no compulsory redundancy agreement and one-year guarantee of no site closures. SCCL are "honouring" to the day by closing the three sites on 31 October 2014.
   

4. OFFSHORING:

1. In January David Cameron made a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on the opportunities of re-shoring jobs back to the UK. The Prime Minister said “there is a chance for Britain to become the “Re-Shore Nation” and that we must “act now to seize the opportunities of re-shoring”. https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/world-economic-forum-davos-2014-speech-by-david-cameron--2
2. Francis Maude’s letter to Paul Blomfield (31^st March) says:

Regarding the possibility of work being sent overseas, it is vital for SSCL to be competitive in the long term, maximising job creation. SSCL needs to be line with other companies of this kind, which often see some non-customer facing transactional roles being sourced offshore.

A copy of the letter is attached.

5. CONFIDENTIAL DATA CONCERNS:

1. SCCL handles the sensitive personal and confidential data of tens of thousands of civil servants in the Department for Work and Pensions, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Environment Agency. Shared Services provide corporate services for IT, human resources management, pay and payroll, procurement, and finance.
2. In the debate Mr Blomfield will raise concerns about how this sensitive data will be handed securely if the work is moved offshore.

 Contact details

For further comment or information please call Paul Blomfield MP’s office on 0114 272 2882.

Parliamentary Questions

Shared Services Connected Ltd – Westminster Hall – 9 April 2014

I’ve sought this debate on behalf of 239 DWP staff at the Kings Court offices in the heart of my constituency.

But I’d like to start by citing the words of the Prime Minister.

Back in January, speaking at the World Economic Forum at Davos, he said that Britain had the potential to become the “reshore nation”

If I can quote him directly, he said that “There is now an opportunity for the reverse,” said Mr Cameron on offshoring. “There is an opportunity for some of those jobs to come back.”

And shouldn’t the Government be taking a lead on this?

Setting the example through its own employment policies?

Yet last week I received a letter from the Minister for the Cabinet Office, replying to one from me, all but confirming that the work lost in my constituency was to be off-shored.

Let me explain the background.

Shared Services are those parts of individual civil service departments, Arm’s-Length Bodies and agencies that provide corporate services for IT, human resources management, pay and payroll, procurement, and finance to deliver their business outputs.

In December 2012 the Cabinet Office set out its Next Generation Shared Services Strategic Plan.

This aimed to create five shared service centres. Two Independent Shared Services Centres (ISSCs) 1 and 2 would be formed of a number of departments and ALBs. The remaining three to be standalone Centres based on the Ministry of Justice (covering MoJ, the Home Office and National Offender Management Service), the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

The first of these Independent Shared Service Centres (ISSC1) was based on the Department for Transport shared services centre in Swansea. As well as providing corporate services for DfT ISSC1 also covers the DCLG, the Treasury, DCMS and DfID.

ISSC1 was outsourced to German multinational Arvato in June 2013.

The Public and Commercial Services Union, representing the majority of staff, engaged positively in the transfer process to secure the best possible outcome. This consultation led to agreements which included a ‘no compulsory redundancy agreement’ for at least a year and that staff would retain their civil service status.

ISSC2 was to consist (initially) of the Shared Services functions of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Environment Agency.

This was turned into a “Joint Venture” company called Shared Services Connected Ltd (SSCL) in which the Government retained 25% of the shares ownership, with the French Multinational Steria’s UK subsidiary (Steria UK) owning and controlling 75%.

The creation of SSCL involved civil service shared services sites in York, Alnwick, Cardiff, Blackpool, Newcastle – as well as the one in my constituency in Sheffield.

SSCL became “live” in November 2013. 1,000 civil servants were privatised and TUPE’d across.

PCS secured agreements with the Govt including - a six month no compulsory redundancy agreement and one-year guarantee of no site closures.

However, on 4 March 2014 SSCL announced 500 job cuts, office closures and the off-shoring of work.

As well as Sheffield, by October 2014, the DWP office in Cardiff will close with a loss of 105 staff and the Environment Agency office in Leeds with a loss of 68 staff.

I met some of the staff from Cardiff last week. Like those in Sheffield, they are loyal civil servants, who’ve contributed years of public service and feel betrayed.

In other SSCL offices, 68 of 222 staff in DWP Blackpool will go, 13 out of 209 in DWP Newcastle will go, 6 out of 86 staff in Peterborough and 35 out of 150 staff in Defra York.

The Defra site in Alnwick, Northumbria only has a temporary reprieve with staff being told that the site is secure until June 2015. The future of the site after that is dependent on SSCL/Steria sending more work there from NHS SBS (the NHS shared services organisation). If Alnwick closes it is very difficult to see how the staff there will find alternative work nearby given the rural location.

The government has not conducted Economic Impact Assessments of the closures of offices in SSCL. The closures of these offices or loss of jobs would have a severe impact on local employment and on UK growth. Will the government be conducting such an assessment and if so, when is this likely to happen?

The speed at which SSCL intend to cut 500 jobs is unprecedented. They aim to have all redundancies dealt with by the end of October – exactly one year after the transfer of staff. This does not allow enough time for staff to be re-employed or reinstated back into the civil service and means that compulsory redundancies are likely.

Indeed the staff in Sheffield, and also Cardiff, told me that the redeployment opportunities have been limited, because there is no joined-up approach across Govt – with most other Govt Departments not offering vacancies to those losing their jobs.

Does the Govt think that this is the right way to treat staff? Particularly those who have given decades of public service?

Will the Minister commit to providing redeployment opportunities across all Govt. Dept’s?

SSCL are not acting in accordance with the special commitments given to the staff before transfer ...... which stated that transformation would take place over a two year period and everything would be done to avoid compulsory redundancies.

The government has a 25% stake in SSCL. Should it not use that position to challenge the speed of job cuts to allow a thorough on-going programme of redeployment of staff?

If I can now return to my opening point .....

What makes these cuts even harder for staff to swallow is that all of the work for the 3 sites under threat of closure has been earmarked for being off-shored. Currently SSCL intends to off-shore 200 jobs.

PCS tell me that SSCL have explicitly told them that deciding on what sites are to close is determined by what work can be off-shored.

How does this fit in with the Prime Minister’s assertion at the Davos World Economic Forum in January that he wants the UK to become “the re-shoring nation”?

There’s also the issue of the data being handled.

Civil servants based at these sites handle the personal data of tens of thousands of civil servants. They also deal with commercially sensitive information relating to government contracts and tendering.

Despite the sensitivity of the data dealt with, when the Cabinet Office advertised for bidders to become majority partners in SSCL in April 2013, all selected bidders has a significant element of off-shoring jobs and functions as part of their bids.

And the concerns about off-shoring aren’t restricted to the staff.

They’ve been raised at Cabinet level.

The Secretary of State for the Environment wrote to the Minister for the Cabinet Office last July raising concerns about Defra joining ISSC2 and a “possible staff exodus”.

He asked for a stand still period on “estates and off-shoring.” And he raised concerns about data security.

In June 2013 Lynn Phillips, Head of Service Improvement for DEFRA, wrote to the then DEFRA Minister, the Rt Hon Member for Somerton and Frome to raise concerns that bidders for ISSC2 had all suggested off-shoring.

She informed him that the DEFRA Executive Committee considered “significant (or any) element of off-shoring” to be unacceptable, and that there was “significantly increased risk to service continuity from loss of current expertise” upon transfer; and also pointed out the plan’s “incompatibility with UK growth objectives” because of the “loss of jobs in regional locations”.

She also raised concerns about “employee and detailed financial data transmitted, stored and processed outside the UK”.

Why is this government sanctioning job losses, office closures and the off-shoring of sensitive personal data and commercially sensitive information?

As referred to earlier, the remaining three shared service centres were to be standalone. However, the strategic plan has now been fundamentally revised. Peter Swann, who heads the Crown Oversight Function of the Shared Services agenda, has confirmed that that MoJ are now considering transferring its shared services to one of the outsourced ISSCs instead.

If the MoJ was to join one of the already outsourced ISSC contracts then the sensitive data they handle, including criminal records, the details of police, the judiciary and security service personnel could also be privatised and even off-shored.

Why has the strategic plan been changed?

In conclusion, let me return to the words of the Prime Minister.

At Davos he underlined his ambition for the UK to become the “re-shore nation” by announcing the establishment of a new body - Reshore UK - to sit within the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).

Will the Minister commit to arranging for Reshore UK to meet with SSCL and the Cabinet Office with the aim of considering how the jobs they plan to offshore, can stay in the UK.

If not, will he accept that the PM’s statement will be seen as nothing more than empty words?